http://www.freetreesandplants.com/
Found this on the Kim Komando web site looks like we all can help those in need and help ourselves as well.
CLOSED: FREE PLANTS
They're not really free. You have to pay what they call "shipping and handling" for each unit you buy. For instance, a unit of red monarda (which consists of 2 plants) is 6.95. And every plant unit (which could be one, two or three plants) is 6.95 each. So if you order 3 units, that's about $21. Not really my idea of free nor is it my idea of "shipping".
Has anyone here ordered anything from them? If so, what was your experience like?
BC
Personally, as someone who is disabled and unable to work period, I think it's a crock. I've seen the ad before, and came to the same conclusion. I don't think nurseries, except the ones who supply HD (smirk), are suffering because of unsold plants - they just divide and sell twice as many next year. Who is that $6.95 per plant going to? S+H my foot! If they are helping mentally/emotionally disabled people by giving them something to do, they can distribute the plants to a senior center, or a school, or the town square, or beautify a police station. I find it hard to believe they have so many extras they can't get rid of them!
I'd like to see some evidence.
Carrie
Hey Guys:
Thanks for the added info.
Seemed like something good.
Glad I posted so that I found out more about it.
BC hope everything is going smoothly for you.
Best
Thanks so much, placed my order!!
Margo
Well darn, so much for being a "nice" person. I guess I need to take off my "rose-colored" glasses. I hope the plants are nice :(
This message was edited Nov 14, 2005 2:48 PM
Well, I stand corrected, or I sit modified. I don't think their alarmist headlines are true (every year millions of high-quality nursery plants are destroyed) and I think they are in general overpriced. But they do have a listing in the Garden Watchdog, and apparently they have sent plants to people. I'm just trying to explain that these 'disabled workers in sheltered workshops' may not have windows, or being paid more than a token amount for their work.
Carrie
'Sheltered workshops' are an anachronism; they don't have much place in 21st century USA. I did some research http://www.accessiblesociety.org/topics/economics-employment/shelteredwksps.html
See this opinion on 'sheltered workshops' ? A rip-off on every level: it's not helping Mentally Challenged (or euphemism of choice) people work their way to a REAL job that pays actual money. It's not helping nurseries because there are a million other things they could, and would rather do with their extra stock than destroy it. It gives you the illusion of helping people. Are you really helping? I don't know. I know it's hard enough to find work. We all pay to be able to garden. I know SOMEONE is getting $6.95 per "unit" for S+H. Who pays the brokers for these 'sheltered workshops'? In 1998, clients placed in 'sheltered workshops' made one-fourth as much as similarly disabled clients did placed in 'competitive employment.' Please, just try to learn before you spend.
xxxx, Carrie, a physically disabled worker
My Father was a quadreplegic from a car wreck in 1957....he could walk 6-8 ft with those metal frame crutches until he could no longer stand, then used a wheelchair. He built his first small cinder block store in 1960. It had no indoor plumbing for 3 years. The lighting consisted of one overhead florescent in front and one in stockroom. He died of Cancer in 1992. He was a great man, he refused to give up, he was a determined man. He was also a compassionate man. He taught me to be also. There is always someone less fortunate.
My husband lost his right arm above the elbow and almost lost his left leg due to being electrocuted in 1971, working as a lineman for the local electric company. He has had 4 heart attacks and has congestive heart disease. He works with me daily in the house and in the garden.
I am very familiar with real handicaps. I was 3 when my dad was in that wreck. It wasn't his fault. I met my husband 3 years after his accident.
Right now my Mother is bedridden by Post Herpetic Neuralgia, COPD, Emphysema and recovering from a broken back. She is on oxygen most of the time. She spends about 23 hours a day in bed on her back. I retired this past Spring to care for her fulltime. I garden for the both of us. She used to love it. She still enjoys her yard and watching me and DH work in it.
I do understand being handcapped and or disabled. Yes, I can be naiive, but that's a fault I can live with :))
God bless,
Margo
This message was edited Nov 14, 2005 11:01 PM
This message was edited Nov 14, 2005 11:03 PM
I ordered from them last spring and was really disappointed. I ordered two redbud tree seedlings. Both arrived dead and were only about 6 inches tall anyway. Also ordered two 'rose of sharon'. They weren't dead, but they barely leafed out this summer. I hope they do better next year. Also ordered two 'fountain' grass plants. They were pitiful looking when I received them. I put them in pots for the summer and they've come out a bit, but they are really just struggling along.
I do know that some people have been really pleased with their plants, so I hope whoever orders from them has a better experience than I did. Maybe if I had stuck to ordering perennials it would have been better.
Oh, I forgot to mention that I had to email them to ask where the order was. They had somehow let it slip through the cracks, so to speak.
Well, I still think that $6.95 for two plants is a great deal. Most mail order nurseries that I have ordered from start with charging $6.95 S&H for an order in addition to what you are paying for you plants.
