Actually, places like Lowe's order from the same large wholesale nurseries
that many smaller nurseries and garden centers do.

This isn't strongly true around here, though your qualifier "smaller" is
perhaps important, because around here the independent nurseries are way
larger than any chain garden department -- & that same chain store's
garden department times 100 different stores is still far fewer varieties
of plants than are can be had from a single independent nursery.

Certainly Monrovia product turns up in nurseries good bad or chain, but
many specialty wholesale growers do not sell to the chains at all because
they don't produce their stocks by the thousands but only by the hundreds,
& they end up retailed only in really fine nurseries. Some buy inexpensive
plugs of rarer things or the newest cultivars, put them out back to grow
for a year, then sell them the next year when somewhat mature. A few like
Heronswood seed-grow much of their own stocks, including variants &
cultivars only they can provide. Most of the ferns offered locally are
grown right here in Washington state if obtained through independent
nurseries, but from California or elseswhere if obtained from chains,
which sometimes means the very same species die if obtained from chains
but do well bought from independent nurseries, because the specimens grown
right here in this climate do better here.

Some interesting growers such as Terra Nova do sell plugs to high-end
wholesale growers who service independent nurseries, PLUS they pump out
gallon-product for the Fred Meyers garden departments. So too the clematis
that turn up seasonally at Home Depot seem to come from the same British
Columbia source as the bigger healthier ones at Valley Nursery, but
clearly Valley Nursery is buying them a mite more mature so it's not the
same stock even if it's the same source.

Or the producty cheapy-ass rhododendrons sold annually at Lowes & Home
Depot all looking exactly alike with no character whatsoever -- don't see
the same type of rhodies at the independent nurseries. At Bainbridge,
Valley, Belfair, & some others, they have better & rarer hybrids &
species, & when they do have the same old standbys, they're specimens with
individuality. The "Red Red" imitation Hino Crimsons offered in gallon
pots by Lowes last year for $1.99 were so crappy looking they were just
unbelievable, never seen anything so feeble in the real nurseries, but
also never saw anything so cheap, so I guess it balances out. There is a
big nursery (the bigger Rosedales) that does sell producty-looking rhodies
(though bigger than average) & perhaps they do get them from the same
place Lowes does, i dunno, but most independent nurseries seem to have
better sources for shrubs with unique qualities, unless there's a single
source out there with a special truck marked "crummy stuff with no
character for chains only, not for self-respecting nurseries." For trees,
if the growers of unusual twisted or weeping cedars (for example) are the
same growers providing trees to Lowes, they're certainly serving the
independent nurseries at a far higher level of excellence.

So while the mass-produced producty stuff might be available for the
independent nurseries too, most of them around here really don't want to
sell cut-rate generic daisies & asters or look-alike rhodies, & so get
something better from somewhere else. Not that I've never gotten anything
really spiffy from a chain. I even got something cool at the lothesome K
Mart once -- a Cylamen persica cultivar that has actually flourished out
in the garden though usually that species doesn't last through winter --
they sold it because they really didn't give a shit if it died just so
long as it was sold profitably before it did so. I bought it because I
couldn't believe how pretty it was & I was willing to take the chance.
Lucky for me it adapted fine in our pleasant microclimate, but anyone who
tried it fifty miles inland or a hundred down the coast couldn't've kept
it alive, & for that reason the finer nurseries would've skipped carrying
what to me has been a rewarding garden plant even though from a lowly
chain.

I will also note positively that the local Fred Meyers nursery department
last year stocked in a far greater variety of deciduous azaleas than
usually seen in our independent nurseries, which focus on evergreen
rhodies & azaleas all but exclusively. So odd things happen (more often
happen at Fred Meyers than Lowes). As a general rule though, there are
better choices of better plants at independent nurseries. Chains are more
to be praised for good prices on common things, & often common things are
perfectly wonderful to have.

-paghat the ratgirl

--
"Of what are you afraid, my child?" inquired the kindly teacher.
"Oh, sir! The flowers, they are wild," replied the timid creature.
-from Peter Newell's "Wild Flowers"
See the Garden of Paghat the Ratgirl: http://www.paghat.com/