"My order took over six weeks to get here. The plants were dead when they got here, "dead", not "dormant" as I planted them up immediately giving them the benefit of the doubt though they were clearly dead. Now over two weeks later, I sent pictures of my clearly dead plants to their customer service and got a reply saying I shouldn't call them "dead" for six weeks, though any idiot can tell from the picture I sent that they are dead. They suggest waiting six weeks and then requesting a replacement if they are still dead. That gets them well beyond having to give me a refund if I send the dead plants back at my expense, as it is after the two week return period. I'm sure they'd be glad to send me more dead plants, but I'm not spending another cent at their company or returning dead plants at my expense. My first clue should have been that their website hasn't got a spot for customer reviews. Wish I had checked their reviews elsewhere prior to ordering as they send dead plants and in no way stand behind their products. "
"NEVER EVER ORDER any products from this company. Took 5 weeks to ship products so that I wanted to cancel the order before shipping them, but could not cancel it and the only way to cancel them was to return the product in 2 weeks after I receive them.
I returned them as soon as I received and NEVER RETURNED YET. They say " As of yet, we do not show receipt of your refund request. Please allow time for us to receive your package and required documentation." HOW LONG???
TERRIBLE COMPANY. "
"I will NEVER order from this company again. I ordered on 4-13-15. No order as of 5-6-15 so I called and was told my order was in the shipping dept. I called again on 5-22-15 because I still had not received my shipment. I told them I wanted to cancel my order because I was tired of waiting for them and the blooming season for what I ordered was over. They gave me the wrong email to send my cancel request to. I sent a cancel request on Direct Gardening's website and never heard a reply that my order was cancelled. Called again on 5-30-15 and was told my order had shipped...they totally ignored my request to cancel. I picked flowers that were in stock hoping it would speed my order. I received subsitutions that I didn't want, and I wasn't asked if a subsitute was OK. One flower blub came dead; a bag of mush and quite frankly, I'm not sure about some others."
"Never received my order. Told weeks ago it was in shipping. Now their phone is busy or a recording says no longer her a working number. My bank is disputing charges since they took the money out of my bank back in April. SCAM!!!"
"like the other reviewers, I have yet to receive my order, 5 weeks after I placed it, and when I was finally able to get through to customer service all they would tell me is that there is no ship date. There are plenty of other nurseries who will ship in a timely manner; I would never deal with this company again. "
"They shipped over two months after I ordered. It was so late I canceled it and still received it over 9 days later. The customer service was rude and WAY out of line. I would NEVER order from them again. "
"Absolutely the worst company I have ever dealt with. They lie, tell you to do one thing and then won't honor what they say they will do. I ordered two Dappled Willow trees (which took forever to be shipped out, I had to email and ask where my trees were and when they came they were dead looking) and they came with tags saying "crop failure" Hakura Willow. I asked what that meant and was told it meant the tree that I ordered didn't survive so they replaced it with another tree. I was told to keep the trees they sent and to send in the original shipping label and request a full refund as per their policy. Finally got a response telling me the two names were one in the same, I told them the trees were dead. Supervisor Mike ( Absolutely horrible person, yells, talks over you, won't listen to what you are saying, argues, double talks, total Donkey), tells me to write that I am not happy with my product and as per him send a full refund, I also include the dead trees are still dead no matter what the name and to talk to Mike if there is an issue. I get the same response. I call, get the same fight, I file with the BBB. They send a letter to both the BBB and myself saying to send the new letter and the original shipping label back and they will refund or credit. I do that only to get the same response, the two names are the same tree. Again, a dead tree is a dead tree no matter what the name. I reopen the BBB complaint and call and get nasty Mike again who refuses the refund he promised before and says he doesn't have the file and now is asking if I returned the tree in the first 14 days. I was told to keep the trees (which are dead, I have pictures, I kept them in case I have to send them in) which at this point sending them back will cost me as much as the refund. This company is the worst company ever. I should have read all of the negative reviews and never ordered. Save yourself the headache. Do not waste your money or time on these thieves. "Crop Failure", customer service failure runs deep. I hate that I have to rate it with even 1 star.
Becky W.
Colorado Springs, Co."
"Absolutely horrible customer service. They told me on my order there was a "crop failure" and that they substituted it with another tree. I told them I didn't want another tree, I wanted what I ordered. I was told to keep the trees and send the shipping labels and an note requesting a refund. I did that only to get it back saying the two trees were one in the same. OK, so why the "Crop failure" on both trees? Well probably because they are dead. I called back and talked to supervisor Mike, he told me what to write for a refund, I kept him on the phone and wrote exactly what he told me and even said to ask Mike if they had any questions. Got the labels and my letter back, no refund saying they trees are the same. I kept telling Mike the trees were dead so it really didn't matter if they were the same trees or not, a dead tree by any name is still a dead tree. I called Mike and he denied talking to me saying he talks to hundreds of people, I said I bet you do. I read him the letter asking if he remembered that. He claimed to remember nothing. I told him all we talked about and how I got the letter back. He referred me to the refund policy and told me to read it to him. At that point I told him I was done playing his games and told him I would be calling the BBB to file a complaint. They already have I believe 130. I did EXACTLY as he told me and still got my letter and my labels back. I still have the dead trees."
"DO NOT DO BUSINESS WITH THEM.
THEY ARE HORRIBLE PEOPLE, PLANT ARE DEAD."
