Help! Need feedback before I review Willis Orchard!

Hi yall! This is my 1st of many forum posts and while I've written a few reviews I want some feedback before I post this next review. Admittedly, I am a newbie when it comes to buying plants online and the only reference I have are what I see at local stores. I'll get into the customer service stuff in my actual review because I don't need to be validated on how I feel as a consumer... what I need feedback on are the actual plants or twigs as it were:

First, out of 10 total plants let's look at the ONLY one that looks decent... it's not 3' tall as Willis advertises and I was charged full price. It might have been 3' tall had it not been butchered at the base either from damage or cutting harvesting.

"7-gallon, 3-4 feet, 4-year old fruiting size" Tifblue blueberry from Willis Orchard:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v704/SensiScholar/Tifblue1.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v704/SensiScholar/Tifblue2.jpg

Next, the only OTHER plant that had a single leaf, whatsoever, even IF dry and totally necrotic with leaf spot:

"7-gallon, 3-4 feet, 4-year old fruiting size" Climax blueberry from Willis Orchard.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v704/SensiScholar/Climax1.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v704/SensiScholar/Climax2.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v704/SensiScholar/Climax3.jpg

And now it's time for the parade of twigs which look like they were packaged the day I ordered them and sat in the box for the 30 days it took from ordering to receiving:

"3-year fruiting size" Southern Bababerry raspberry
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v704/SensiScholar/Baba.jpg

"3-year fruiting size" Heritage raspberry
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v704/SensiScholar/Heritage.jpg

"3-year fruiting size" Fall Gold raspberry
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v704/SensiScholar/Fall_Gold.jpg

*Note: on the 3 raspberries, I could have photographed the roots to show how even 1 shovel full excavated to be double the width was OVERKILL. The good news is these 3 were planted awfully fast.*

(2) "3-year old fruiting size" Thompson Seedless grape vines, (2) "3-year old fruiting size" Red Flame grape vines & (1) "3-year old fruiting size" Summer Royal grape vines
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v704/SensiScholar/Grapes.jpg

With the twig fest pictured here.... my question is.... am I completely out of my cotton-pickin' mind to notice that the grapes and raspberries I've seen in the last week at both Lowe's and at the flea market ACTUALLY HAVE LEAVES IN THE 3RD WEEK OF APRIL?????? I could understand receiving twigs like these if it were......... JANUARY..... but on 22APR09 without so much as 1 micron of green on any of them? Are this things overwintered like my plumerias (de-potted and stored bare root) and have yet to see the light of day in 2009?

Did Willis butcher the ever-lovin' crap out of them SO they could fit all 10 plants in an 8"x8"x48" box for shipping? I have to say that after seeing and opening the box I THEN understood how a package with 10 "MATURE" plants weighed 9.7 lbs. as listed by Fed Ex on their tracking page... that's less than 1 lb. per "MATURE" plant.... conceding the box weighed nothing..... conceding the hand fulls of wet polymer crystals around the roots weigh nothing...


So, I know I don't feel good about this purchase but I'm unsure about the twigs and whether or not this is "normal". My blackberries from Sooner Plant farm and Garden Crossings had leaves... and GC is up in MI which was JUST thawed out.... and my strawberries from Gurney's also had leaves and they're in IN but Willis Orchard is in South Georgia... USDA Zone 8 just like here in Dallas....

Why do the grape vines and raspberries at Lowe's look like they're alive, meaning with leaves, and the ones Willis Orchard KNOWINGLY shipped this customer looked like what's in the photos of the links I posted?

Is Willis Orchard trying to tell me that the corporate big box stores that happen to also have a nursery does a better job both growing the plants and satisfying their customers than a business SOLELY engaged in plants and plants alone? While I didn't see brad nails and hinges for sale at Willis Orchard I *DO KNOW* that when I've been unsatisfied with a plant from Lowe's, only once in many years, *I* didn't even need my receipt to take advantage of their 1-year guarantee... I couldn't find the receipt so I took the dead plant, the plant tag I did save any they looked up my purchase via my debit card number I used.

Having read the reviews about Willis Orchard returns, should these sticks not make it and I stand firm on getting what I paid for... as in LIVE plants the size I ordered them... I know I get to have the "very special joy" (sarcasm of the highest order) of starting with the run-around & reach-around theater which progresses to me being out even more money to ship Willis Orchard back their kindling and quite possibly an encore performance of the run-around & reach-around act this time regarding when I'll actually get the replacements... it's not like there was a two-way dialogue during the month it took to get the original order... there was a dialogue but it was me calling them and me talking to myself about something along the lines of, "Lord I hope I can just plant them, post a good review and enjoy and I hope they get here before it's 100 degrees and I'm harvesting my 10 "fruiting age" plants as I pull them out of the box".

