If you are serious about your beloved garden then you will be serious about your local garden supply center. You want to be sure that your garden center supplies quality plants and garden tools. You get to know after time what they stock and when the seasonal items will be coming in. Some very customer focused garden centres will even survey customers to find out what varieties of plants they want.
One of the advantages enjoyed by the large garden supply center companies is the pricing they can offer their customers. Due to the large quantities they purchase for resell they can usually get a better deal than the smaller independent operators. However, the one thing that many smaller garden supply centers have that many of the big chains lack is service and knowledge of the products they sell. Of course the economies of scale are also a disadvantage because you will have the same plants as everyone else. If you like growing a more eclectic range of flowers and vegetables you will only get these from the smaller garden suppliers.