Seed Companies and Nurseries you would NOT recommend!?

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Just received a package of "Rhubarb" from RH Shumways that was so dead it's hard to imagine it was ever living! Couldn't even tell which end was supposed to be up. It was so far gone that you know it wasn't any better when it was diligently packed and shipped! In any case, it should have been shipped a month ago for our planting zone. We had the same experience with raspberries from Mellingers last year. Sure, we can get a refund, but the planting time has already passed where we live, so it's another year without! We also learned last year from Mellingers that the free replacement option is not a good one. Received some (very obviously) dead Stanley plum trees, complained, had them replaced with some different (very obviously) dead trees, end of obligation, not open for discussion! Will NEVER do business with SHUMWAYS or MELLINGERS again. Anyone care to add to this list?

-- Anonymous, April 13, 2001

Answers

I gave up on Gurneys some years ago. Other people tell me that they haven't had the problems, but only two trees that we bought from them ever survived, and despite their claims that their trees were winter hardy for our zone (I was inexperienced at the time), they were about two zones away from where they'd survive.

I have been happy with plants from Jung's over the years, as well as ones from Wayside. Wayside is very expensive and mostly ornamentals, but they have always had really top quality plants and a good replacement policy.

-- Anonymous, April 14, 2001


I had a similar bad experience with Mellinger's plants, but they are an OK source for supplies, etc. (non-living merchandise). Also got really bad plants from Henry Field. I think you have to order from a family-owned business (like Jung's or Miller's) where you can talk to somebody who actually cares and knows what they're talking about. Good luck.

-- Anonymous, April 14, 2001

Forgive me please if I'm way off base here, but is it at all possible that you are not well acquainted with what dormant plants look like? I have personal experience with people laughing at me when I've planted 'dead' stuff and me gettin the last laugh when they grew into fine specimens. Just a thought!

I haven't had good luck with Gurneys plant material either,but their seeds have been satisfactory. There's one called Farmer Seed and Nursery that I stopped buying from years ago....everything died....course I hadn't much experience yet either.

I buy lots of seeds from Shumways, mostly cuz they have a good selection of heirlooms, which is all I plant, but never bought plants from them. Seems really weird that two different companies would send during the wrong planting time. ........although I once got free spruce seedlings here in northern Wisconsin from the National Arbor Foundation in February!

-- Anonymous, April 14, 2001


I had bad luck with Michigan Bulb several years ago. Plants looked dead on arrival and ultimately never grew or sprouted so I think they WERE dead. Their demise could never be attributed to anything I had done as I'm a gardening expert and everything flourishes under my care. LOL! :-D

I've heard others say that Michigan Bulb is not a great company to do business with. Anybody know if they're still in business?

-- Anonymous, April 14, 2001


I could be wrong here, but I think I read or heard someplace that most of the big national seed companies (and I would think the nursery businesses associated) were owned by only a handful of big companies. They have kept the smaller companies' names for marketing. I wonder if some of these problems are related because the companies are? ("The Bad Seed".....ahem!)

Anyone know for sure?

I have bought from Territorial out here and had good luck. Lately, I have bought more starts, etc. locally (nurseries, co-op and feed stores) and had good luck. I don't grow anything fancy or unusual, though.

-- Anonymous, April 14, 2001



We had heard that the seed company names were all owned by the same corporations too, but haven't been able to dig deeper. We once wrote Cooks Garden and asked their affiliation. Never got an answer. It makes us suspicious that you can look at some catalogs and see the exact same pictures in all of them. We also deliberately mis-spell our name or address sometimes when we place an order so that we know how it gets onto different mailing lists! The bad trees we got from Mellingers last year actually had both Mellingers and Stark tags on them.

-- Anonymous, April 14, 2001

Can't contribute much as far as plants go but we've ordered alot of seeds from Burpee, Parks and Shumways. RH Shumways always arrives first and I've only had pleasant experiences with their customer service.

-- Anonymous, April 14, 2001

Hummm, done business with Sumway for years and always had great service. But then, I never ordered plants. I believe Michigan Bulb went defunk, but I think an equally "shady" outfit bought them, but I can't remember the name.

-- Anonymous, April 14, 2001

Funny this topic should come up. Hubby is planting dried flower seeds for our dried flower busines (like 10,000 seeds) in the greenhouse in seed trays and he is keeping meticulous records on germination rate. He just commented to me this weekend that the company that had the worse germination rate was Burpee. In addition, they are the only one which had seeds in a packet that did not match what was in the packet. We had this problem with them last year and he is having it again this year. We used to have a lot of success with with them years ago but I think they have gotten so big and they have so many little growers supplying them that their quality control has gone down the tubes. I don't think hubby will buy from them next year as he has had much better success with other suppliers. I don't remember the names of the good ones because he happened to be talking about the failures but I do know that he has been happy with one we had never done business with before I just don't remember the name so I'll have to get back to you. Of course, our study is of dried flower seeds so I don't know how the vegetable seeds are in comparison. Also, Burpee tended to be more expensive than the others including their wholesale prices.

-- Anonymous, April 16, 2001

I've had bad luck with Springhill. Out of an order of ten including lilys the valley that didn't bloom for 3 years, bleeding hearts that never ever came up, phlox that was supposed to reach 14" the first year and only reached 3", and my no bloom begonias, only the stargazer lilys grew well and bloomed nicely.

I hadn't heard about most of the larger companies being owned by a handful of people, but then again I didn't learn that the Federal Reserve Band was started by a hanful of private owners until a week ago. Does this mean I should consider listening to NPR, or reading a newspaper??

LOL

-- Anonymous, April 17, 2001



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