No experience with them. I guess I can kind of see why. If they take orders for things they don't have, they'd have a lot of grief cancelling orders.

Of course, but surely other nothern nurseries have the same problems. And I have had items cancelled over the years because of "crop failures." I just placed an order with Garden Crossings, further north than US Perennials, and they've been accepting orders for weeks now.

My concern is that by ordering so late, if they can't fill an item, it may no longer be available for other nurseries that have been accepting orders since mid January.

It may depend on how they over winter their stock. Some nurseries may not have the infrastructure for everything to be in a greenhouse. I understand your frustration, but every nursery is a little different. I propagate and sell plants as a hobby and have many items that I would not sell until I know they're going to thrive.

I have ordered from US Perrenials the past two years and have been adding items to my wishlist gor this year. They are a great vendor and worth the wait!

I'm very glad to hear that, Markay! They did suggest that I could place an order with them now through email--and of course that would require sending all my credit card info in an email! Never, never, never, and they really should never have suggested it.

Was going to check out what they have and saw this on their website. :(

" We are unable to ship to any US Territories, AK, AZ, CA, CO, HI, ID, MT, NM, NV, OR, UT, WA, or WY "

Those states probably have restrictions that require plants to be certified for--or they just don't ship west of the Mississippi.

I think I posted about this in my nursery news thread: I see more and more places posting that more and more plants are 'sold out'. Has the COVID era gardening boom really become a 'self sustaining nuclear reaction' at this point (har har har) - or is this just a clever marketing ruse to make it seem like gardening is more popular than ever?

I really don't know. I will say I've been shocked to discover how popular houseplants are with millennial and Gen Z hipsters. But when they buy a single family house, I suspect a lot of them are going to shift their limited time and focus to cultivating new humans, not plants!

This will be my smallest mail order season ever, other than seeds. I'm just about to go out to the garage in the last hour of light to fill my seedling trays. (yes, I'm starting about a month too late. Better late than never! Jelitto has taken almost a month to fulfill my order, but sent an email saying it was on its way.) I did order the moment that Rhododendron Species Foundation's list opened to non-members*. The issue is w/the demise of Greer and a couple other former mail order places there's now a VERY predictable pattern to what rhodies you can mail order from the PNW:

1) the standard commercial PNW hybrids, like 'Nancy Evans'. Which is fine, but I have all the ones I want already, and/or know which won't grow around here unless grafted. I'd love an Apricot Fantasy, but until I can get one grafted, I'm not going to waste my time.

2) A couple of people who are still actively hybridizing push their own hybrids, which is fine, but, as w/Apricot Fantasy, all but a handful of those are guaranteed to do poorly because they won't be selected for root rot resistance. (I'm mainly into yellow and oranges in terms of 'plants I'd still like to purchase'. Every other color is well represented.)

3) this leaves the ONLY place offering non-mainstream, not-newly created hybrids anymore, as...drumroll please...Rhododendron Species Foundation! Ironic, isn't it, considering their name?

But for example the old Larson hybrid 'Malahat' is doing really well here, and is, in my red connoisseur's opinion, a better and deeper red than similar 'mainstream commercial' ones like 'Taurus'. RSF had it a couple years ago. Other mail order sources don't want to mess around with it because it's not one of those standard commercial varieties, or a new hybrid of their own they are trying to push for whatever reason. (Sometimes because it really is a breakthru, but often just for their own self-aggrandizement. I'm not speaking ill of the dead to say that some of Harold Greer's hybrids didn't really 'break new ground'. He was a wonderful if slightly curmudgeonly American nurseryman, and I owe some of my most cherished plants to him, like my wonderful 'Captain Jack', which was never available on the east coast, even at Rarefind, and was the parent of the first hybrid I created myself.)

* I know Rhododendron Species Foundation is called something else now. I'm so sick of non-profits changing their names to seem more hip. There should be a federal law against it. The New England Wildflower Conservancy will always be what I call it. Quarryhill Botanical Garden will be what I always call that! Who's curmudgeonly now!?

UBG, your point about younger people is apropos. House ownership has been delayed significantly for most, and hardly any renter (except me), or even the landlord, are gonna plant something at their rented house/apartment/condo. Apartment complexes always seem to be planted with, if anything, the most mundane of plants, like boring dwarf cherries that bloom alittle in spring, and don't deserve a look otherwise.

One exception was a housing development near my apartment complex while at university in Blacksburg, Va in the late 70s. They carefully built the single houses in an oak-forest and preserved the majority of trees. After some years, it remains a stunning forested neighborhood. Actually, that was very similar to the development I lived at for 20 yrs just north of Blacksburg on Brushy Mountain. But that type of development in a mountain forest isn't very common or available.

@laceyvail 6A, WV, US Perennials is now ip and running for the season!

I ended up placing an order by email. They acknowledged it and said they'd add the shipping, bill me when it ships, and send me a full order confirmation so I have it for my records.

Glad I did it when I had time because we're leaping from winter into summer--temps near 70, bulbs rocketing out of the ground only to burn up in the heat, cool season grasses starting to grow and I'm trying madly to cut things back before they new growth overwhelms the old. As has been the case in the last few years, all that tender new growth gets slammed when winter/early spring asserts its claim--but what can you do?