I worked with mentally disabled adults at a group home before I had my daughter. Most of our clients in the home did not have the capicity to work in a REAL workplace enviroment like we do. I have always had good experiences with the workshops that our clients went to. Some packed coffee, some packed spices or labelled and assembled hardware packets (like those that come with furniture you need to assemble yourself). The clients got to go to work, socialize, earn a paycheck. They were paid based on the work they could do. They were not paid as much as I would have been, but their income is subsidized by the state. Mine is not. These facilites and their pracices are inspected on a regular basis by state and federal agencies to make sure they comply with strict regulations. I know this from first hand experience.
I plan on reserving some plants for myself. I feel this is a worthy cause. Perhaps it is not perfect. But then are so few things.
It certainly is a worthy cause. This is why I did not insist on a refund, or even replacement plants. I do not believe that people who want to make sure that this enterprise is legitimate, or those who wish to be careful from whom they order are saying that helping disabled people is unimportant.
But people deserve to know that they may be making a donation rather than getting viable plants. I am not blaming the people who work there. They do not run the place. I don't think they even take the orders as the person I emailed about my order sent a very clear email. If she was disabled, it was physically, not mentally. No matter who I am buying from, I like to know whether I can be reasonably sure that I am getting what I ordered. If I know that some people have been pleased, others have not, then I can write my check as if it's a donation to a worthy cause and then let it go if the plants are not viable. I also don't want to be someone who expects less from people working in a workshop like this. The organization is responsible for sending dead plants, not the disabled people who work there.
Butterflychaser asked if anyone had bought from this enterprise and I have bought from them. This was my experience. Likely there is more feedback in the Garden Watchdog.
Jlmmkm - maybe your plants will be fabulous! You never know!
Oh Pixydish, I wasn't after you at all! I was a little upset with carrielamont's one-sided research. I should have made that clear.
and I quote:
"I'm just trying to explain that these 'disabled workers in sheltered workshops' may not have windows, or being paid more than a token amount for their work. "
Renwings,
I'm sorry to have upset you, in fact I'm sorry I upset anybody. That was surely not my intention. If anybody wants to, as pixydish puts it, make a donation, please don't let me change your mind. And I know, pixy, it's a labor of love to keep those struggling redbuds alive. I agree, though, that donations are different from purchases or from S & H costs.
Margo, do you agree that your experiences with your wonderful father helped you to see your future husband without prejudice? I feel that the more people with disabilities are woven into the fabric of everyday life, the less them and us thinking develops.
It was suggested to me once, by my state rehabilitation commission, that I might be good at assembling telephones. I was horrified, insulted, embarassed, terrified, upset, every other bad emotion possible. I'm happy, Renwings, that you seem to have benefitted from your work with DD/DH adults almost as much as they have. If that sounds condescending, it's not meant to. We (disabled people) have been the them to your us for so so so long. Still I'm glad to live in this country, with its beaurocracies and checks and balances.
This FT&P enterprise still feels like a scam to me. So I will choose not to purchase. I hope we can make up with no hard feelings on either side. : ) You are right, pixy, you wouldn't have thought this would be such a divisive issue. You probably didn't know I would fly off the handle at the slightest hint of the pity factor influencing people's checkbooks! As long as we can each make our own choices, then maybe we can let this issue rest (unless anyone else needs to post), and go back to playing in the dirt together : ) .
And now, I've practiced ALL my new keystrokes! LOL!
xxxxxxx, Carrie
This message was edited Nov 15, 2005 1:29 PM
Hi Carrie. I think you have honed in on one of the points I wanted to make without belaboring the issue. I don't want to expect less of people because they are disabled in some way. If they say they are 'selling' plants, then they should be selling viable ones whether they are disabled or not. It's sort of like being a woman in the workplace, I guess. I would be furious if I thought people expected less of me because of my gender. I would never want to be offered a job just because I was a woman and they needed to check off 'hired woman' on some government form. I know it's slightly different, than what we are talking about here, but I think it is also a bit the same. And I don't blame you one bit for being upset by the rehab's offer of putting together telephone, regardless of how good their intentions were.
One thing that comes to mind is that maybe this organization might be saying the plants are 'free' in order to be able to not claim an 'income' from them? Not in the scamming sense of the word, but maybe they are a private/non-profit organization which is not allowed to 'sell' stuff, but can charge for shipping and handling? I never thought of this before, but maybe this has something to do with it.
I've got to say that this is one of the things about DG that I like the most. People can come to these forums and express strong opinions and emotions about things and, in general, no one gets their 'knickers in a twist' for very long. It's a great thing when that happens and I, for one, believe I truly benefit from this kind of dialog. Thanks for hearing me out on this thread.
