Have ordered from Park Seeds for many years with no problems. But they do get some mixed reviews (several prior discussions here a search will pull up) on service issues. Germination issues is something else - no complaints there.

Given the long life of most seeds, 90% of the time germination problems are the fault of the grower, not the seeds or supplier. But in this case, with the exception of the blanket flower, you were also working with some difficult and slow to germinate seeds. Canna and the palm both require very warm soil temps. Did you use bottom heat on them? It can increase your overall germination rates 3 fold.

Dave

I have to agree with Dave. I've never had any problem with their seed division but I wouldn't buy a plant from them. Did you nick and soak your canna seeds? How did you sprout the palm seeds?

Here is a link that might be useful: ponytail palm from seed

I've ordered seeds and a few plants from this company in the past with no problems.
Haven't ordered anything from them in a few years now.

I just got an order of seeds. I'm not happy. First of all, the seeds were fairly expensive, a couple of them were something like $4/packet. I bought 10 packets and a lot of them only had 15 seeds in them.
What really gave me a bad feeling about the whole deal though is that one of the packets had a sticker saying 'packed for 2011' on it, and I removed the sticker and underneath 'packed for 2010' was printed on the packet. To me, that seems like fraud. I don't care if seeds DO last from year to year, if you've marked them packed for one year, don't change it next year and expect that your customer won't notice. It isn't true that it was packed for 2011.
Next year, I'll pay less somewhere else, and do my research first to make sure I'm not paying premium prices for year old seed.