"DO NOT DO BUSINESS WITH THIS COMPANY!!! They have the worst customer service I have ever experienced. First it took nearly 5 weeks for delivery. The plants were dried up and dead looking. Some of them even looked like dead twigs. However I went ahead and planted everything. Unfortunately, the dead looking plants were, in fact, dead. When I called and told the company and told them what had happened, customer service told me I had to mail in the original packing slip and a handwritten request for the dead plants. I did so immediately (mid April). I waited and waited and never heard from them so on 6\5\14 I emailed them to find out what the status was. I received on email from them stating they did not have a replacement file on hand it usually takes 1-2weeks for the request to be processed after receipt. On 6/8 I sent another email asking which plants they did not have a replacement for. On 6/9 I received an email from them stating they had never received my request. Fortunately I made a copy of the original packing slip and sent a copy along with a list of the plants that perished. On 6/11 I received another email from DG stating they hadn't received anything from me and wanted to know if I had received anything from them in the mail. On 6/12 I was informed it was probably lost in the mail and they wanted a copy of my credit slip where I paid for the items. So on 6/13 I sent a copy of my debit card receipt, another list of the dead plants and another copy of the original packing slip. Today I received an email from DG stating they require this information to be sent by mail with my written request in order to proceed. So now I am going to send them copies of all our emails so they have it in writing in the mail. Wonder how long this will take....
Bottom line: plants are lousey; customer service is lousey and the company obviously does not care about their business. If you order from them, you are doing so at your own risk because you will get dead plants and they will not replace them or give you a refund.
If this isn't the runaround I don't know what is.
"
"DO NOT SHOP WITH THIS MERCHANT! I Just received my first order with this company. I'd have to say this was not only my worst experience ordering from an online gardening/nursery site, but probably the worst online order of any kind.
After a 5+ week wait for a small order (during which I was reassured twice via canned e-mail that my order was fine and scheduled for delivery) I received a dead, broken, dried out stick and a plant I didn't order. They were tossed loose into a large plastic shipping bag filled mostly with ads for unrelated goods and services. I can understand stock outages, but 5 weeks is enough time to grow from seed! They could have notified me of the outage and allowed me to change the order. I'd look for a refund or exchange, but I'm done with these people. It's not worth the shipping and the wait time for them to get this right. Oh, and the free gift? Three bulbs so old and dead they fell apart in my hands.
In short, stay far away from these people. I truly don’t think they’re even trying to fill orders. It’s all just an excuse to get you to pay for advertisements.
"
"I placed an order with Direct Gardening and after reading the reviews on this website, I tried to cancel it for a full refund. The order was being processed though and I couldn't cancel. I emailed their customer service twice and both time received a timely response. My order arrived; complete and in good condition. Except for the 2 dormant items I ordered, everything else had green leaves and was well packed. Yes, the dormant plants look completely dead, but that's because they're dormant; that's how they are SUPPOSED to look when dormant. I soaked the dormant plants in water and planted them the day I received them as recommended. I feel confident they will be ok or I will request a replacement. I saved the shipping label on my package AS DIRECTED BY DIRECT GARDENING IN CAPITAL LETTERS. I plan to order some more plants from them. It's a shame only the unhappy customers are so vocal and more satisfied customers don't speak up. Direct Gardening has not received a fair shake here. My only slight complaint would be that when I called customer service, the person I spoke to did not seem very knowledgeable even though the was friendly and polite."
"Direct Gardening is possibly one of the worst online plant nurseries I have ever given my business. I placed my order with them over two weeks ago and have attempted to contact them on multiple occasions - two emails and several phone calls. The first 4-6 phone call attempts I made received a busy signal on the other end of the line. Neither email I sent has received a response as of this time.
My order confirmation email says to allow 1-2 weeks for processing. I tend to be a fairly easy-going person, so when I hadn't received any information from them after two weeks I decided to just check in and see how my order was going. I figured it had been delayed for one reason or another, but I do not think it is too much to ask to keep me in the loop about my own order, especially after the company has already charged my credit card for the merchandise.
When I was finally able to get someone on the phone, the customer service representative was rude and unhelpful. She had no idea why my order had not shipped and could not give me an estimation of when it might be shipped in the future. In fact, the only thing she could tell me was that the order was in processing and would ship at some point in the future. When I asked for her Supervisor, she sighed loudly and mumbled under her breath before putting me on hold. The Supervisor was no more helpful, issuing the obligatory and monotoned response of "I'm sorry you feel that way" to everything I said.
The prices of this company are highly desirable; however, I am sorely disappointed at their lack of ability to know anything about what is going on with a customer's order. Lower prices are not an excuse to exhibit poor customer service and in the future I will be taking my money elsewhere. I would rather pay a little more and know that I am going to be taken care of than to pay less and to be treated like receiving my business doesn't matter in the least. Poorly done, Direct Gardening."
"Total scam. One small order took 4 weeks, my 2nd has been 3 months and counting. The customer service is slow, rude, unprofessional and unhelpful. They literally ship your order if/when they feel like it.
I will be doing a credit card chargeback and reporting them shortly. Do not waste your time with them, its a nightmare!"
"I ORDERED A ROSE BUSH AS A SURPRISE GIFT. HAD IT SENT TO HER. SHE GOT AN ENVELOPE OF SEEDS AS A FREE GIFT. THE ROSE BUSH WAS A DEAD BROWN DRIED BULB..NO PAPERWORK. SHE THROUGH IT AWAY BECAUSE SHE HAD ORDERED ITEMS FROM THERE A FEW YEARS AGO AND THEY WERE ALL DEAD. SHE HAD A HARD TIME GETTING HER MONEY BACK. I CALLED THEM THEY OFFER ME A CREDIT BECAUSE THE ITEM COULD NOT BE SENT BACK BECAUSE SHE TOSSED IT AND NEVER TOLD ME ABOUT IT. BUYER BEWARE , IT WAS A ROOT AND NO ROSE BUSH..OUT ALL THE MONEY "