I'm so sad...

Everyone has such beautiful lilies and I have a tiny indiscript light light yellow one instead of the gorgeous oriental ones that I paid for.. **Cry in despair** Why did I have to buy from that horrible disreputable place... **Done Crying. Loud Sigh**

My heart bleeds for you. Buy from reputable sellers. That's the fact of the matter. Stay with Dave's and we will help you for next year!

I bought last year and didn't find DG until this May... No surprise they were rated so very very poorly.. Live and learn... In the meantime, lurking around here with envy..

lcosden-- Count on us!!! We will go above and beyond the call of duty to enable you in your lily adventures!

Pardalinum, thanks.. I went to the nurseries around me to look for some fragrant orientals nothing but half done asiatics.. Poo. I really got screwed over by that company.. **sigh** Lost all of last spring and this spring all due to this company..

You must remember and this is the TRUTH: We have all been there and suffered the same outcomes! Really! Maybe it was lilies or maybe some other mail order plant like bareroot perennials that arrived scrawny, moldy, dinky and yes, DEAD. And yes I blew a fair amount on my very first mail order. Nowdays my personal rule of thumb (even if the gardenwatchdog has good ratings) is to make my first time order a fairly small one, not to exceed 40 bucks or so.

Yeah.. I did the same as you.. I actually order a ton of stuff from them.. Foundation planting for our new construction, stuff for the garden beds, and the most important thing, the oriental lilies that I desparately wanted.. The other stuff, came dead too.. they tried to tell me that they were dormant. A month later, nada. Called and they sent replacements. The replacements took months and looked worse than before, only the hen&chicks survived.. Then again, those are tough little buggers. The entire order, the only thing I really cared about was the oriental lily bulbs.. I wanted fragrant lilies so bad that I called again.. Came but was moldy and some were like baked garlic soft.. 5 out of 16 grew but grew small weak colored asiatic lilies.. Some ones was telling me that it was probaby their reject stuff that they were pawning off on me.. Like I said.. Live and learn.. Nothing like personal experience to smack the rose colored glasses off..

LOL Yep, that'll make you lose your rosy shades in no time!

I would have prefer to learn the lesson in another manner.. Preferrable something that wouldn't brutiliy rip them off.. Little lessons over time would have accomplished the same with less grief...

Please remind me in the fall and I'll send you some of my oriental babies. They're not really large but are in bud right now and every year they'll get larger. :) (they're Marco Polo ) http://davesgarden.com/pf/go/72563/

We have all been there. Between not getting what you ordered, moldy, mushy bulbs, dead,( yes , and I do mean dead) plants, this does not set you up to win.
The first real lily place I found was B & D Lilies. I was never so pleased in all my life when I got that first order. In fact, I called them up and asked if they had made a mistake and sent me some other kind of bulb. I had never seen a lily bulb look that good on arrival, so much so, that I thought it was something else, and besides that, it was too big. Lol!
Well, they sure did laugh, and at the same time they reminded me that this is what a healthy, mature lily bulb looked like. Before I found Dave's and other favorite vendors that" live and breathe lilies", I only ordered from them. I still do order from them each year, as they were the first to "show me the way". It's all about quality, customer service and you get what you pay for. And after a few go arounds like yours, I decided I'd rather pay a few bucks more for excellence than throwing my money in the toilet and flushing.
We've all had our rose colored glasses smacked off. Isn't it good to know you're not alone?

And the ironic thing is - my Marco Polos were a bag of clearance bulbs for 75 cents at WW. LOL Three came up, one died. Next year 3 came up again and they've been doing great since. It took 5 years before I saw any babies and some of those are now 2 ft. tall. The late April deepfreeze seem to have affected them this year as they are only abt 4 ft tall. Last year they were over my head and I'm 5'2".

