"Placed an order online on the 9th of October. At the time of the order, the site stated that the items will be shipped starting October 11th. My card was charged almost $80 right away. It is November 4th, and I have not received my order yet, and got no correspondence from the seller as of the tracking number etc. Called them, struggled through their automated call system as it doesn't recognize the options it itself gives you. As it turns out, the items I ordered are on backorder and could be available in December. According to the customer service rep, I did not get a notification about it because I placed my order online and they didn't have my email address... Which is BS since I did get the order confirmation email from them. "

"Indigos and blues are purple. Reds are pink. Greens are yellow or white. The pictures in their catalog are saturated edited lies. Literally lying to their clients. Bare root plants are dry and dead. Order an iris and it will not only be the wrong iris but the size of a crocus bulb! Instead of a refund you get store credit. Miles kenerk, the owner of this company and all of the (once reputable and respectable) companies he bought out deserve a class action lawsuit. He is a con man. I’m so disappointed in brecks to selling out to this mans greed and complete lack of self respect or integrity. I’m currently working on organizing a lawsuit. This has gone on too long. Average review of brecks is 1.3 out of 5. That is just not normal. "

"I ordered some pantry moth traps because the traps got good reviews. After 2 weeks of not receiving them I contacted the company and they said that tracing the package was up to me. Excuse me? You're not even willing to contact your own shipper? (FedEX told me that it was up to the original shipper to find out where the package was). After 2 1/2 weeks I told them to cancel my order. I had bought some elsewhere. After 1st telling me that they could only credit my account with them, I pointed out to them that I did not receive my order and would not be ordering from them again and that I wanted a full refund. They finally agreed. A few days later, my refund has not yet been processed but will give it a few more days before filing a complaint with BBB. 10/05/21"

"I have had several purchases of products that I have had good luck with, but I am dismayed how much mail that I receive from them. The carbon footprint is part of the toxicity I am trying to avoid. The paper catalogues, envelopes filled with glossy advertising and excessive packaging are demoralizing. This company needs to do a re-think and remake of their messaging."

" I have been a long term customer of Gardens Alive--but no more, as the recent shipment of WOW is falsely advertised and not up to prior standards. Not only did they decrease the bag size and raise the price, but the "granulated" product of old is not currently granulated as the package states. About 2/3 to 3/4 is of prior consistency, but the rest is rock hard columnar nuggets which cannot be broken up. Some of these pieces are over an inch long. They broke the tines of my Scott's drop spreader. I tried to break them in a bag with a hammer with little success, and even a food processor would not grind them up. Because of the 2 disparate consistencies, no uniform lawn covering can be obtained, and I ended up throwing the nuggets out like chicken feed. Very disappointed. Don't buy this product. "

"Ordered 3/29: 5 dwarf citrus trees, 2 raspberry starters, 1 dwarf blueberry plant, and 3 packets of seeds. All showing in stock, shipments dates of the first week of April, and a BIG banner across the top of the site saying they are still operating and shipping daily. Great.

First week of April, get an email that the blueberry plant was suddenly out of stock and cancelled. No "we can offer this other blueberry or similar item." Just cancelled.

Go to check the status of everything else that should have been shipping around this time (based off the shipping estimate given at checkout). Suddenly, 2 out of 3 seed packets are backordered (rather than in stock, as they had been when I placed and paid for my order), with expected ship dates sometime in MAY. And everything else except a single seed packet and my raspberry starters suddenly had estimated ship dates mid-April.

Lame. But given COVID, I figure they had a hiccup and are now on it. Send email to cancel seeds, as seeds shipped that late have absolutely no use for me. Don't get reply.

Shipping dates continue to be pushed. Single packet of seeds arrives. Occurs to me that raspberry plants should have arrived. Check tracking, and they are showing some weird delivery exception for FedEx. They have been sent SmartPost (an odd choice, considering it's a live thing, and SmartPost has no guaranteed delivery date). WEEKS have passed since their ship date of 4/3 (it is currently May 1) and despite my trying to contact the company AND FedEx multiple times regarding the shipment, it still hasn't arrived, no refund has been given, no replacement has been sent. I will have to dispute on my credit card.

I am furious over lack of communication, and suddenly finally get an email reply from their "customer service". I tell her I am done, and to just cancel the rest of my order. She pays lip service to "understanding my frustration" but suddenly (after being backordered, and despite my initial email request to cancel them in early April) the remaining seeds packets are already in the process of shipping and "cannot be cancelled." Two weeks after I initially requested the cancellation in the first place.

