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