Spring Hills & Others Belly-Up

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gardenwife Newark, OH(Zone 5b) Aug 03, 2001

Bad news for some plant catalogs' mail order customers according to a Columbus Disptach article from today: http://www.dispatch.com/business-story.php?story=dispatch/news/bus01/aug01/788550.html

Foster & Gallagher filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy. It's the parent company of the following catalog companies:

Spring Hill
Breck's
Stark Brothers Nurseries
Michigan Bulb
Gurney Seed & Nursery
New Holland Bulb
Henry Field Seed & Nursery
Vermont Wildflower

Some people with outstanding orders are out of luck with no recourse. They hope some of the catalogs will continue under new ownership.

The article has some interesting info about Michigan Bulb's primary source of income, too: gathering and selling marketing information (mailing lists).

Read the article for the full story. I'm not sorry to see some of these catalogs cease because I've been burned by them, but it's a shame, still.

Kimberley

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mikepiper Circleville, OH(Zone 8b) Aug 03, 2001

Hi Kimberly

I never knew they were all linked toigether and as you I had my dealings with them and glad their are gone. But they will just reopen as a different name I am sure.
I would order Springhills just for the ideas only, Sorry to hear of New Holland Bulbs as I always seem to have good luck with them.

Is the Stark Brothers Nurseries in Columbus gone as well? I haven't been up there for awhile and had planed on getting some trees there this fall. The one we went to was out by World Harvest Church off Brice Road.

I am glad I hadn't ordered anything lately.

Mike

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Ivey Lyles, TN Aug 03, 2001

GW~ No doubt they'll reorganize or down-size or whatever but this is all the more reason to save your own and trade seeds, especially of heirlooms, to protect yourself from unexpected shortages.
Three years ago you couldn't get okra seed around here anywhere. 'Course I had mine but I didn't give away much, but it gave me a chance to say "maybe you should save some for "the hard times" as Daddy used to call it.

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Carol7 Surry, VA(Zone 7b) Aug 03, 2001

If it hadn't been for the kind folks here I would have never known not to order anything from these companies or have learned they were related to each other. This is an instance where sharing information over the net is a good thing.

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woodspirit1 Lake Toxaway, NC(Zone 7a) Aug 03, 2001

Actually, this doesn't surprise me. Most of the ones you named have bad reputations. I have used 3 of them with only fair to poor results. When you have places like Park's, Wayside, White Flower Farm, Shady Oaks and Bluestone Perennials, I don't see how they competed anyway. If you want bargains on good bulbs, order from Von Bourgendien or John Scheeper's. In fact, Scheeper's got the best rating AND the best buy from Consumer's Reports about a year ago. So I ordered from them and got huge bulbs and very good prices.

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