Are you looking at actual nurseries and not at garden centers at big box stores? Real nurseries usually carry a much bigger selection of plants. I usually shop at big box stores because (unfortunately) that's what we have here close to us, and I use the word 'close' loosely because we still have to drive 20-30 miles one way just to go to a big box store. For the last two weekends I've gone to real nurseries in the DFW metro (it is closer to us than OKC is) and have found an incredible selection of plants of all kinds. The places I went to down there were Redenta's Garden and Green's Plant's and Produce in Arlington; Mike's Garden Center and Calloway's Nursery in Southlake; and Marshall Grain Company in Grapevine. I bought a lot of plants each weekend and came home a very happy camper.

I have not been happy with most all plants ordered online no matter who I ordered them from. The price is usually higher than local nurseries, the plants that arrive are very, very tiny and the shipping is high. I ordered plants online 2 or 3 times our first and second years here (so, that was in 1999 and 2000), was not immensely happy with anything as stated above, and said never again. I haven't ordered plants online since, except for a couple of trees I really wanted, and only one of them survived the first year. The best plants I got from online orders back then were brugmansias ordered online. They arrived as 4" cuttings that were barely rooted at all, but I babied them along and still have 2 of them, and they're obviously quite old and large at this point. One of the survivors was from Park Seed and the other was from Select Seed Antique Flowers. If I wanted more brugmansias, I'd probably order online because the few you can find in nurseries are very expensive, but there's not much else I'd risk ordering online. YMMV.

The problem with getting very small plants by mail this late in Spring is that we are not that far from really hot weather arriving, and they won't have much time to settle in and make good growth before they find themselves fighting the heat. If I was ordering plants online this late (because anything you order now likely won't arrive until mid-May, and the heat arrives in June of most years), I'd plan on growing them in containers the first year so they could make bigger root systems before I put them in the ground.

I ordered a brugmansia, 3 lantanas, 3 echinacea purpureas online from ALMOST EDEN (in Louisiana). They amazed me. I will order ANY plant online from them if they have what I want, hands down. I cannot say enough good things about them. Two-three days before my order arrived, I received a fanatically detailed email from them about how they grow them, how they prepare them for shipping, detailed instructions about what to do with them when they arrive. And they sent healthy good-sized specimens. I was SO impressed by them. Took me a long time just to get the plants free from their packing cares.

Nancy, I'm glad you found someone whose plants and service impressed you that much. That's rare nowadays in the world of mail order plants.

Dawn