I have done lots of on line ordering from a supplier in Mass. and my success rate has been very successful.

I've also ordered other stuff from Amazon and had success.

I did take a look at what Amazon has to offer and read a few reviews. In spring I will probably give it a shot.

Thanks for the info! I really never thought of Amazon for plants.

Mike

p.s. I think I need to hide my credit card when looking. I can see myself getting way to carried away with this............

Apparently you can get plants on eBay, also.

when i got carried away .. collecting 1650 hosta... i would say that about 90% of them came mail order ...

i dont see how amazon would change that ...

and beyond hosta.. i would say i mail ordered every kind of plant.. trees.. shrubs.. perennials .. annual seed .. bulbs.. etc.. ad nauseum ...

that said.. the big A ... could put a lot of small niche nurseries out of business ... if they move beyond the commonly available highly marketed stock plants.. like PWs ...

ken

For sure. I get all sorts of orchids from them HI suppliers on Ebay.

The beauty to some degree about Amazon on the whole Prime program. Which depending on where you live and the item you buy, 2 days guaranteed delivery, some things even same day delivery. I'm very spoiled by that.....

I could see where Amazon's customer service and virtually no questions asked return policy could be a big plus. As would be the convenience. But I am one of those very visual, tactile gardeners and I need to see my plants in person before buying :-) Mail order, no matter how prompt or convenient, just doesn't do it for me. I can say in all honesty that in more than 40 years of gardening, I have mail ordered only a couple of times at most and those were clematis vines that I could not source locally. Everything else I have grown or grow now is available locally, so can see, touch and select to my heart's content.

I can't see how one can shop for said items unless one was buying a small plug/qt size. Kinda like buying produce/meat. I gotta see it....

I live in a rural area and some plants can only get mail order. However, something like Proven Winners are locally available and so I would try locally first since one can get larger plants generally. Local nurseries can often do special orders from suppliers that they already are ordering from and can roll my request into their order usually, and when possible I like supporting local businesses, whether books or plants since like GG48 I like to see the actual plant (or book). So I doubt it is a service I will use.

I don't understand how the entire ordering sight unseen phenomenon has gotten to be so dominant - what happened to inspecting merchandise before purchase?

My past experience with ordering plants in particular is that the quality of mail ordered stock is quite often* not up to the same level as at brick and mortar independent garden centers. Where the very reason these tend to maintain a certain standard is because stock will be repeatedly rejected by shoppers if it doesn't look good enough when viewed in person. Or course, the walk-in outlets will tend to be priced higher - maybe that is the key difference. It is certainly the case during this time of slow sales of woody plants that many consumers are clearly waiting for fall clearance sales every year before purchasing such items. Even though these are often in visibly reduced condition after having sat around in retail sales yards, perhaps since spring or earlier in many instances.

*One slow-growing kind of tree I ordered once never really got over being topped so it would fit into the box for shipping; after waiting for years for its very leisurely replacement sprouts to recover its crown shape I finally got annoyed enough to dig it out and toss it

Yes, companies like Sears were built on most of the population being rural and spread out over huge distances, unable to get to stores on a regular basis for anything. So it was either buy it based on a description and a drawing or other visual representation, or do without it.

But nowadays we have malls with department stores full of stuff malingering, because it's all being bought off the web. Of course, one presumably important aspect of this is walk-in outlets being used to inspect goods - and then the actual purchases being made from web sources.

Interestingly, despite the general trend R.E.I. is doing quite well with its mall stores and other brick and mortar locations.

You can get the newest latest offerings from Proven Winners by shopping online. Other than that, I don't see a benefit if they are widely available locally. There doesn't seem to be much difference in price, I'd rather have a number of plants to choose from, and visiting nurseries is always fun for me.

Just an aside.......Proven Winners plants are not always "winners" :-)) Much will depend on the specific plant in question and its appropriateness in your garden. And they are not proprietary in what they offer - most of the plants are available via other sources as well. They are really just a very large plant broker.

Yes, I have noticed that some of their new, patented cultivars look an awful lot like ones that have been around for some time. For example, take their 'Good Vibrations' gold juniper, which seems to me indistinguishable from juniperus horizontalis 'lime glow'.

https://www.provenwinners.com/plants/juniperus/good-vibrations-gold-juniperus-horizontalis#tab-2

Amazon will never sell a lot of plants until their prices come down. They probably function as a middle man. I am doubtful they'd sell plants with Prime (free shipping).

I shopped for plants mail order for 30 years and was rarely disappointed. Now the nurseries have many more varieties and fill most of my gardening needs. Still find the rarities online, though.