Bruce wrote:
>Brooklyn1 wrote:
>
>> The thing is a local nursery should'nt be selling plants
>> that can't survive your winters.
>
>This may have some truth to it in flat country. In hilly country, frosts
>can vary from property to property and within properties. Besides,
>plants can also be grown in greenhouses.

One nursery I use is over 100 acres, has been family run for over 125
years, propagates all their own plants and is north of me and at a
higher elevation so has more severe winters. They know where I live
so wouldn't sell me something that has no chance to survive. Many
mulberry trees are rated for growing in zone five but the ones I
bought are rated for growing in zone four, which is colder.
Many nursery plants grown in greenhouses are intended for indoor use.
The plants sold by the big box stores and small plant sellers are
imported from distant nurseries, there is no guarantee they will
survive the location where sold. It's best to shop at a large local
plant nursery that propagates what they sell. It may be inconvenient
to shop at a real plant nursary, they are usually unkempt, muddy, and
out of the way... they are not selling hype, they are not selling
someone elses product, they are selling their own product that they
stand behind. The big box stores make most of their profit selling
gardening supplies, pots, tools, gloves, small bags of compost, mulch,
top soil and such. Where I shop they don't sell any gardening
acouterments, no fancy pots, no tools, not even a pair of gloves. They
sell compost, mulch, and top soil, but by the cubic yard with a
minimum order of like three cubic yards. For my gardening I buy 3
cubic yards each of top soil and mushroom compost each spring... those
tiny bags from the big box stores do me no good plus they are very
expensive and for inferior product. I've never lost a tree due to
cold, I lost a beech tree to carpenter ants and I lost a chestnut tree
to deer. I've been gardening all my life, my grandparents operated a
fairly large farm where I spent summers and did chores, my mother was
a big time gardener, I did chores in her garden too. From the
pictures he's posted of that wreck of a property where he lives I'd
bet the dwarf has never planted anything, perhaps maybe pot because he
sure behaves like a pothead. Believe what you like.