Hey, you did the same for me! And that's nearly exactly what it's like. I get employees 2 bonus points now, they can check off 'woman' and 'handicapped' with one fell swoop! Except the accomodations I would require are waaay beyond reasonable. But yes, if any part of this is to make the disabled folks have some pride in working, they know whether the stuff they're packing is good or not. Did you check out my link, above? [HYPERLINK@www.accessiblesociety.org] We may seem a little overreactive, rabid, or hypersensitive now, but (one hopes) someday it will be unthinkable to treat people with disabilities the way this country treated them in the 20th century. I view myself as part of a movement, every time I leave my house. (Which truth be told, I hate to do; I'd much rather be right here!) edited to close parentheses
xxxx, Carrie
This message was edited Nov 15, 2005 3:22 PM
I take issue with their "shipping and handling fees". If you order several plants, we all know how cheaply they can be shipped, especially in light of the small plants these people are obviously sending out. So if I'm getting something for the price of s&h, I want that s&h to be reasonable. So they say "free plants" and I order 5 units. The S&H will cost me $35. Totally unreasonable!
And really, how are they making any money? They state that they will ship units separately even tho they're on the same order. Why? Why not spend $7.70 to send out one package containing a few plants instead of sending out 4 or 5 packages at, let's say, a minimum of $3.85/pkg (a total of $16 or $20 for one order)?
They state they want to raise money for disabled individuals, but it seems to me they are wasting it rather foolishly on postage, so there's not too much going back into their organization.
Honestly, at the prices they are selling them for, I can get bigger and healthier plants at Lowes for the same price or even cheaper. I often get perennials, shrubs and trees for $1.
I don't know them and I haven't talked to anyone with a positive experience. But I'm suspicious. Pixydish, thanks for sharing your own experience. By the way, check with me next year if you need Redbud trees. I had some come up in the mulch I get from a tree trimmer, and I've tried to give them all away. But next year I'll probably see a few that I missed. I also have Tulip Poplars that you might be interested in.
BC
Thanks, Nancyann!
Carrie, glad to be a little part of your 'movement'! My dad died 10 years ago from Parkinson's disease and he was in a nursing home for the last 3 years of his life. We used to take him out whenever we could and it meant lifting him into and out of the car and lifting him into and out of the wheelchair. He couldn't talk and he couldn't move. By then, he wasn't much to look at, but he was my father and he was still there. It still astounds me how invisible we were when pushing that wheelchair. A couple of times I'm just sure my grip somehow slipped and I 'accidently' rammed someone who just couldn't be bothered to wait for us to move out of their way. I'm sure a couple of times this happened, I saw my dad smile.
Hello Carrie,
No, that is not condescending at all! I did benefit a great deal from spending time and working with my clients. I hope that they took as much away from it as I did. And I use the word client for a very specific reason. I worked for them, not for the state or the group home committee. I was there in the morning helping them get through their morning routine with all the diginity they deserved. I helped them do the things that required assistance, did they things that did not have the capacity to do and encouraged them as they continued to do what they chose.
I don't know if you have realized that I am the "them" to your "us" as well. There is nothing wrong with acknowledging differences. But there is everything is the world wrong with treating someone with differences with less than the respect that you would accept.
So anyway, I can understand why you don't like the idea of the workshops and I hope that you can understand why I do. In the right place with the right workers, it works. Obviously, such a place is no place for you! THAT should at least have been obvious to your commission *rolls eyes*.
I had a good friend growing up that was confined to a wheelchair. He was born with spina bifida. Such a nice guy! Whenever we would go out to the mall, there were ALWAYS the one or two people that had to stare or whisper or just be obnoxious jerks. He would just shrug and say, " I don't worry about what people think, they don't do it often."
Pixy,
I welcome any and all to our 'movement'. Your tale of becoming invisible with the wheelchair - it's happened to me countless times. Unless you're trying to sneak in late to a concert, or sneak out early from a meeting - then you might as well pain your nose red and wear a clown costume; there's no good way of sneaking!
I made a bumpersticker a while ago that said 'vote as if your healthcare depended on it'. Our guy was defeated, of course, and the new guy reduced which drugs Medicaid would pay for. Every year, the list of approved drugs is shorter. :(
I guess I'm getting off topic here, though. We're supposed to be talking about this FREE PLANTS. I will mention, though, that we - my husband and my two daughters - are flying down to NYC in February to see Wicked! The HP seats are $25 for disabled person -and- companion! The rest of the party has to sit in better seats that are $100 each. Still, for a party of four to see a broadway show for $250, free airfare (my DH works for an airline), "for everything else there's Mastercard"! You've got to take advantage of the tiny perks, like HP parking at Disneyworld, to make up for the rest of it,which can be awful, from moment to moment.
With everything, I keep remembering, how blessed I am to have a husband who gardens with me and for me because it makes me happy, and two sweet daughters, who occasionally help!
xxxx, Carrie
This message was edited Nov 16, 2005 1:31 PM
They are the lucky ones Carrie, never forget that. Big hugs coming your way :)) God bless all of you, Margo
The way I see this whole thing is, if I get nice plants, fine. If I don't, well, I have lost $20 before and survived :))
This message was edited Nov 16, 2005 1:52 PM