Good for you. The price was certainly right - and to be perfectly honest, some of my best things have come from the orphan tables at Menards and the big boxes. May your pear live long and prosper - you'll be happy you didn't spend 20 times the price at a nursery.

My resistance for plant buying is pretty high once we reach this time of the year - but Menards had a fairly good selection of bulbs - daffodils, muscari, Puschkinia, tulips, etc. and I can't be bothered with mail order for that kind of stuff. It can be argued that mail order is the way to get the rare and unusual - I just want something to come up in the spring and the big box bulbs all seem to do exactly that.

I can't wait...next year our Menards store will have a greenhouse area and they are located fairly close to my house. Lowe's and Home Depot moved in a couple years ago and now Menards has to compete by putting in a garden center. I love it. Our HD must have some poor management as they never have any nice plants and the ones they have they let die. They had the same dead spruce trees in there garden center all summer. Lowes has a great greenhouse. The only thing is they sell so many plants that are not hardy in this area and they are way on the other side of town so I don't get there as often.

Do your box stores have hardy plants or do you all have the same problem?

The Menards I go to is in West St Paul and there is a new Lowes just up the block. Plus, a HomeDepot not far from that. I guess that is why they have been redoing their garden area. Maybe they are putting in a greenhouse area to compete. I don't buy much from the box stores and my gardens are small but most things in it are pass a longs and things I started from seeds and shoots. In addition to the pear tree I got another Red Rasberry plant and vine for the trellis I will be making.

I have gotten things at Menards. I don't like Home Depot. There's a new Lowes down by me, I went there, and was pleasantly suprised at the decent selection they had.
I do go to the garden centers too, like Noble and Mickmans.