I recently received a camellia sinensis (tea plant) from a nursery that was root bound. That wasn't much of an issue. The problem I has was the nursery was required to drench the soil in bifentrhin pesticide. First thing out of the box is a warning to wear gloves and keep kids and animals away from the root zone. No thank you. I have been cultivating an environment for the critters in my yard. I regularly have frogs, toads, birds and occasional deer and bear in my yard. No pesticides allowed! In this case I did wash the roots and repotted in my home soil mix.

Bare root plants do sometimes have issues getting started but I will only be ordering seed or bare root from now on.