Become a licensed retailer and make their minimum order, meet whatever other requirements they have. Otherwise:

What are you trying to get? If it is on the wholesale market surely it is on the retail market somewhere also - and you just haven't found which retailers have it.

Go to your local retailer and ask if they'll order it for you.

Cercis is right. Retailers, especially better one, will accommodate requests for plants if at all possible even if it is a special order. In fact, they never even have charged me additional costs. They also might to glad to learn about plants of interest to add to future inventories! Good luck!

what Cercis said.

"Go to your local retailer and ask if they'll order it for you."

The local large nursery here (Sharums) tells me to find something they already have for sale on the lot...

You could ask the wholesaler if they sell to any retail operations near you or perhaps any mail order vendors they sell to.

and i suppose you will also want the retailer to sell it to you at the wholesale price????

we cant help you any further.. w/o knowing what plant you are talking about ...

ken

If it happens to be a Monrovia item they have a tool on their web site where you can find out who may be buying from them in your area. Perhaps at least one or two other wholesale nurseries have this feature on their web sites also, I haven't noticed.

Because it's not their business model. They're either not licensed to sell to the public, or not equipped to handle such orders when they're used to shipping hundreds of trees at a time in each order.

I understand, though. Many times, for semi-rare stuff, it's hard to find a retail nursery that will carry a certain item, and when they do, it's always a much larger size than I really want to plant. The advice is good - find a retailer who already orders from this supplier and see if they can get what you want in their next shipment (probably spring 2015 - if they are doing fall orders many places have already placed them).

SOME wholesale nurseries will sell larger orders to retail customers if asked, but even if they do, it's usually a $1000 or 100-tree minimum (for example), and they are pretty hush-hush about it, since they don't want that to become a major burden.

Monrovia's is a sensible step towards the future. I've noticed that in Europe, even w/in a market where cultivar rarities are already easier to source than the US, several wholesalers put a list of "stockists" on their website or in some way make it easier for end users to know how to buy their plants. (an operation like Barchams is equivalent to many US wholesalers, but also sells retail)
The fact is the US nursery industry is stuck in an outmoded view of the world of commerce and they refuse to admit it. I hate to second guess someone's life altering business decisions since they lost their nursery, but, for example, if Dilworth Nursery in PA had doubled-down on being an internet retailer back in the early 2000s, instead of going wholesale only, I suspect they would still be around.
Mind you, people who just want to produce acres and acres of horticultural trash for the likes of Walmart will stay wholesale only for the foreseeable future and probably should. Wholesalers who want to produce new and/or horticulturally desriable plants, OTOH, depended on a network of specialist local retailers that hardly exists as it did 15 years ago. And it will never come back.
Other industries adopted too. I suspect that 30-40 years ago, there were major electronic parts retailers that tried to sell "only to businesses". Then the silicon valley revolution takes place and they realized what a bad approach this was: now you, Joe Q Public, can order from any of them, although some like AVnet make it a bit harder to do a small order than others like Mouser or Digikey.

This post was edited by davidrt28 on Wed, Sep 24, 14 at 11:01

"not licensed to sell to the public"
I suppose in a few states there are different licenses to be nursery retailers and wholesalers but I doubt this is generally a consideration. The reason they do it (prohibit retail sales) is to scratch the back of their big retailing customers and partners. My point is that network is vanishing. Now their retailers are just big box stores - if they are lucky.
Their commercial insurance might prevent the public from _visiting_ their nursery...but that's a different question. You don't need people to visit anymore to successfully market plants. Obviously. Look at Forestfarm.

"used to shipping hundreds of trees at a time in each order"
I suppose a few operate that way. But from what I've seen on their websites, most wholesalers of selective material are willing to work with landscape architects who might only need a handful of plants for a certain job. Again, it's more about maintaining a certain entrenched view of the way the market "should" work rather an matter of operational efficiency. It's kind of like the way medical equipment and goods are sold in the US vs Europe...many more middlemen here to add their markup. Trees too large? Having now taken delivery of several freight pallets at my house, I'm surprised to find how affordable and convenient that can be. In fact, more convenient than UPS, because they call you to schedule!

