It drives me mad, too. And even worse are those labels which say 'feet' when they mean metres. And vice versa!

Reckon on about three feet or a bit less.

It's hard to give a size for plants because so much depends on the conditions it's grown under. I'd be happy with small, medium and large!

Well it could be in parts of the USA - maybe regions with warmer year round weather than we get. And some of the sales sites do quote different sizes, you're right- their excuse is usually, 'we mean after a year' or 'after 5 years' or ten years rather than mature height, if its a permanent shrub or conifer. The long and short of it is, Alistair, if they want to sell something, they say what they think the customer wants to hear so they'll be encouraged to buy. Even more infuriating are the sites that list plants as 'hardy' when the only place they'll be hardy is the tropics... and that includes garden centres, who are often 'economical with the truth'. It's not ignorance, its 'PR', or extemporising as I prefer to call it, think estate agent...

I think a big part of the problem is regional, especially now that many plants are shipped across state lines and grow zones. My red maple tree will get 65 feet here in New York, but if I order it from North Carolina, they'll tell me 50 feet. That's because of the shorter winters/dormancy period down there. Much of the shipping process is automated - robots do a lot of the work.

But I agree with you Young. I encounter the same mis-information all the time and it's extremely exasperating - even on seed packets. I don't know what the solution is, but I'll try to do as much research as possible to find the prevailing consensus