Gardening Express/Online plants

[Newdoggo]

They are sooo slow - not sure why they chose this name!!
New gardener, just cleared my garden which had no plants at all, bought a ton of compost and decided to bite the bullet and ordered plants online from 3 companies, hopefully I won't kill them all!!
Ordered on 29th July
Plants Direct - large order, despatched on 2nd August arrived on 3rd, lovely plants, nice roots, well packed
Marshalls - smaller order, despatched on 2nd August arrived 3rd, dry, pot bound, 6 plants missing, should arrive tomorrow
Gardening Express - small order, still not despatched

Any others I should avoid? I'm hopefully getting the gardening bug but don't want to throw money away TIA

I've had very similar experience with Gardening Express, Farmer Gracy is fab for bulbs, Sarah Raven I've never used but a colleague orders a lot from them, I've had some luck with tesco plants, acers in particular and I swear by David Austin for roses.

Ooh I like Acers, I'll try Tesco - thank you :)

I have two flowering cherry trees from Tesco, both really lovely little trees, both £6.99 each which was about four years ago now. I think they still do get them in.

I've given up using online ordering for actual plants, bulbs I will still do but plants I've ordered have in the main been disappointing. Apart from my two Acers, they are lovely.

You could try Suttons, J Parker or Crocus. Never had any serious problems ordering from them.

Brookside Nurseries are wonderful. The only company I would recommend avoiding like the plague is RJ Plants. The quality of their plants is atrocious but their customer service is even worse than Virgin Media, which really says something!

I find B&Q often have some real bargains and the quality of their plants is generally very good.