The scoop on 'Lauray of Salisbury'

Fortunately, I am close enough to Lauray's that I can go there in person. The selection is always wonderful,,,,what dealer do you know of that has extensive collections of orchids, cacti, succulents, gesneriads and begonias!! I find the prices to be very generous and the plants well grown. Since Judy doesn't spray, I occasionally find a bug or two, but I generally quarantine new arrivals anyway so this is not a major problem.

Judy is a genius in every sense of the word, and how sad that her parents, Ray and Laura, are now gone as they were quality people. I urge everyone in the area to check this nursery out, you won't be disappointed!

I have ordered many times and have always found the plants
to be extrodinary as compaired to others I have purchased from. Plants are always larger then most and a lot of care goes into what is sent. I will continue to purchase from her for my plants. Her web site is also good..

Got my order today. Nice sized plants and cuttings, couldn't be happier. What a bonus to be able to order cuttings! great selection of begonias.

I placed an order with Lauray a couple years ago, sorry it's took so long to get here to post. Communication was very good between us, especially nice since she didn't ship for quite some time, but I knew that from the beginning. She sent small cuttings, I was dissapointed at first, but she assured me after me emailing her about them that they ship better when smaller and they would root. Well, they did, and they have now blossomed into beautiful begonias, i've taken cuttings off them and made larger plants . Am well pleased with this company. I wish the web site had pictures to go along besides the begonias though, only downfall......

I placed and order Wednesday this week " June 21 st " and just got my box with my Begonia Bethlehem Star !
I also got Begonia Edge of Sunset and B. Strawberry Cream ! They were packaged with tender care PERFECT !
I'm so excited . Their good size plants in 2.50 inch pots. They will live on my kitchen windowsill. Begonias
seem to really love it there !
I placed my order threw Lauray's and could have not asked for better customer servcie, great packaging fast shipping. Very nice talking on the phone with her also !
She sent me her Catalog too.
Highly recommended !

As I read in one of the previous posts, I'm sad to hear that Judy may be retiring. She has one of the most extensive lists of begonias that I could ever find. Also, she sells cuttings at half price and they're always nice and healthy.

Susan

I ordered 16 Rhipsalis cuttings from this company this past summer. After waiting a long time and getting no acknowledgement of order nor receiving any cuttings, I attempted to contact them via email, and received no response.

Since it had been so long, and there was no communications, I placed the order with another company (Bob Smoley Garden World). Lauray's order finally arrived about 2 days before the order from Garden World, leaving me with some duplicated items.

The Lauray order was packed in a large box full of newspaper. As I carefully unpacked, I finally figured out that some of the newspaper contained the plant cuttings, but only after some of the newspaper (and cuttings) had gone into the trash bag. So I went through all of the newspaper several times to make sure that I had all of the cuttings. After checking several times, I determined that I only had 15 of the 16 cuttings ordered. No detailed statement of what was ordered and what shipped was included, so I could not determine the cause of the shortage. Cuttings were nice, much bigger than those received from Glasshouse, and slightly less (but comparable to Garden World) and in good shape.

Cuttings were accompanied by handwritten plastic labels. I discovered after planting, that the writing on the labels was running from misting/moisture, so had to relable all of the plants and barely got to them in time to avoid losing some ID's on the plants.

If I were rating this company solely on the basis of the plants, I would give it a positive for size, health and selection. However, taking into account the lack of communication, missing item, long delay and packing concerns, I finally settled on a negative. This was not an easy decision. It didn't help that I ordered elsewhere much later and received that order at basically the same time as the one from Lauray.

In the future, I would order from this company only if they were the only source for something.

I received my order from Judy today, the plants were wrapped well,
received them in time she said she would send them. Plants were nice.

I love visiting Lauray of Salisbury! I am 19 and in college, and my boyfriend and I have an orchid fetish. We sometimes take the 30 minute drive out to Salisbury just to look at her wonderful orchid collection. She is always willing to answer all of our questions and obviously knows what she is talking about. We've learned a lot from her, and I am really looking forward to seeing her later this week for my next purchase: a paphiopedilum!

I've ordered from her for yrs and have always had good service. I've heard that she may retire in a few yrs and it'll be a sad time for Begonia and GEsneriad enthousiasts, since she has one of the largest collections of both available to the public...
Sincerely,
PT Duffy
FWB, Florida

I've read all the glowing posts about Lauray's and considered not posting, but in the end I decided I would post. I ordered hoyas from Judy last fall, after waiting quite a while for the order, I called a couple of times to ask when she thought she would be able to send them. The answer I kept getting was that she was waiting to ask the inspector to come out, she didn't want him to come for merely my order. Finally when I told her it was getting too cold to be shipping, she sent them. A couple of them were mislabelled but I didn't think that was a big deal, but what I found later was that all of her plants were totally infested with scale!! I lost over half of the plants I got from her due to the scale, and when I contacted her about what was going on she basically told me that it's too hard for her to keep the bugs off since her greenhouse is attached to her house. WHAT?! Does that make sense to anyone?! The least she could have done was inform me from the begining that she was dealing with bugs and let me decide if I wanted to have them sent to me or not! I never got an apology or an offer to replace what was lost from the scale, nothing! She got my money so she didn't care what happened after that. I don't know what her other plants look like, maybe they are in a different greenhouse, but I would caution anyone who does order from her, carefully inspect any plants you get from this dealer, and be prepared to be totally ripped off if anything goes wrong with your order!

Super Nursery. I have visited the laurays and have had Judy Becker as a speaker at our begonia club. I love the available begonias but they carry many unusual plants such as succulents and hoyas. Way to go Judy!

Lauray of Salisbury has one of the most extensive selections around when it comes to gesneriads, begonias, orchids, and cacti & succulents. The catalog is detailed and informative. I have only received one order by mail but the plants (begonias) were packed so carefully that they looked like they had just been picked up from the greenhouse bench. I visited the greenhouses many years ago, and was impressed that such a small operation could grow so many plants, and so well. On top of all that, the owner is one of the nicest people you'll ever meet.

I'm mostly an indoor gardener (houseplants.) Lauray's of Salisbury is wonderful. Judy Becker, who runs it, is knowledgeable, friendly, and helpful. I purchased 4 cane begonia starts from her, and they all arrived in great shape, packed carefully with LOTs of TLC ! I was very impressed, and would order again without a moment's hesitation.