I don't want to be making any libelous comments on the web so I am not going to say they are going out of business when I don't know that is a fact, but I will say the last 3 times I went to Capital Nursery at all 3 locations, their shelves are practically bare. But the biggest red flag is they have no Dave Wilson bare root trees this year, when they have always had the largest selection around, and I know from Dave Wilson's site they ordered a bunch for this spring. They have a few bare roots from another provider, and Dave Wilson trees from last year in pots, but the bare root bed was practically empty all of January and February. I went there intending to buy a Kaweah peach tree, I would love to buy something from them, but if they have no stock, how can I? I agree it would be a tragedy if they closed, but I am not in a financial position to simply buy things I don't need just to keep them in business.

Carla in Sac

That is very sad, they seemed to have a lot of trees when I was there in Dec. But, it is so hard for me to get there. I like things that are from the past and have a history. I don't like to see them go out of business. If gas was not so much, or I had a hybrid I could go there on the weekends. My husband's parents got all their landscaping from Capital when he was a boy, so they mean something to our family. Green Acres is just another, I don't know what type of place, because I have not been there, but they are very heavily into facebook. I would have checked them out at some point, if I lived there, but there is no history there. I don't know where they came from. They don't mean anything to me. Consider the The Emporium vs. Macy's. The Emporium came in 1896, Macy's just came here from New York a short time ago. The Emporium meant something to me. Macy's does not.

For a retail nursery to survive,(a retail nursery buys all product wholesale and sells it without improvement, retail)he must be able to buy at least as cheap as his competitors. This is not possible today as he must compete with national mass merchandisers who buy for much less. He must compete by avoiding the direct competition. This can be done by doing his own propagation of plants not available to his competitors. As he increases his traffic for these hard to find plants he will also be able to sell the common plants, even if slightly more expensive. He can easily justify the extra cost by the better condition of the plants. Retailers today have to adapt to the market if they are to survive. Al

I drive by the Madison/Sunrise store daily on my way to work; they aren't closed yet. And, I hope they don't... I buy 90% of my vegetable starts from them; they seem to have a much better variety than most nurseries.

I do visit Green Acres a few times a year and I think that their landscape choices are generally better, but the selection of veggies often pales in comparison.

I went to Capital at Sunrise today to check out tomatoes. It was really sad. Inventory of everything is really thin and they only had a few hybrid tomato varieties in stock. The new Greenacres in Folsom may be the final nail.

Rick

There was finally an article in the paper today, apparently last year's wet spring killed them and they are defaulting on the loan on the Elk Grove location. But the owners said they are in negotiations on a plan to bring everything current and they will be fine, so I hope it is true!!!

Carla in Sac