Comments regarding Gurney's Seed & Nursery

I emailed them to cancel my order twice since I found a better deal elsewhere. Two weeks later, they finally emailed back and said that they could cancel it because it was being prepared to ship. They had moved the ship date up a month. The items have shipped and the ground is still rock solid up here in Michigan. I'll never order from them again.

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There was a delay in answering this Customer's email, which was our fault. However, the ship date of his order was not moved up a month; we ship plants according to USDA zone opening guidelines. A portion of this Customer's order was cancelled, so he was not charged for this part. He has received a full refund for the part that was shipped. "

My seed shipment has been pushed back fo rthe 3rd time today, I have contacted them before this last pushback and they assured me i'd recieve my seeds this week, well, I checked my order status and all they did was push my seed order back ANOTHER 2 weeks, they have completely screwed my indoor planting schedule and consiquently my outdoor planting schedule. The least they could do is say they dont have product and cant ship to me so i could cancel my order and make another with some other company. I have the feeling they are screwing me on purpose now. I now HATE this company and will NEVER use them again. Tell your family and friends, Gurneys is BIG corporation and dont give a sh**t about people who depend on seeds for survival, Find someone else. I HATE GURNEYS

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We do care about our Customers, and we do offer a satisfaction guarantee. The Customer was contacted for a possible resolution, but never responded back."

My experience with this company is appalling. I have ordered from them in the past with minimal complaints, yet this time around was unacceptable. On Feb 28 I sent out my order for a Contender peach tree. I got an e-mail requesting my mailing address on March 5th. I replied and sent the requested info and then got a confirmation e-mail confirming my order had been processed. I thought all was well until today when I got an invoice in the mail saying they had not received my payment. I called customer service and they said I needed to fax them proof from my bank that the check had cleared. I called my bank and they said that the check had indeed cleared and that I had to pick up a copy of the check in person as proof that it was cashed. I have a farm to tend to and I cannot just drive 20 miles to the bank without it being a big hassle. I do not feel that it should be my responsibility to prove I paid for something if Gurney's messed up the order. The lady at customer service was polite and sympathetic, though that did not fix the problem. I order from many different mail-order companies and have never had this problem. I will not order from this company again.

Several months ago, I was very encouraged, after a long failure search with other companies, that Gurney's had Goldrush lil big apple trees they could ship to me.

I explained by area's need of a late winter shipment date and requested a not later than the last week in Feb for them to arrive.

To my great surprise, the almost 3 foot dwarf apple tree arrived in the third week of February; at a perfect time for me to plant and be assured that with a heavy layer of mulch this tree I planted should have all the time it's bare roots needed to acclimate in preparation to adequately support it's upcoming spring leaf out flush.

I was also surprised to see that they included with this dwarf apple tree a planting kit which included a white spiral tree Guard, a Peletized Calcium packet, Garden Solutions All Natural Fruit Tree Sarter 2-0-2 Food packet along with good instruction on when and how to apply these items.

What further pleased me was how many fine feeder roots were attached to the main bareroots and how healthy both they and the buds on the prepruned branchless tree appeared.

After planting the tree, I could see that there was still one surprise in the package. It was a Tree-Mate-o which could be reused as often as needed until the tree's trunk reaches 2 inches thick, along with my own "T" stakes to support this new young apple tree.

This was my first time to order from Gurney's and I have never been more please with the products they sent, the price I paid, and the customer service I received.

I ordered two fruit trees from Gurney. The communication was good, and the trees arrived timely and in excellent health. I will definitely order from them again. Very satisfied.

I ordered eight items from Gurney's last spring. The first part of the order quickly arrived and my husband set the box on the kitchen table for me to find when I arrived home. Imagine my horror to discover bugs crawling all over my kitchen table when I got home. Included in my order was a 2 lb. bag of "All Natural Potato Food" which was highly infested with bugs. I quickly sealed the bag in an airtight container to kill the bugs. Not a good start for my 1st order from this company. Additionally, three of the items (bulbs) did not grow at all. The company has placed an order to reship two of the three. They no longer carry the third item and have issued me a paper replacement certificate that can only be redeemed by mail order.