The bottom line is that Climax has seen better days and both blueberries were undersized. Maybe it's S.O.P. to ship grapes and raspberries as twigs but having never bought them, online, and having seen them locally I have some doubts. Not my blackberries nor my citrus trees that I've ordered online looked like 9 of the 10 Willis Orchard shipped me and the Tifblue FROM Willis Orchard looks decent, not up to par with what I paid for (in diameter it's smaller than the necrotic Climax but the Climax hadn't been butchered like the Tifblue) so THIS is why I'm asking for feedback before I go on the record with a DG review.

This message was edited Apr 23, 2009 8:32 AM

Your first blueberry looks fine. I wouldn't worry too much about the height--it's not that far under 3 ft that I would worry about it. The second blueberry doesn't look good at all and I would ask for a replacement. With the berries and the grape, it's hard to say if they're dead or dormant--given that they're in GA I would think they should have leafed out by now but you never know. You could try the scratch test--use your fingernail to scrape some bark near the base and see if there's green underneath.

Before you post any reviews of any sort, the first thing you should do is contact the company and see if you can work things out with them to your satisfaction. It is always better to try and work things out with them first, then if they don't come through with refunds/replacements then you can leave a negative report for them.

ga weather has been wacky as i live on the border but my grapes have started to leaf out . if they have green under the bark then they are alive as stated above.

sorry dont know nothing about blue berries.

ALSO you have to remeber the stuff at lowes and comercial places as such are forced and grown in other areas and shipped in. most arent even for that zone. its for the money. so you cant realy on lowes and stuff as accurate guides for things.

I had to pick up some more mulch at Lowe's today so I looked at the grapes & berries and they were grown by Tri-B Nursery in Hulbert, OK and every one of the trees I've bought at Lowe's and Willow Tree Nursery (flea market vendors my wife & I adore) were all grown at Ran-Pro Farms in Tyler, TX which are both a short drive from Dallas and in Zone 8 just like Willis Orchard so it's not like the plants at Lowe's came from Mexico or the Rio Grand Valley in Zones 9 & 10. Lowe's near my house buys from the same wholesale nurseries that the "mom & pop" retailers buy from and while, for example, Ran-Pro does wholesale things that don't do well in North Texas such as cherry trees none of the nurseries here, including Lowe's, will stock them. If I'm not mistaken it is Lowe's policy to only stock plants for the area where the store is located but does so by using local wholesalers as it makes sense logistically and for the bottom line.


I'd argue that I'm as anti-Corporatism as anyone but every business is out to make money... except GM, Chrysler, etc... lol :)

This message was edited Apr 24, 2009 1:43 PM

A lot of places have greenhouses or hoop houses which can give things a head start, and also even though TX and GA may be in the same zone it doesn't necessarily mean they had the same winter this year or that spring is coming in at exactly the same time. I know the eastern part of the country got hit by some weird unusually cold weather this year that may have set some things back. I'm not sure if TX suffered from that same cold snap or not.

Places like Lowes are not usually going to stock things that are dormant because they are relying on pretty leaves and flowers to drive sales to people who really don't know much about plants, so they're going to find companies that have got things that are leafing out. Vs with a mail order nursery, you are choosing things based off a picture on a website vs looking at the actual plant, so vendors can afford to let nature take its time rather than trying to force things to leaf out early.

ecrane3 is correct - I have some inside knowledge of the gardening depts. at Lowe's and HD - they HAVE to stock plants that are in prime marketing state rather than prime planting state...two different things entirely. They are counting on a very quick turnaround since the losses involved in keeping a large inventory of plants alive over a long period of time just isn't practical for them. They operate these gardening departments on a very tight profit margin and their vendors know that they have to force plants under greenhouse conditions before delivering them to the local stores. These are plants for "impulse" buyers; that's not a derogatory comment for Lowe's or HD - it's just a marketing necessity for them.

I buy almost all of my gardening supplied, (dirt, peat moss, gloves, etc.), at the big box stores, but I order my plants from specialty growers and those little sticks become lovely, vibrant and vigorous plants in their own time.

*dusts off thread*

I finally reviewed Willis as Negative after half of their replacements were also dead. Its not even getting what you pay for when only 8 of 10 live and you give them 12 months to fix their initial failure so getting a good deal is completely off the table.

i had a similar experience with raspberries fro willis last year and i called them. they said not to even worry about sending back the plants, that they would replace them because it had been a bad year for raspberries.. now, 3 months later i received the replacements looking very good and alive although dormant because its january. so i am satisfied that they are upholding their end of their "friendly guarantee".