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Monday, June 29, 2009

Ordering plants, seeds etc ...






This year, I ordered seeds and plants from several different sources ... and here's the results! The cost is about the same for all of them after you figure in shipping and handling ... I get from several sources to get everything I want because no one company carried all of them!
  1. Seed Saver's Exchange ... Excellent service! The fastest and most efficient of all of them. They will get the bulk of all my future business!
    Plants arrived intact and in excellent condition and are thriving!
  2. Jung ... Several items were on back order, but all arrived in plenty of time for planting. Plants arrived in great condition and are doing very well!
  3. Burgess ... I will never order from them again ... and here's why. See photos! The plants I ordered from them arrived tipped over and smashed in the box, and were very small, and most of the labels had fallen out so I couldn't tell which peppers were which ... the ones I could save have failed to grow very much. Planted right next to ones from other companies they are dwarfed in comparison! I ordered 6 blueberry bushes from them and 3 of them have already died. They only do replacements, no refunds, and it's a little late to plant pepper plants in Wisconsin now. Plus, they make you send back the mailing label to get your exchange. So my question is this ... if I send it back now for the things that have died, what happens if the rest of the blueberries die by next spring? I'm including pictures I took upon opening the box ...
  4. The Cook's Garden ... I ordered about $100 from them ... and waited, and waited for it to arrive ... finally I called them and was told they had no record of my order ... even though they had my name, address, etc in their system (and I'd never ordered before) and I had a confirmation number for the order, claiming there was a few minutes when no orders went through. Lucky me! So, I canceled the order because it was mostly heirloom tomato seeds and it was too late to start them. I will try them again because they do carry a lot of heirloom tomatoes that no one else has.
  5. Spring Hill Nursery ... I'm including them even though I did not order from them ... but my daughter did and was very impressed with their service. She ordered several perennials from them and a few died before she got them in the ground. she sent them an email and asked about their replacement policy and they sent the plants out before emailing her back with no questions asked! Burgess could learn a thing or two from them ...

5 comments:

  1. Please leave me a comment and let me know what you think and about your experiences ordering plants and seeds online!

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  2. I have actually given up ordering anything from the catalogs and gone strictly to the local greenhouses where I can pick and carry my plants home with me. A bit more expensive, but I get what I need and no waiting. My plants are a "older" and tend to live longer. Lots of trouble with Burgess (I think--it's been several years now). It might also have been Burpee....I guess I'm not sure. I am just sticking to the local guys for now.

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  3. I do like seed saver's for the variety ... we don't have much to choose from around here, they motly concentrate on flowers and even then the variety is small!

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  4. Absolute beautiful photo at the top of your page! How did your garden fair? Wow, what a difference being a couple states south of you makes. We usually start planting in mid to late April here.

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  5. My gardens did fabulous with the exception of the items from Burgess. Every single blueberry plant eventually died. The pepper plants that I did manage to save were stunted all summer long while the ones I purchased from other companies thrived. I only got one pepper from the 16 plants I ordered! The other companies plants gave me up to 20 peppers PER PLANT depending on variety ... the bell types all gave me 4 -6 per plant, so no more Burgess for me!

    ReplyDelete

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More about me than you may want to know!

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I love to work in my gardens ... flowers, herbs and vegetables all intermingled. I am an organic gardener and use companion plantings to help control the pests and diseases. I also love to help "young people" learn that they can make a meal from scratch just as fast as they can open a box of Hamburger Helper or go through the drive through. I run a business from my home teaching people to cook & selling the tools to do so. I work full time at the local grocery store, so I see many sides to the food we eat. Most of it is not good. We need to get back to feeding ourselves as much as possible and stop shipping our food thousands of miles! I also am an avid supporter of the Humane Society, La Crescent Animal Rescue and other local groups that help animals. Recycling, composting and re-purposing are also very important causes to me! I run an online greeting card business and a business that sells plant based cleaning products & natural supplements as well.