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Valued Customer - Your replacement certificate can also be used via a phone order. All you need to do is let the Agent know the Certificate number, and he/she will be able to apply it to your order."

I us them for some garden seeds, if you have the coupon the price is OK. They came in time, and germinated well, but I would never use them for live plants. There are just too many other great choices out there. Plants need more loving care than this giant company can give.

In my area, we don't have great variety when it comes to garden centers. I have ordered seeds and plants from Gurneys and have always been happy. I am the only one around that I know of that grows pumpkins in my area. I have tried other seeds from local shops and have not been nearly as satisfied.

Ordered seeds and garden supplies. Package arrived in less than seven days (1 day after email saying items were shipped). I have used this company for over 25 years without a problem.

Gurney's catalog is totally annoying: they never list the latin name for a tree or shrub, so you don't know exactly what you're ordering. Also, if you compare prices, you notice that they aren't all that low at Gurney's. They seem to be the same company as Henry Field, even use the same photos and descriptions in many instances. However, they do honor their guarantee, so I guess I can't complain.

I recently placed an order with Gurney's. They had a special in which if you ordered $50.00 worth of materials, they would deduct $25.00. I made sure that I had the $50.00 total, although it meant that I had to order some things that I really didn't need or want. When I submitted my order, their web site deleted the last item in my list, bringing the total to about $3.00 less than the mandatory $50.00, which meant that I was charged for the whole order (over $60 with shipping and handling).
Not that that was not bad enough, but when I got my confirmation email concerning the order, the item numbers and the names of the items did not match. I was not sure of what I would be receiving.
About the only thing good I can say about my experience with this company was that when I called the next morning to cancel, they apologised and immediately canceled my order.

The blueberry plants featured in the Sunday circular are really little sticks. They are cheap and you get what you pay for.

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Valued Customer: We do ship starter plants (whether they are potted or bareroots). We also do have a 100% lifetime guarantee, so if your plant(s) do not live/perform, all you have to do is let us know."

There's no category for "mildly aggravated" so I'll pick this one.

My beef right now is their inflexible shipping policy- I wrote on the order I sent in that I wanted everything shipped ASAP, and instead they divided the order up into 3 separate shipments over the next 2 months. I wrote to their customer service department about it, and they said

"Thank you for your email. Our ship dates for the individual items are governed by The Department of Agriculture according to the zone you live in."

This is patently untrue- I've received orders from nurseries all over the US who honored a request for shipment during my winter planting season here in zone 8. What they really meant is that their POLICY is to ship at "proper planting time"- regardless of what a customer wants.

My order is all for cold-hardy plants, sitting in their cold-storage facilities. Raspberry plants, onion plants, asparagus crowns, Jerusalem artichoke tubers. Nothing that could be hurt in shipping by the weather.

I guess that patience is a virtue. "If we can be of further assistance, please feel free to contact us." Yeah, right.

I think its good to realize that a lot of catalogs are really the same company. Gurneys is also Spring Hill, Brecks, Henry Field, Gardens Alive, and probably some more, and really I have found you pretty much get what you pay for. The Jung group is also extensive, Jung, Shumway's, Vermont Bean Catalog, Totally Tomatoes. The stuff might not blow your mind but its also pretty cheap, what do you expect.

I ordered strawberries over 7 years ago and they are still producing berries even though they are in a flower pot on my patio. I barely water them or feed them and they are as happy as can be. I live in Cali so maybe that's why I've always had great luck with their seeds and plants. Their plants do much better than other companies plants. I now only order through them and couldn't be happier.

It seems like a hit or miss company. I've placed three orders with a decent success rate, but not as good as other companies. The blueberries did well, so did the strawberries and peppers. But the currants I bought died after three months (I still don't know what killed them, they were doing great until about a month before they died), and of the six raspberries I bought, only two survived the first summer. The peony I bought from them was stolen by a rodent, so I never knew how it would have done. I would reccommend that you buy blueberries or strawberries from this company, but I'm not sure what else I can reccommend. I would not reccommend the currants or raspberries. So it's really just OK, neither good nor bad, from my experience.

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Contacted the Customer for information so plants could be reshipped (because we do have a guarantee); have not received a response."

