How to Find a Specific Plant to Purchase for Retail Customers

Are you looking for a specific plant variety, but can’t find it at your local retail nursery? It’s a common problem, because there are so many plants available on the market and such little space available at your local nursery.

Unfortunately, you don’t have as much buying power as a wholesale customer looking for hundreds or thousands of plants per transaction, but there are still a couple of tricks you can use to source specific plants.

Online Retailers

Online retailers will often have a lot more variety than a local retail nursery. Some online retailers are connected to a wholesale or propagation nursery and have a lot more space than your average walk-in nursery.

Our favourite online Australian retailers are Australian Plants Online, The Plant Hub, Plants in a Box and The Plant Cellar.

• Australian Plants Online
• The Plant Hub
• Plants in a Box
• The Plants Cellar

These retailers have excellent reviews because their plants generally arrive in an excellent condition, which is quite an achievement when you consider the fact that they are living organisms that must be transported sometimes thousands of kilometres. Transport fees can be quite reasonable as is the general cost per plant.

The main downside for using online retailers is that they usually only offer tubestock plants, which are the smallest available pot size. However, this is actually a good thing, because tubestock plants generally establish a better root system than plants from larger pots.

Because of this, tubestock plants will generally outgrow plants from larger pots quite quickly, and can often live longer.

It Doesn’t Hurt to Ask

If you can’t find the plants you need through an online retailer, or you need larger pot sizes, you can always ask your local nursery if they can order stock in especially just for you. This can be a bit of a pain for your local nursery as it’s extra work on their end, but you never know!

They may be willing to order them in if you ask really nicely; especially if you’re looking for quite a few plants and are willing to pay a bit extra for their trouble. Keep in mind that this is a huge favour on the nursery’s behalf; you are not entitled to order plants that are not in their stocklist.

Besides asking your local nursery, you may like to ask your friends and network; you never know, someone may now exactly where to buy the plant you’re looking for.

What If You Can’t Find It?

If you’ve already tried the above to no avail, it may be time to consider other options. Substituting the plant you want for another plant is a relatively simple task for many plants as there are lots of different cultivars available for many species you’re likely to be chasing.

One trap is to substitute based on aesthetics alone. Sure, one Lomandra may look similar to another, but do they share the same preferences?

There are many cases of professional landscapers substituting a variety, only to have entire projects fail because of poor substitution choices. This is especially important when specifying plants for tricky positions like bioswales that experience periodic drought and flooding; if your substitute can’t tolerate the conditions, it will fail.

Daniel’s Wrap

I feel your pain! Trying to find specific plants through retailers can be a time-consuming task without guarantee of success.

Hopefully, you’re able to source your plants through one of our recommended online retailers, or your local nursery is able to order some stock in just for you! If not, you may wish to source a comparable alternative.