So far, aside from my *horrible* first -- and last! -- purchase from
Jackson & Perkins, I have not ordered many plants from catalogs (mostly
because I didn't garden that much when I lived in NJ, and when I lived in
VT, it was downright iffy to order anything very far in advance because I
never knew what weather to expect!) However, last April a friend visited me
and ordered up an azalea for me from (I *think*) Wayside Gardens after I
mentioned wishing that there was a yellow azalea -- as it turned out, the
plant was a bare-root that had been in cold storage, so it was *way* behind
the other azaleas that had been planted that month.

Back to the subject of Garden Watchdog http://www.gardenwatchdog.com --
even if you pay no attention to the "satisfaction" ratings (and a lot of the
listings are not rated), it's fun to be able to search by category or region
or whatever. I suggest that anyone interested in specialty gardening, such
as water gardens, rock gardens, etc. might find it an interesting website.
(You can also search by zip code, which is probably irrelevant to most of
you in the Triangle, but would have amusing to me when I lived in the
"smallest town in VT"!)

Hmmmm......maybe this is why I haven't yet placed my seed order with
Burpee's -- I've been spending too much darned time on the computer!

Anne Lurie
NE Raleigh

"MAC" wrote in message
...
I love ordering from garden catalogs, but I've had more than one bad
experience where I ordered, say, a tree and received a little twig
that was half-dead before it even reached me. There's one especially
rotten outfit that falls into that category and sends out several
catalogs under different names.

A while back I stumbled on the Garden Watchdog site, where people send
in their experiences and they're put into a big database, and it's
been very helpful in avoiding those disappointing orders. Thought I'd
share it here, as I'm sure I'm not the only one who's been sold a box
of future compost.

MAC

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