(Kansas, Zone 6)
My family and I have ordered from Gurney's for many years, and our experience has always tended to be on the positive side. I have always experienced good germination rates (80-100%) from the seeds, and have even been able to get most of the twigs and beat-up plants to grow well. Although I have ordered several live plants; (2 Dwarf Banana trees, all four dwarf citrus trees, Pomegranate, and Gardenia) I have never experienced the extreme mold problem that others have. I generally receive my order within a few weeks, and even at the speed that most things get through the postal system, I am still surprised occasionally by a small amount of mold on the soil .

Last spring I ordered and received asparagus crowns and was unable to plant them. When I reported this to Gurney's they offered to send replacements with free shipping in Spring 2008.

I placed a first time order with Gurney's several weeks ago and have been waiting for shipping confirmation. I noted online that one of the rose bushes I ordered was scheduled for delivery March 08, so I called to ask if I could add 2 additional rose bushes to my order. Operator tells me "Mamn you are not going to receive any of this order you are on our BAD cancelled account list for too many replacements." Since I had never placed an order with this company before I began questioning this.
Well, they take phone calls for "all" companies. This is connected to the problem I had with Spring Hill Nursery when they sent dead plants and closed my account because I requested replacements as per their unconditional lifetime guarantee. So, this is just a warning to check and see where you might be ordering your plants from before you place an order. And, how rude not to even notify me when I have been waiting for shipment of this order.

I have ordered seeds and plants from Gurney's many times over the years and have always been happy with the products recieved. This past spring I ordered a "Snowball" bush and it is growing and looking wonderful. I can't wait to see it bloom next year. I also have great luck with their seeds. This is my third year growing Blue Morning Glorys, I just Love the way they accent the front door trellis. I normally get 90% germination rate on all the seeds I order from them. I also love their great selection and varieties. This is one of my favorite catalogs to shop from.

Last spring I ordered some bareroot fruit trees from Gurneys. A Superior plum, an Alderman plum, a Flat wonderful peach, a Halls hardy almond, an Olympic pear. Let me tell you I am shocked by the amount of growth these bareroot trees can do. The 30" bareroot Olympic has grown 5 feet taller. The Halls hardy almond has a beautiful shape and will bloom outside the bedroom window. The Flat wonderful peach has gorgeous maroon foliage and a peach fragrance. The Superior plum is vigorous. The Alderman plum arrived dead and was not available for replacement till next spring. I ordered fall bulbs etc.. Guess what , all the stuff not yet shipped has been consolidated on the invoice including the Alderman. I don't have to worry. I just got a coupon for 25$ off $50 order. I got two more Olympic pears for my father to plant along side of a Keifer and a Bartlett in upstate New York. Thirty dollars total, wow. Thanks Gurneys.

My husband wanted to surprise me. He ordered 20+ plants for me. (It has been several years ago, I forget the number.) They arrived, but they were so small, they fit into a mailbox less than 1 cubic foot square. They were spindly. I sent them back. We also accidentally got an order for beet seeds. We sent them back and requested return postage, which we never got. Even though they are a 100-200 miles away, we will not order from them again.

I have been using Gurney's for a couple of years. I bought 2lbs of Gotta Have It sweet corn in anticipation of the corn they are so proud of. Less than 30% germinated and what did never got taller than 3'. They refunded the purchase price but not the shipping even though that was all I ordered on that shipment. I left a feedback on their website but they left it off. There are some negative feedbacks on the corn but when they send you a link trying to sale you the corn, only the good feedback is accessible. I guess that I will be looking for another seed company.

Gurney's sent my seed a month late, causing me to plant Brocade Sweet Corn from Stokes in less "choice" places anticipating the arrival of gotta have it sweet corn. Then after completly giving up on my order I planted over the "reserved space" with more brocade much later than I should have. That same day the Gurney's order finally came in. I would have had to till it under to plant the late seeds from gurney's. Very disappointing. The gotta have it sweet corn was a huge flop. Both plots of Brocade out performed it by leaps and bounds. Brocade had consistant 2inch diameter ears 8 inches long, intensely sweet flavor pollinated to the tip, on 7 and 8 foot stalks. The gotta have it grew 2 to 5 foot stalks and 1to 1 1/2 inch diameter, sparsely pollinated ears 2 to 6 inches long. I was too ashamed of it to give any away to the neighbors.

