Bug free plant shops (Europe)

[David_Sweden]

I wonder if anyone can share their experience of bug status of web shops and chain stores. 

Obviously it is a must to have bug free plants if they are indoors and live more than 1 year and are big (too big to shower several times per year in a bathroom) and also, if you have any big perennial plant then you don't want to mix it with one that can have bugs. 

I have bought I think at least 10 palm trees from Palmeperpaket.de over the years and every time but once they have been bug free, and when I told them they got very embarrased and immediately gave me my money back. Granted it is not easy to achieve 100% bug free status. Sadly PPP don't have a lot of palms these days but the same owner (who is a member here) has the world's by far biuggest, and only trustworthy, seed shop, rarepalmseeds.com, and surprisingly they sell some seedlings to since recently (I think grown in Asia), they claim they are bug free and I bought 5 Licuala peltata var. 'sumawongii' and I can confirm they were free from pests.

I bought a Bottle Palm from Plantencentrum Exotica in Herenthout, Belgium, and I believe they probably rinsed it becasue I saw nothing at first but after 2 months when to have a close look it was full of young spider mites and eggs (but no web yet). They admitted it was grown outdoors (on the Canary Islands) so obviously they are not suitable to sell for indoors use.

Hornbach I think have growers connected specifically to them and I bought several plants and palms there and had no problems.

Not many big online palm shops in Europe right now I think, there used to be more in Germany which don't exist anymore. 

One of the few remaining are mypalmshop.com, in Holland. Does anyone have experience of them?

If someone wants, I can delete "Europe" from the headline and put sections in this thread. But obviously this is rather continent focused (I have bought palms from both USA and Asia a few times, sometimes legally with phytosanitary certificate, and I do actually wonder how reliable such certificates are, I mean, 5 minutes after showered it is not easy to detect leaf living bugs).

[RichardHemsley]

The only place I buy from online is babypalms in spain. As the name suggests they mainly do smaller palms, but never had a problem with bugs on the plants.

 

[David_Sweden]

Thanks, that was a great tip actually, they have by far many more unusual types than any other I found. Mostly seedlings and smaller up to 1-1.5m but that's fine.

[David_Sweden]

I actually found one more webshop in Europe, in Germany actually: Palmenimpaket. Unimaginative name since PalmePerPaket.de are well established since long. Says here they opened in 2008.  

I count 69 palms for sale, heights 0.5 to 2.5m mostly 1-1.5m, so a bit bigger than Baby palms on average, presented as a long, almost alphabetical list, many  of them are less common.

I found a trick to skip through the long list conveniently is to search for e g the phrase "Lieferhöhe ohne Topf" that way you hop to the next one in a nice way.. Those 69 include some "sold out". I swear I have no idea how to fully populate the list, first there are 20 then suddenly 30 then 40 then more.. Reaching Washingtonia and Wodyetia should be a hint I'm near the end but then there are two Nannorrhops. And a separate list with 7 "Babypalms" I suppose (big) seedlings.

And I find no reviews. Found a linkedin page for the owner Hans Löw. 

Does anyone have experience with them?

[David_Sweden]

Regarding mypalmshop.com there are plenty of reviews: 

121 at Trustpilot, average 2.4 if 5, almost all are either 1 or 5 though. All in all I find 10 very positive reviews (5 of 5) and 12 very negative; one of these is about bugs (scale) but mostly about arriving in vad shape, much smaller than advertised, poor packaging (6), rotten, no delivery (3), uncontacatble (several).

I'd say total verdict is: It's a lottery, with (almost) 50% chance being lucky. Small risk for bugs.

On their site there's a reference to "Trusted shops" guarantee and this is a German company which in itself has good reviews (4.3/5 from 49k users) and rates them 4.6/5. Seems trustworthy, still, I trust Trustpilot more. Also a bit weird how the majority of the reviews are from someone just identified as "community member"

[happypalms]

To live in a bug free world is impossible to do, we need bugs good and bad, they form a part in the food chain. If we were to live in a bug free world then the whole ecosystem would collapse. 
To live in a bug  free world we would have to be swimming in chemicals. 
I always thought Europe was against chemicals in a good way. 
I don’t mind a few bugs it’s a good sign of a healthy environment. 
Richard 

[David_Sweden]

To clarify, there are plenty of harmless and even beneficial insects and organisms, this post is about the pests that consume and harm plants, and in nature are often kept in control by weather and surroundings, but if you choose to commit the two unnatural actions to put a plant in a pot and put it indoors then they potentially become a seriuos problem. There are plenty of reliable growers (like PPP/RPS and Hornbach's supplier) who focus from day 1 to have bug free plants. In the case when a grower wants to import plants e g to EU (like RPS import seedlings from Asia) there are laws requiring costly phytosanitary certificates, so these bugs are no joke to authorities. I don't know why you think Europe would be against chemicals, maybe the US allows some more but for farmers and professional growers there are plenty of effective pesticides also in the EU, less so for amateurs (legally, although easy to find e g on ebay).

[David_Sweden]

I bought a Ravenea rivularis from Baby Palms. When it arrived the leaves were more yellow than green:

As far as I know a plant with leaves this yellow is dead. Or can it recover? 

Number one thing I'd think it would hate is dry soil but it is thoroughly wet.

The trip took 8 days, a bit long but I wouldn't expect it to hate it that much.

It was stuck in Holland several days, and temperature there I can see from an online weather station can have been down to 2.5degC briefly at night. When it reached my country temperatures have been at least 4.5degC at night (~11degC peak daytime). Would be bad luck if it was actually in an outdoors parked truck at down to 2.5degC. It hates cold but I thought closer to zero is required to seriously harm it.

I will leave it with plenty of light (2-3klx) and 65% humidity for a few hours.

It was nicely green all over before departure from looking at the grower's pics.

[RichardHemsley]

I buy from them regularly,  and Miguel wouldn't sell you plants he didn't think were in good condition. I got a couple of palms from them last month that weren't listed on the website as he didnt think they were good enough to sell, but I decided to go ahead and after 3 weeks are looking great.

I have a large container grown R. rivularis, and it does loose some of its lush green colour, and then improves when the hotter weather arrives. 

Hope that helps

[David_Sweden]

Thanks. I think Baby Palms is probably a very good shop, this discoloration happened during transport. And he responded now that it will be green again 100% guaranteed once it bounces back. I didn't realize it is possible for leaves to turn much closer to yellow than green but then reverse it. Meanwhile I will give it a bit more humidity and sun hours.