Definitely not where I'd recommend getting bulbs, but I'm thrilled to have them. :)

I think I have to move two lily beds this fall (DH thinks he needs another garage) so I'll have asiatics to share also. (all named)

Yeppers, lcosden, been there and done that several times. Sometimes I'm a slow learner. LOL :)

kooger, that would be awesome if you can share the fragrant one or the other asiatic ones with me, especially the fragrant one of course though.. I've just been stuck on fragrant orientals before the construction was complete. So the oriental lilies was the first thing I tried to get (then the foundation plants) when the construction was completed... so thank you.

and magnolialover, I know that my rose colored glasses need to come off but I just didn't want it ripped off brutily. Removed nice and slow, a bit at a time would have been better. Like if this order was late, that order was wrong, a plant here or there arrives dead.. Not the entire order, foundation plants, perannials bed, and especially not the oriental lily bulbs.. Talk about looking forward to something and nada.. Major major bumer.. Then you think it can't happen again.. More disappointment. You try one more time you tell yourself. Get and plant the moldy ones and still more disappointment, wrong flowers.. Kinda hard.

Maybe I should have know after the first time and when with a different company at that point. I don't know. That was my first experience with ordering plants from a catalog/online vendor. Kinda harsh for my first plant order experience. Like I said, would have rather learned that slowly.

Lindy

Ticker, if that's happened several times, please let me know where to avoid. I hope it's listed poorly in the watchdog. I have to say, that experience set me back a bit. I avoid online plant vendors for a year afterward.. The next time I order, (found DG by then) I used the watchdog and it went well. Thank *** for that. Don't think I would have been able to deal with another disappointment like before..

But you must remind me - I have poor short term memory (two surgeries the past year) .....can you believe I forgot until abt a half hour ago that it's my oldest child's 30th birthday today? And I totally forgot #2's birthday last month. He called me in the evening and I still didn't clue in! I felt like a horrible mother! So please, please don't feel like you're pushy or begging... send me a dmail... if it helps, say something like, did you dig your lilies yet? :)

And I'd like to know when you peeps dig your lilies. All I've ever done is plant them, not move them. ha ha

kooger, don't worry. I think my mom holds the record on that one.. she's left us more than once late in the evening for a ride home after AP classes at the local college. Can you imagine a junior high kid all alone after dark on a college campus without a soul around??? talk about being scared, I was terrified.. each time, it's the college security that sees me and calls my mom for me.. wish we had cell phones back then. would have been very very useful.

And, you bet I'll remind you. Especially since we're house poor at the moment. Didn't help that I squandered the landscaping rebate (cuz they decided not to landscape the property) for the house on some dead plants & bulbs.. Crap. I really need to stop thinking about that.. Gets me upset and down at the same time.. **meditating** (as if I know how..) Anyways, thanks again for your offer.

Lindy

lcosden, Only got nailed once by a really bad vendor, the infamous Michigan Bulb. That was shortly after I first discovered mail order. :) Way before internet ordering.

Before I considered lilies anything by filler bulbs, I didn't really care who I got them from, and most times, they were fine. But when I started caring that I was getting what they said I was getting that really reined me in on who I buy from. I don't do big box stores, I don't buy from folks that are internet warehousers. I now buy only from people who live and breath lilies. I still twitch and some of the glossy e-mails I get from the internet warehousers, but since I care that what I'm buying is what I'm buying, I'm resisting the old urges. :)

which I knew back then what I know now.. I heard that from a lot of people. Only buy from people that live and breath your specific flower. I did not know that. Who am I kidding. I've never even known that it was possible to get plants other than at your local nurseries. So, when they sent stuff, I bit. Guess I was a bit naive.. Incidentally, know I know Michigan Bulb is bad, I'll avoid them too. Good thing too since I was thinking of trying them. They do have such pretty pictures.. Guess that's why people refer to these places as gardening porn.

You got it. :) Heck, without Daves or Garden Web I'd still be buying from junk companies. Call it your learning curve and chalk it up to that. :)

Yup.. I learned to used that watchdog to figure out where to buy. Now I just need to learn faster how to keep them alive and healthy...

Icosden, who did you buy from? We all need to know who to avoid. Live and learn...

DirectGardening.com And I don't even know how they got my name and info. Their catalog just showed up in our mailbox when we moved in. And of course this newbie fell for it.. **Garden Porn** Avoid at all cost.
In the Garden Watchdog, they're rated 20 something out of a hundred.. Anyone that knows to use the Watchdog would avoid them. I never buy from a place without checking the watchdog first now... Burned once is more than enough.

Michigan Bulb got me once too, abt 25 years ago. They never sent a single thing!

kooger, hope you paid with credit card. you'd definite win the dispute.. come to think of it, I wonder if I dispute saying I got the wrong flowers... Humm... I wonder..