Bad Mail Order Experience - Please Help!!

Please give me some opinions? I do not know if it is right for me to experience this. I placed my order on 7/4 and did not receive them untill 9/14. The reason they gave me was the weather was too hot. When I received my plant I was very disappointed. The plants looked either sick or dead. The reply they gave me was the plant were dormant. Is this a normal experience with mail order? The attached photo are the plants I received. 1 Hydrangea - Nikko Blue, 2 China Love Grass, 1 Holly - Berry Heavy. I have Spiraea - pink Parasols on back order. Do I just learn from this experience... or anything else I can do??? Thank you for your great input.

That can sometimes be the case depending on where the plants are shipped from. Yours appear green, even the dry ratty ones. Most mail order will tell you their shipping schedule depending on where you live as well. I've recieved orders that were questionable but kept in mind that they had been in total darkness for a few days while being shipped. They all turned out okay. A good source for gardeners who purchase online is DG's Garden Watchdog. http://davesgarden.com/products/gwd/

Hope that helps and wish you luck with your new plants!

Lots of places won't ship plants when it's hot, usually they'll mention it somewhere on their website but sometimes you have to look for it. So that's perfectly normal, I wouldn't worry about it at all.

Your plants aren't in perfect shape, but they don't look that bad. The one in the front in particular looks fine. The grasses could very well be going dormant, especially if the nursery is in a colder area of the country. The plant in the back looks like it may have some leaf spot, but if that's the hydrangea then it should be fine, they lose their leaves for the winter and it's not going to kill the plant or anything.

Thank you so much for your valuable input.... I am learning.... Thank you again.

They should all come good by the look of them.....cut the dead stuff off and tidy them up ...you will feel better just looking at the green instead of the dried out stuff. Shipping things at the right time is a good thing....too hot kills. :)

I never expect mail order to arrive as I would have grown it in
my garden. I do expect them to be some stressed, but with planting
in their intended spot as soon as possible , they will eventually rebound.
As chrissy100 said, cut off the brown stuff, and be a little patient.
Plants rarely look as good when they arrive as the photographs they
use to sell them, they need your TLC to thrive!

2forget
By the photo, they really don't look all that bad. You almost have to give these mail order idiots a bit of rope to hang themselves. Some are far better than others. I'd recommend that you quiz some of the wizer DG'er experts. Those guys can smell a fraud in a hearbeat.

grasses sometimes will go dormant when it is dry, but when you water it should perk up.

Doesn't look bad to me either.
Remember these poor plants have been put in a dark box, in all new conditions.
Usually, when planted they look great in a few weeks. You won't see the difference between them and nursery bought local plants.
TLC and they're on their way.
Do look at the Watch dog, the best way of avoiding crooks!
Christie

wow.... thank you for all the wonderful tips..... I learn quite a lot from this mail order experience, I especially learn a LOT from all of your input. Feel so good to have this website, esp for a beginner like me. Thank you again. I appreciate very much. :-)

I bought a plant online a week or two ago. The guy just wrapped it in tinfoil and newspaper and stuffed it in a box. Needless to say, it was pretty banged up upon arrival. BUT, I stuck it under a flourescent light (it is a part sun plant) and it perked right up.

Shipping is hard on plants sometimes. I work at UPS (loading trucks) so I know what will inadvertantly happen to most packages. It WILL be destroyed if the box is not strong enough. It WILL be shaken/rattled/thrown/dropped constantly from point A to point B. It's not that we don't care, it's that these packages get carried around via conveyer belts and chutes, which get backed up, overflow, and all sorts of things.

When shipping plants, I reccomend using the "bubble technique". Even a 2 liter soda bottle works for this. Wrap the root ball in foil or something, cut the bottle in half, place the plant inside and tape the bottle back up. In the box, make sure to fill in all empty space with newspaper/bubble wrap. Empty space inside boxes is the biggest killer of packages. Remember - there will probably be a few hundred pounds sitting on top of your box in the truck. If you're not the one shipping the plants, pass this advice along to the person who is.

If you receive plants that are in horrendous condition because they were packaged crappy-ly, ask for your money back. Don't take no for an answer. If they refuse to refund your money, call your credit card company and report it. Most respectable businesses / eBay sellers will give refunds on dead plants.

My lesson learned, 2forget, is a little different, but quite important. I received several plants in the mail which I ordered. Instructions stated to take plant out of 4" pot and insert into hole twice the size of the root ball. I followed these instructions. The plants looked great. After two months, they were still green, but no new growth. I dug one of the cheaper ones up and removed as much dirt as I could. The 'supplier' had grown the plants in peat pots and placed them in larger pots with dirt around them. They did not desinigrate as they are said to do. This stiffled all growth and when I remove the peat pot, the plant fell apart. I lost 7 new plants this way. This was my first time ordering plants. Needless to say, I now make sure of how the plants are going to be shipped and if peat pots were used. It was a costly mistake but a lesson well learned.