the bank owns them

Some times they go to Restore stores (Habitate for Hunanity).

Last weekend we got 6 azaleas for $5/each.

There are a couple of old nurseries around here that have grown up into a thicket.

I would imagine if the business owners didn't flee under cover of darkness with huge debts, they may have made arrangements to sell the material to another enterprise, or may hold auction for it to recoup some pennies on the dollar. I can't imagine if a company knew in advance it would be closing that they didn't make serious attempts to sell down their inventory.

Why, are you trying to drive someone out of business so you can get a tree that they have? (wink)

There's an entire company - quite large and successful - that is used by creditors to auction nursery stock. I can't remember their name but for a while I was visiting their website somewhat regularly...there's pretty much 1-3 wholesalers or nursery retailers in bankruptcy, somewhere in the country, at any given time. I think they have a smaller competitor as well. Sometimes the banks try to publicize the auction themselves. When I was in the PNW in 2011...just a random week in winter...there were 2 dead wholesale nurseries in or near the Willamette Valley I could have visited. I think I just found them through random googling. However it wasn't very practical for someone traveling because I would have had to have a shovel to dig my own stock and a way to keep it alive for the long trip home. And besides, for single purchases by "end users", they weren't offering much of a discount. It made more sense to support a struggling but still trading nursery, which I did by buying some stuff at Stanley & Sons.

This post was edited by davidrt28 on Sat, Sep 27, 14 at 15:51