LivingParadise, i know it's not good to buy plants in big box stores... my neighbor has a beehive and I have a beesnest in a big tree in my backyard - i love my bees and myself... but, let's admit, it's SUPER HARD to find organically grown plants of any kind here in FL... and local nurseries? god knows what kind of pesticides and fertilizers they put into their plants... just this weekend I was in a nice nursery with the best selection and a worker guy was walking around with a sprayer tank on his back spraying weeds in pavement cracks...in a nursery full of customers! Weird place, weird people...
So true...
But point being, don't assume that anything you find in a big box store will grow locally, or is technically legal to plant. Look it up first. Citrus, for instance, are notoriously hard to keep alive in SFL, because of the poor soil, and the greening and other diseases. But they sell by huge loads from these type of stores, often in large trees or cocktails or something else with a huge price tag. They feel no obligation to tell the customer it will probably be dead in a year or three. Same is true of a bunch of other things they sell there. So, sometimes they will have a great deal or an unusual plant they somehow picked up from a local grower... but it's best not to assume you'll find anything worthwhile there.
Note that Miami, and especially Homestead, have a number of good tropical fruit nurseries, as well as Native plant nurseries. Yes, most of them spray poison all over the place. But they are less likely to have GMO plants than the big boxes, which in the case of Round-up plants have cancer-causing chemicals bred directly into the cells. And at least, you're frequenting a smaller business, and probably getting a more interesting and unusual plant.
Where possible, I order organic plants, or better yet organic seeds and grow from that so I can try to keep costs down. Or, I plant seeds from organic fruits and vegetables, which is even better because then I get to try them first!