I get a lot of my garden seeds and plants from Direct Gardening online, and for most things they have good prices, and a replacement guarantee if the plant doesn't grow. Direct Gardening is affiliated with several suppliers, all of which also have their own gardening catalogs. Most of the time, the prices are about the same for the same item in all of the various catalogs; but usually each nursery has different plants that are on special, so I often end up ordering from more than one place. One of the best places that I have found to get seeds and plants is eBay. They seem to have every plant imaginable, and for every price, from cheap to exorbitant; so you can find plants and seeds there that most of the garden catalogs do not carry.
I admit I never thought of getting my seeds from Ebay, generally I go to the local landscaping center and buy from them or the hardware store. I am going to check out ebay, though because I would like to try a few new items. Last year we moved from a condo to a house and I now have a yard to do gardening and planting.
I was very unhappy with Burpee Seeds a few years ago, and will probably never order from them again, because I ordered some seeds from them early in the winter, as their catalog suggested, to be delivered at the time that the seeds should be planted in the spring, only to get a notice from them in the spring that they had sold out on most of what I had ordered, this despite the fact that I had ordered a half a year previous. I buy some seeds from heritage seed companies, but most of what I get, I buy from Johnny's Seeds because, although they are a national seed chain, they are headquartered here in Maine, so they have a nice Maine line of seeds that are pretty much guaranteed to grow well here. Although I have actually visited their retail store only twice, it's nice to know that I could if I wanted to.
I don't do a lot from seeds anymore, and what I do buy, I usually get from the tractor store or Lowes.
I LOVE Lowe's ! ! Lowe's is just my most very favorite store ever. They have a great garden department, and also enough home-rennovating supplies that I don't have to hurry when I am shopping there. In fact, I usually get done finding bargains in the garden department before Bobby is finished with his lumber and nuts and bolts purchases We usually go to Lowes at least once each month, and sometimes more often when there is something that bobby needs for the house. Of course, any excuse to go and browse through the clearance plants is welcome to me ! ! .
I get my seeds from the local big box store like Lowe's or one of the small gardening centers in our area. I like to look at the catalogs with all of the pretty flowers but never order from them for some reason. Some times you only see some plants in the catalogs with no place locally to purchase them.
Now where i live the guys at the feed and garden stores Recommend buying seeds in bulk, that;s the only place i can get the long tender Clemson Okra. http://www.clemson.edu/extension/hgic/plants/vegetables/crops/hgic1313.html
If you buy in bulk, do you plant in bulk? I grew up on a farm, and we planted several forty-acre plots. That required buying bulk. But at my house, a half a bag of starter onions gave me all the onions I needed for a long time. We plant a small area of raised gardens, growing potatoes, carrots, onions, radishes, peas, tomatoes, and some herbs.
I am boring, I don't buy mine from anywhere fancy. I usually buy all my seeds from Walmart, they have a very large selection. You can always find what you need, and they have a few different brands to choose from, depending on what you are looking to spend. If I do not start from seed I buy the plants already started from one of the local green houses. I usually do this with my tomatoes. The one near my home grows great tomatoes plants, and has quite a few kinds to choose from. Last year I grew some huge ones, forget their name though!
I think we bought seeds once at Orchard Supply Hardware many years ago, and things just keep coming back... Tomato plants live forever here - I usually end up ripping some out after about three years - they're just too insanely huge... and we planted Romaine lettuce once, and decided to let some go to seed for the finches to eat, and we've had hundreds of lettuce plants come up all the time... Our yard probably has 100 lettuce plants growing right now... We're going to be eating a LOT of salad!
I buy seeds from a number of sources. Walmart, Atwoods and the local feed store for many of them. Some of the varieties I like are hard to find locally, so I use the catalogs. This year we bought from Jungs and Gurneys. I even got some seeds from Yvonne.
Thanks for the "like" Yvonne. I decided to be anonymous on here but couldn't resist saying I got seeds from you. I guess you know who I am now?
I DO know, and am very happy to see you on the forum, and I know that Ina will be tickled pink, too. I had not even suspected that it might be you; so it was certainly a shock to see the post about the seeds this morning ! Are any of them growing yet ? I noticed that the little seedling plum that I transplanted is starting to leaf out; so that is a good sign . The ones we found last year had plums even when they were only 2 feet tall; so if your plum trees sprout and grow, you should not have to wait a long time before you have those little plums.
I put 4 seeds in pots when I first got them and left them outside all winter. I'm hoping they will come up soon. The others I kept in the refrigerator and plan to plant them in the ground. I saw Ina's name and figured that was her but haven't seen her post since I joined.