I know none of us want to promote any particular companies but, your question is a worthy one. It would be interesting to know other people's experiences and opinions. Like you, I have been disappointed with Gardening Direct this year - although I have ordered from them for many years. I am definitely going to shop around next Spring. Also I won't order so early either as I've realised I could have saved a lot of money waiting a few more weeks for all those special offers. I also think giving them my money in February is a bit silly on my part. I'll be interested to see any comments.

I would never consider ordering plants on-line... I want to see what I am buying. But our garden is all alpines and related plants and shrubs. We go to specialist shows and nurseries to buy.

I'm like Moongrower, but it is unavoidable sometimes.
I can heartily recommend Burncoose who advertise on this site. Not cheap, but you get what you pay for.
Crug farm have a good reputation judging by the comments of various member here, as does Cotswold Garden Flowers.

Seed wise, I would happily recommend Plants of Distinction and Plant World.

But please, support your local nurseries and (preferably independant) garden centres, and leave the on-line for specialist and rare plants!

Check out the link below, it lists the rare plant fairs around the country. There's one in Monmouthshire in a couple of weeks.......

http://www.rareplantfair.co.uk/fairs.aspx

I wrote a blog on this some times ago because i do this a lot and there are some very good and reputable companies out there.
If you go to my profile and look up the blogs you'll find it.

With all companies on line, you take a risk whatever you're buying. I'd avoid paying well in advance of good before shipping.

Louise - I see that there a couple of specialist nurseries in there. This is where on-line is invaluable and always good to have recommendations.

One other point to make - wherever you go on-line you're in the hands of couriers! I point this out as I had a difficult to get hold of orchid lost. I'll not name them, as I received excellent customer service in this instance, a full refund plus compensation from the couriers almost immediately they acknowledge its loss with almost no hassle at all. This factor is beyond the nurseries control.

Online suppliers are good for price for bulbs, seeds and plug plants. These things are difficult to damage in post if packaged properly. You take a risk ordering plants as they are easily damaged by bashing and for spending days in transit it warm warehouses and vans. They also tend to be small to be cost effective for the online firms to post and package.

One thing that puts me off online suppliers is internet security. I am suspicious of putting in credit card details to websites/companies I do not know. I reckoned that JParker Bulbs were OK as the Guardian and Express use them as their suppliers. Crocus was highly recommended to me by several people.

As a rule of thumb, if you are spending more than £2.00 per plant then you should go to a nursery/garden centre to see what you are buying. The likes of B&Q/Homebase/Wickes etc can be good depending if they have staff that care about the plants and not leave them to fall over and dry out.

For the last 3yrs I have always had good plugs from Thomson & Morgan ,well packaged and good value but I have seen other people complain about them so perhaps I have been lucky.

This is a tough one - I've recently had 3 orders from 3 different suppliers for plants I just couldn't source locally. the most well packaged was from Jacksons, from where I got six roses extremely well packed. I had another delivery from Spring Reach Nursery - the plants were great, packaging terrible, they'd slid and spilled all over the place. Then I used a nursery recently called Birchfield Nursery - again, great plants, packed reasonably, but they'd used a box without enough height and had bent the tops of the Yuccas over to get them in. They'll be okay, but interestingly, in every case I've been supplied with good plants, but what's let them down has been the packaging. I'd always prefer to go somewhere and make my own selection, but when you want specific plants, you can't always find them locally. I'm currently after Clematis Betty Corning, and its readily available on line, but I dread to think what sort of state it'd be in by the time it got here if the previous packaging experience is anything to go by, so I've not ordered it.

When you deal with these specialist type of places their customer service is usually extremely good and any damages are recompensed in any way you choose.

You can only speak from personal experiences and i've found all of those on my list to be superb.

Avoid JParkers (aka Guardian) like the plague. I had no end of trouble with them last year - the quality of the plants were awful (theres a pic of one example somewhere - might be in my profile) and they think nothing of having small plants in the post for 5-6 days. Sadly their approach to customer service is give you like for like ie they replace poor plants with poor plants. :-(

I agree with Paulr - avoid Parkers; also avoid Gardening Express: I emailed them a photo of a dead stick (e.g. Eupatorium chocolate) but no response. Crocus are very reliable, everything packed well.