This post was edited by davidrt28 on Wed, Sep 24, 14 at 10:57

The issue is sales tax.

Wholesalers do not have to collect sales tax. That is done by the retailer who sells to the end user (general public). So by being strictly wholesale, a business avoids a lot of paperwork/hassle/overhead.

I'm connected with a gardening registered non-profit. By far the hardest part of dealing with wholesalers is convincing them that we are officially exempt from paying sales tax, so can be dealt with just like their regular customers. Just put our exempt number where they would normally put the retailer's tax number.

All of the above plus they aren't setup to sell small orders. That would take many more personnel and packaging facilities. And it isn't just selling it's followup. All the calls and emails from people who often kill their plants out of ignorance or neglect and want refunds or replacement..

I was coming here to say the same thing as mad_gallica. For-profit businesses need to give wholesalers a resale certificate which calls for the retailer's business tax ID number, which is in effect a license to sell to the public and which carries an obligation to collect and remit sales tax.

As for shipping only in quantity, I guess it depends on the wholesaler. If it's a mega grower and wholesaler like Monrovia, there's no way around it, but if I had a business license and tax ID, I could purchase at smaller wholesalers in my area without purchasing a minimum, although I think they do have a minimum on what they'll deliver.

And a plus to what fruitnut said. Don't expect the same kind of customer service from a wholesaler that one would (or should!) get from a retailer.

I still don't think the tax is the real, core issue here. Big but horticulturally significant (more on that in a moment, though) wholesalers like Foxborough Nursery or Marshy Point are perfectly able to sell plants at the Ladew Garden Festival event.

Almost any modern POS system they are using to sell to their wholesale customers can flip a switch and start charging state sales tax. Heck, I seem to recall the cheesy "CLIPS" program a landscaper I briefly worked for in the late 1990s used could easily charge or not charge taxes on invoices.

It's an entrenched mentality. Given the massive failures of wholesale nurseries since the housing recession started, not one that seems to be guaranteeing success and financial stability. Again, we don't really know what tlbean was looking for so I'm kinda shooting in the dark here. I don't mind if someone producing truly mass-marketed garbage wants to be a wholesaler since that isn't what I want anyhow.

I used to be annoyed by wholesalers locking up difficult to obtain plants until I realized it's part of a bigger picture, that of a kind of blundering industrial obliviousness of the American landscape/garden industry. Yes, your local nursery would rather you buy something "on the lot" because that's the only thing that helps their bottom line. They don't care about the preciousness of your horticultural being. (haha) It's a subtle difference but clearly more people go into horticulture in Europe out of a genuine passion and hence can understand yours than do so in the US. Not that some in the US don't, but there's definitely a different mentality overall. Eisenhut doesn't have to offer every known magnolia cultivar. It would be cheaper and more profitable just to mass produce 15. Now, we are lucky to have a few nurseries that are exceptions and/or strike a balance like Rarefind or Forestfarm. But late 1980s Foxborough's catalog - that of the original founder who has long since died - had tons of ridiculously obscure cultivars. I sadly lost it but I do recall cross referencing the beeches with those in Wyman's Encyclopedia and they had almost every one listed, and a few others. Well, the progeny come along and decide it's not worth selling retail anymore, and it's not worth having so many cultivars. The bottom line becomes more important than the founder's legacy. And, that's fine...that's their choice. Now their online feature pages highlighting what's available are comparatively dull. Americans wholesalers see that, when the going is good (real estate bubbles rising) they can pump the market full of mid-prestige trifles that aren't very costly to produce but easy to mark-up, and make a killing. Cheesy upscale "landscape architects" are complicit in this nonsense by promulgating a ridiculous, over-planted style. I know of a McMansion in the Philly Mainline where the new owners just tore out absolutely everything that was crammed in front of it 10 years ago and had overgrown; my friends said it looks 10X better. Then they get bitten when the gravy train comes to a screeching halt. Sorry, fact is, this is clearly the way many of them prefer to operate, rather than cater their operations to fulfilling the horticultural dreams of the 1% of people who actually know plants. It's the same problem as with American car companies. Save 25 cents on a part now even though in might cost lives later and millions in lawsuits. (and, again, this is all overall patterns. Unless he was independently wealthy, Martin Gibbons seems to have been doing very well for himself selling palms to Londoners. It's not like all nurseries owners in Europe are living in abject poverty because they carry 2-3X as many cultivars as equivalent North American nurseries.)