So I tell her to scrap the rest of the order. I get TWO replies wherein she makes excuses and says she would understand if I wanted to cancel and to let them know if that was my choice. I reiterate both times that yes, AS I HAD SAID, I wanted to cancel, and for her to confirm said cancellation. This was April 17th. And suddenly after receiving fairly prompt replies to my emails, I am ghosted and NO ONE confirms cancellation of my items.

So I get on their Facebook. Someone on there is surprisingly somewhat responsive (usually replies once a day). Tells me the citrus tree continuing delays are due to weather and being concerned for the tree survival (every time it was expected to ship, the date was pushed back. Again and again and again...). Fine, I say, but that would have saved a lot of rage on my part had someone taken a quick second to send an email explaining that, and just set a firm ship date for when warmer temps could be expected. Still going round about the raspberries. Still not received.

So here we are, May 1st. I have received 3 packets of seeds. FedEx has had my raspberries for over 3 weeks, and apparently they reached my local FedEx and somehow cannot be delivered that final leg to my house. They will not fess up and say they lost it, GardensAlive has not taken ownership to reach out to FedEx and figure out what is going on. Despite those issues, they finally shipped 1 variety of the 3 types of citrus I ordered. Via the same shipping method that is currently such a problem.

And to cap it all off, I get an email from a random customer service rep today, in reply to my email TWO WEEKS AGO that says they've cancelled the remainder of my order per my request.

**** this company. Seriously. They have constant coupons for a reason, and it is absolutely NOT worth it. "

"I recieved a pop-up online to buy a seed sprouted.
Will NEVER buy from a pop-up again!
The picture they posted was not the order they sent me!
The shipping was just about equal to the product price.
I recieved 2 crappy plastic trays & refuse to send me what l ordered.
AGAIN, DON'T BOTHER.
Throw your money in the garbage. Way less aggravating!"

"Ordered two sets of 3 insect lures, six total, but they only sent 2 lures. I wrote and explained how my order was short, and they sent me two more lures. Great, now I have 4 of the 6 and I must write again to try to get the two lures that they still owe me. I used to place an order with them every spring, but after this screwup and the one last year that took some time to straighten out, I have had it. Something has gone very wrong with their attitude toward customer service. "

"Ordered an item. Kept checking order status and it was always shipping tomorrow. Then I get an email from PayPal telling me I have a PARTIAL refund from Gardens Alive. They only refunded the item cost but not the tax or shipping! What morons! I called customer support in India and finally got my shipping and tax back. In the meantime, I get bombarded with emails to sell me more products that they don't really have! From other reviews, I see that this is their norm."

"I order two Mayer Lemon plants on 9/07/18 still waiting for the deliver! Every time I check the order status they give me a different date, it is very frustrating.
I email them today but I have the feeling I won’t get e ressponce.
Thank you for your reviews it helps to see I’m not the only one."

" I'm hoping someday I'll receive the compost I ordered I couldn't wait any longer for my project so I ordered some from Amazon which came in 3 days .no response to emails longest I've ever waited for a package to be delivered"

"To have something NOT shipped until I notify them that I do not have the item and for a shipment to take over 3 WEEKS (IF the delivery date is right from FedEx) is inexcusable. Gardens Alive should have shipped items overnight or at least next day delivery to make good on that fact their web page said items would ship in 5-7 days! I still do not have my items.

"

"This is the second customer review I have ever written. The first one was positive. This one will not be. My review is similar to the others posted. I was charged more than I should have been for an order I still have not received. It has been nearly thirty days. That being said, I do not recommend this company. They are not worth the time and effort. I also will note how difficult it is to post reviews on their website."

"Ordered a pack of their beneficial nematodes in March; I was given a delivery date range of April 7th-14th. The dates passed and still no delivery instead they updated it and pushed the date back another two weeks. I emailed them to complain that I never got my package or any sort of status update. I got an email from Nicole from their support team who apologized and said they'd send another package out to me, and I should've expected it by the 4th of May. Well... given that it's May 6th and I still haven't received anything. I plan to cancel the purchase and dispute it.

Seems like this company may have been reliable in the past, but it seems like a borderline scam company now. Beware of buying from them."

"Received "sorry out of stock" email 3 days after the shipping confirmation and two days before scheduled delivery.

Of course they charged my card even though they were out of stock. They also send tons of ads. "