Argh...so many threadlets to address. Kirimarie - I read your posts and obviously your opinions are valid based on your experiences. But, you never addressed what I specifically cited: walk around any average middle to upper income residential section of a randomly selected mid-to-large UK city. Walk around the same in the US. Anyone paying attention will spot huge differences in the amount of effort put into the personal landscapes, on average. It's not like I'm saying something crazy here that has never been said before. My parents aren't into gardens at all - I got the bug from my childhood neighbors who in a strange twist of fate were all avid gardeners. But every time they are in the British Isles they go on about how great the gardens are and my Mom will just take some pictures on a random street of people's gardens brimming with Fuchsia, Choisyas, Lilies, various vines, etc. A friend of mine who is also not at all into gardens went to Ireland with her erstwhile fiance and both said the gardens there were absolutely amazing. I'm sure they didn't visit botanical gardens, and by amazing they weren't talking about the fact there's a Phoenix canariensis in Cork. They were just talking about the gardens they saw in neighborhoods that were on their way to someplace. "I think the whole UK are "better" gardeners point of view is nonsense. " When you clearly spend more time at something, the world usually rewards you with the accolade of being "better" at it. The only scintilla of unfairness in what I say might be that, obviously, the climate makes it easier for the English to have the sort of gardens that they do than it is for most in the US. But that isn't to say it can't be done. I've visited private gardens in PA that are every bit as impressive as any I know of in England...(on a per unit land basis, of course...you can't really compete with Sissinghurst when your entire spread is the size of one walled garden there) but they might well be more work in PA. Doesn't have to be someplace moist: I once spent about an hour walking around the neighborhood near the Denver Botanic garden. I saw a couple very interesting private dry-climate gardens. Employees maybe? Probably just supporters who went to the plant sales. But most were just boring standard landscapes...blue spruce, some bland shrubs, whatever. This climate factor influences US regional differences, obviously, as gardengal noted. The whole west coast seemed a bit more gardenesque to me than the rest of the country, and I especially single out some parts of the Bay Area. Lawns... I agree in the west, the watering of ornamental lawns is absolutely a massive and foolish waste of water resources. (though I've gotten in huge arguments with some westerners about this...not online, in real life!) In the east, over maintained lawns are a different kind of environmental timebomb. Particular in the Chesapeake Bay watershed, where, years too late, the amt. of phosphorus in lawn fertilizer was finally restricted. But this doesn't mean lawns per se are the problem, it's just that people have a pig headed approach to them. I will never water my lawn. In the terrible summers of 2010, 2011, and 2012, it had periods of going brown. Big deal. I also don't fertilize it, because I don't need it to be a perfect shade of green, and fertilization would make it grow even faster than our often abundant rains do. Because I did some judicious broadcast spraying with trimec years ago, and - DUH - cut at the highest depth permitted by my Kubota MMM which is 4" on the scale but probably a little higher in practice - broadleaved weeds are so rare I can just spot treat them as needed. So, I am ecologically caring for my lawn. Many people are not, and too many people want theirs to look like a putting green. The house I posted, no, is not nearly the worst example of McMansion landscaping. Definitely not "horrible", in fact I would just call it average to mediocre. But the reason it's partcularly egregious is, sorry, someone who collects plants on such a massive scale, should by my estimation have known better. The formally trained person they hired (this I know from the real estate site where I snagged it) still got it wrong, which is actually more comical than some random local landscaping dude not knowing what he was doing. In fact, the university trained landscape architect producing something that pretty much says "local landscaping dude cramming plants in front so he can get the bill up to 25K". (thus feeding the wholesale industry beast which - to loop back - is the whole reason I branched out into this) It reminds me of the hilarious story of a mature Araucaria araucana - one of the only on the east coast - being cut down at a historic estate near Wilmington, DE, by a professional landscaper for "not looking English enough"(!). Seriously, you could not make up a funnier and truer anecdote about the ignorance of some in the US landscaping profession. It's priceless.

I haven't ever purchased anything from them, but I have seen the owner posting on Gardenweb. Her typical contribution was something like promoting invasives as natives in the Native Plants Forum (I'm not sure she ever understood what the word native means). Then, as you said, there's the fake reviews she posted for her own company on Dave's. The many, many different names they do business under is another sign of trouble. With all the bad Garden WD reviews on top of that, I wouldn't consider buying from this company.

Thank you, everyone, for the input. I don't know that I have a preference about rootstock on grafted roses--I don't have any experience with different ones to base an opinion on. However, I have a particular reason why I might want grafted roses this time--need the extra vigor at the beginning to get them going. My garden will be on the citywide garden tour in June, so I want these roses to get growing as quickly as possible. Otherwise, I have no objection to own-root. Not sure I want to order from Hortico unless necessary. Too many posters have complained about getting the wrong rose from them. Definitely do not want a bitty one from Heirloom under the circumstances. Looks like Regan Nursery is fine unless I find a better source. Does anyone know if multiflora rootstock is better in Kansas than Dr. Huey would be? Beth, thank you for reminding me of the alternate name for Cherry Parfait. I had forgotten that. Diane, I will check out Garden Valley Ranch tonight. Seems to me I remember some good things being said about them. mgleason56, let me know if you find out more about the Tulsa operation. Tulsa is only about 1.5 hour drive from me. Not that I plan on driving there, but since it is fairly close, I'd like to know if they are a good source. Kate

Well, there are quite a few but most sell grow and sell hydrangeas as only a part of their plant offerings rather than exclusively so they wouldn't necessarily show up as a "hydrangea" nursery. And the majority of wholesalers do not sell to the public, which makes locating them and contacting them even more complicated - you need to be in the industry, either as a retail nursery/garden center or sometimes a landscaper. And most wholesalers have minimum orders, so unless you are ready to buy several hundred plants or spend a couple of hundred bucks (or more), they tend not to be very interested in individual inquiries. What exactly are you looking for that you need to get from a wholesaler that you can't find retail?