This post was edited by davidrt28 on Wed, Sep 24, 14 at 18:04

"It's an entrenched mentality. "

BTW - worth saying some people think Monrovia's "have a looksie at the website, pickup at your local nursery" program was imposed on them by external creditors. Who probably wisely looked at the way they operated and thought "wait, you produce a high value, end-user commodity that people aren't even allowed to buy without going through a middleman - and might have to spend an half an hour looking around a nursery lot to even see if it's in stock?" The old ways are well...old and dying as they should be. I ditched my hideously awful AC installer - one of the biggest in NE Maryland - because they gave me a runaround and wasted an hour of my time when I merely walked into their store location and tried to buy a filter for my air handler unit. I guess for some reason I looked like an elderly Cecil County hayseed who just fell off a turnip truck. (I'm neither elderly, nor a hayseed) I ordered the part off amazon and will never purchase it again in any other way, or deal with that bunch of hucksters.

This post was edited by davidrt28 on Thu, Sep 25, 14 at 19:52

The OP wants a pear tree.

Here is a link that might be useful: Link to other post

>As for shipping only in quantity, I guess it depends on the wholesaler. If it's a mega grower and wholesaler like Monrovia, there's no way around itIf you look at their web site they appear to now be doing retail sales over the internet.

During a previous period of generally reduced economic activity the once great Alfred Teufel wholesale nursery in Oregon went to selling retail out of their Everett, WA branch location. After some years in that spot they sold the property for redevelopment and set up a landscaping focused operation on another western WA site.

In at least one instance the Great Depression was gotten through by switching from producing balled in burlap conifers to windowsill sized potted cactus plants.

Adapt or perish.

Well jeez, I wasted my words LOL.
That's still a perfect plant for bottom line local nurseries...cheap to buy, easily marketable, hard for people to kill, etc. etc. I'm surprised they aren't for sale at Wallyworld or HD.

Wholesalers will sell smallish quantities to landscape architects because:

1 - They make multiple orders every year.
2 - They show up at the wholesaler with a truck and a crew to haul the order.
3 - They have a valid exempt tax ID number
4 - They usually have an account set up ahead of time and pay on pickup.

Well, I brought a box truck to Colesville Wholesale/Retail nursery in VA...they loaded but I think they do that for everyone. It's their front end loader after all, I can't believe landscapers could bring their own one of those.

I've bought multiple times from them, probably close to $2000 worth now.

And I've paid at purchase, and haven't requested Net 30 terms as most businesses would.

Doesn't seem much different to me other than someone having to select "VA TAX" from a computer's dropdown menu instead of "NON TAX".

And btw - when a Juniperus recurva var. butanica they sold proved not to be remotely zn 7 hardy, as listed...no, I didn't ask for any money back. I wouldn't have expected it. Even though they admitted theirs died too.

This post was edited by davidrt28 on Wed, Sep 24, 14 at 23:28

While I read through this because it had been bumped, I ought to point out Marshy Point Azalea Nursery closed. My memories are far from 100% clear, but I seem to recall meeting the family at a Ladew sale and seeing that, no, they were not all elderly. There was at least one guy in his 40s. So this is a case of a specialist wholesaler deciding to get out while the going was good, apparently just not good enough.

Update - found this article - there is a son but it would seem he didn't want to keep the biz going after his father's death: https://www.azaleas.org/wp-content/uploads/legacy/marshy-point/artifacts/MarshyPointArticle.pdf