538 garden centres

If you 'Google' "Corpo Forestale" you can get their website

Thanks for this link.I had found this before but can't make head nor tail of it though I can speak some Italian. I can't see anything which looks like it might lead to "alberi" or anything like that.Can you help and do you have any experience of the corpo forestale?

just to clarify a bit the corpo forestale dello stato are officially one of the (several) police corps in Italy.As they also have juristiction for reforestation and similar activities they have all over the country large "vivai" where they grow trees and shrubs.( so strictly speaking they are not garden centres)having said that we got about 150 trees/shrubs from them.They were all necessarily small, they only have local flora or plants that can be suitable surrogates ( like siberian elms instead of the diseased western european variety)the plants are almost "given away" if i'm not mistaken the above cost about 7 euro only a few years ago.Unlike many plants procured from garden centres which died in the extremes of soil and climate here (and at high cost)all the plants were HIGHLY successful,disease free and survive in the local conditions.So what they have will vary with WHERE you live.
Do not expect the corpo forestale to be a kind of on line garden center which it is not,neither will you find in internet "price lists"and the like it's not their job
You simply have to go to your local forestale police station and ask them for the module to take to their plant center where you can decide on quantities and varieties on the basis of that they'll prepare you a postal order which once paid you can pick up your plants.Don't worry they are quite people friendly even if you have problems with italian.if you have a large swathe of land it's a very advisable course of action but little has to do with procrastination of budgets and the like and the sums involved are quite honestly so small.....garden centers can be quite expensive on the contrary.

Try this site, they advertise in Italy magazine, it's in English, excellent variety and prices seem fair.
[url]http://www.margheriti.it/main_en.htm[/url]

many thanks to Sebastiano & GeorgeS
the information is really useful and the website link is great