buying plants online

[Lisamari99]

hi,

wanting to buy plants online and looking for recommendations. please. especially perennial flowers. thank you

EBay is great for plants.

Some examples of sellers I've bought from previously -
https://www.ebay.co.uk/str/nemesiagarden?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=CGr4n0RrRxO&sssrc=3418065&ssuid=LNQLB1tQRY-&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

https://www.ebay.co.uk/str/dartanaplants?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=Pz0kzJBSlu&sssrc=3418065&ssuid=LNQLB1tQRY-&widgett_ver=artemis&media=COPY

https://www.ebay.co.uk/usr/oakapplee_plants

Thank you so much, will look at these. Really appreciate it. Lovely that spring has sprung!

Two old and reputable gardening firms, both of which I have bought from at various times.

Buy Plants, Seeds, Fruit Trees & Seed Potatoes | Thompson & Morgan (thompson-morgan.com)

J. Parker's - Garden Plants & Bulbs (jparkers.co.uk)

I've not had great successes with Thompson & Morgan, but J Parker's are good, although the plants do seem to be on the smaller side. I think it would be best for you to try out the smaller outfits rather than big firms -

Best Sellers - Edrom Nurseries (edrom-nurseries.co.uk)

Alpine Plants - D'arcy and Everest Online Shop - The Gardeners Nursery (darcyeverest.co.uk)

Thanks for suggestions, much appreciated!

I've bought camellias, magnolias, acers, various bulbs off eBay. All very successful.

I also like Farmer Gracy and Hayloft.

Thanks. Is farmer Gracy UK based? had a look at Suttons, but postage was 6.99.

Gardeners express a bit of a mixed experience, but large plants, good prices in their offers, customer service forget it! I've had mainly good plants, I wouldn't buy dormant from them again they were not at all interested that some were dead, and of course by the time you knew they were not going to grow it was too late to complain. Great clearance bulb collection a while ago, a bit late in the season but all coming up now and they were good sized bulbs not the usual tinies in sales.

Edit: And Rose collection, I bought pots for them but the plants were far too big for the pots, which makes a change!

As I understand it, Farmer Gracy ships from the Netherlands. They are very alluring with their frequent discount offers!

I have had some bulbs and roses from Sarah Raven that have been great. The bulbs are coming up for there 4 year now.
I have also had other plants from Sarah Raven which were terrible, arrived snapped, undersized and not very good value for money at all. They did send a second order but that was just as bad as the first so I was refunded.

Be careful with eBay sellers so read the reviews carefully. Some seeds may be full of chaff and some may not germinate at all as they're too old, or plants are either too small to plant out or they're in poor condition. I've been caught out a few times with dodgy sellers. Do you have recommended sellers in mind @muddyford that you can recommend? Thanks.

Hayloft used to be really good, they still have very good customer service replace or refund easily, but recently I have needed to use it rather too often. I got embarrassed by the number of times I had to ring to say some plants were dead or dying, I'd got the wrong plants or two the same rather than two different, etc. I will probably be tempted again but these days I'm always concerned what will go wrong this time when I order from them.

And if you are also looking for interesting flower seeds try Chiltern seeds. Takes a bit longer but you can get lots of plants very cheaply.

I've not encountered any of these issues. Most recently on eBay I bought snowdrops in the green which arrived still flowering and continued quite happily in my godmother's garden. They came from bulbs-to-bloom. Two rare young camellias came from stephenroff. These are the sellers' names as on eBay. Oh, and a miniature Japanese cherry from yougarden, currently flowering its socks off.

Thanks, it's nice heearing other people's experiences. Noticed QVC has a lot of plants with free delivery

I buy mainly from Parker's. Bedding on the small side unless they're jumbo plugs. Excellent customer service
QVC for Thompson and Morgan deals. Had Hayloft from them too
QVC good for customer service too if there's any problems

Farmer Gracy are really good. You have to wait a few weeks before they are delivered though. Customer service is brilliant. My bulbs are starting to grow already. Mum says the bulbs are good quality, far better than supermarket ones

I've bought some nice plugs and dahlias from Sarah Raven.

I've bought from Parkers and not found bulbs, plugs or bare roots to be any good.
Haven't used hayloft for a while
Gracy is reliable and good value with an offer.
I've only bought Dahlia tubers from Sarah Raven this year as I had a voucher- bedding stuff I had the other year was fine but it is expensive.
Peter nyssen is great value for dahlias, might try other stuff from them in future.
Agree re chiltern seeds.
Waitrose/ crocus quite good for perennials

I will qualify this and say I now work as a horticulturalist so don't have enough time to actually do a great deal at home and so my experiences aren't that recent.

I would say try shires nurseries or bluebell cottage for perennials though at good value, with knowledge of what they are and who grew them etc. I'm lucky that bluebell cottage is up the road from me (and offers trade discount).

I absolutely wouldn't buy any plants from ebay/ etsy etc though.

Plants take quite a lot of packaging to get to you in good condition. Or don't pay and get them damaged and no use to you

I've ordered some from qvc with free delivery today, very exciting!

Farmer Gracy for me, I've been using them for a couple of years now.
They often have special offers and their customer service is really good.