I've been ordering plants by mail for 40 years, but this year it's become clear that mail order is a crap shoot--and it's due to the carriers, not the nurseries. I've already posted in a couple of forums about the first disaster. Fed Ex completely ignored the correct address label the nursery placed on the package and delivered it to an old address. Fortunately, that address was only 4 miles up the road and the bare root tree, despite having spent a full day in hot sun, was in very good shape and is doing well.

The second was only a near disaster through the PO. The label had a minor flaw in so it couldn't be read by machine, thus there was no tracking. (PO workers tell me that happens all the time.) The plants however arrived. The third just happened. I had placed an order almost 3 months ago of over $100 with Gardens of the Blue Ridge for native plants. It was shipped April 16 and tracking was completely dead by April 19--simply said "in transit." As of today, Earth Day, April 22, it's still lost in the PO system. Live plants. No, sorry, that would be dead plants in another day or so. The nursery refunded my order as soon as I explained the problem before I even requested it. Good for the nursery. Bad for the PO.

But what are we to do? Bad enough if canned/packaged food stuffs arrive late--they're still good, and if they're lost (as an order of mine was about a month ago)--they can be replaced. Plants, not so much, especially as timing can be an issue.

The USPS has deteriorated so much in the last few years, I'd never use it--except I have to. As do the rest of us much of the time. I've had magazines lost for weeks, magazines and mail so mutilated they can't be read, mail clearly meant for someone many miles away delivered to me, and all this as costs continue to rise. Just recently announced is that mail in WV must go through Pittsburg before it returns to WV, so if I send a card to a neighbor two doors away, the letter has to go through Pittsburg before it returns to WV. Louis de Joy is clearly out to destroy the PO system. And he's doing a great job of it.