I like to shop where plants are propagated where there is a display garden where staff is knowledgeable I usually go to specialty growers, but I'll buy anywhere. Often amateur gardeners will sell their surplus at the nearest garden shop. I have bought superb plants that won cups at plant shows - one gold-laced primula was from a garden shop in the parkade of the local Hudson's Bay department store. Free Spirit Nursery near Vancouver BC is a new nursery that is very organized. There are numbered timber-edged beds. Every other bed is planted as a display border. The intervening beds have the potted sale plants. You see a plant you like, make a half turn, and pick up the pot. They propagate all their own plants. They have photograph albums with pictures of everything they grow, as a lot of their plants are ones that flower late. There used to be a bulb garden in Victoria that was very popular. The garden was beautiful - trees, beautiful shrubs, and bulbs planted in large groups - like maybe two or three dozen. (imagine that many Fritillaria imperialis). All the gardeners in Victoria would go several times throughout the season and fill out orders. The bulbs would then be ordered from Holland and arrive in the fall. There are several U.S. garden centres that I like because they have an excellent selection and display gardens, owners available for queries, staff who know what they are selling, a library room where you can sit down to consult garden books (not that I ever have the time for that, but I'm sure local people would). One has chocolate chip cookies in the barn and drinks (hot in winter, lemonade in summer). They also put on workshops on weekends. If you can't have enough staff, then informative signs by the plants will do. Specific information, not something generic taken from a plant encyclopaedia. Diane Whitehead Victoria BC Canada