Their delivery time was not the fastest, but of the nine plants I ordered, I got nine strong, healthy plants. I am happy with the high success rate.

I ordered numerous plants and seeds from Gurney's in the last two years. The tomatoe plant arrived, completely dried out, they had been shipped standard and arrived 2 weeks after they had been mailed. Out of the six rasberry bushes, only one has leafed out, even with the mulching and watering. The plants that I bought from a local nursery are doing wonderful. My snow peas did not germinate, maybe only 25% did. I bought two apple trees, two pear and two plum also. The apple trees are doing extremely poor with only a couple of budded leafs at the base of the trees. The pear are doing well and only one plum is doing good. When I placed the order online it was easy to do, unfortunetly the products did not live up to what I expected. Customer service states that they cannot replace the plant until the end of the growing season, so i have not received a credit nor any plants. I have four perinniel gardens and a large vegetable garden, but will not order from gurneys ever again.

Half of my order was not good. There is 50% chance that plants received from this company will not be good.

I ordered 50 strawberry plants, 12 raspberry plants, 3 blueberry bushes, and 3 blackberry plants. Ordering was quick and easy off the site. Items were shipped in two deliveries. Delivery estimate for the first delivery was June 9, 2007 the date of the second delivery was June 13, 2007. The Strawberries arrived on June 8th with strong roots and a bit of new growth with no sign of disease. Unfortunately, only 26 of the 50 strawberry plants arrived. Customer Service was quick and polite and the rest of my strawberries were ordered that afternoon with an expected arrival date of June 14-16.

On June 12, 2007, 3 blackberry plants, 3 blueberry bushes, and 6 raspberry plants arrived. Once again, customer service was called. I was told that the replacement raspberries would not be shipped until early spring 2008. I informed them that I was not satisfied with that response and asked to be put through to the supervisor. The supervisor was out so I left my number. After 20 minutes without a call back, I returned the call and left another message after receiving the same answer about my replacement raspberry plants. After 45 minutes I called back and was told that my replacement raspberries would be shipped on Thursday. After checking the order status and still seeing the same ship date of March 2008, I called back this time getting to the supervisor who told me that they were out of stock of the red raspberries.

On June 13, 2007 I received a phone call from Gurney's apologizing for the mix-up and consequent delay. I felt that the apology was a salve for sore nerves, though it did little to convince me to order from this company again. I'm officially done.

I received a shipment of sweet potato plants at the end of May. They looked as if they had been in a dehydrator - all the leaves crumbled off immediately. I called Customer Service right away and was assured that replacements would be shipped out (I assumed, in a timely manner). Now I'm told that the plants won't arrive until sometime toward the middle or end of the first week in July. Since that's too late to plant sweet potatoes, I canceled my order and will find something else to plant in the bed that I had prepared. That's not what I call making things right. I realize that damage can happen during shipping, but when a customer is counting on an item and ordered it 6 months in advance, it's up to the company to quickly replace the damaged item - at least in time to plant it. I will never order from Gurney's again.

On May 15, 2007, I placed an order with Gurney. I ordered one Dwarf Key Lime, one Dwarf Granny Smith Apple, and one Dwarf Sundance Apple.

The Key Lime arrived first, ten days after I placed my order. After an entire week in the mail, the soil was still moist and the leaves green. There was some superficial damage to the plant (torn or cut leaves), but overall, I was impressed by the condition. I potted it up, and it's still doing fine. I wish Gurney had included the plant size (at shipping) in the description, but for $10, I wasn't expecting much, so its small size didn't really throw me. Had this been the only item I'd ordered I'd have been quite pleased with Gurney.

The next item to arrive was the bare root Granny Smith. I was less pleased with this plant. There were two broken limbs, and the pruning appears to have been done to make it fit well in the box, rather than with the final shape of the tree in mind. The tree has not yet broken dormancy. I will update this review if it does not do so.

The price on the Dwarf Granny Smith wasn't nearly as nice as that for the Key Lime, and frankly, I probably could have gotten a better tree for the same price (or less) if I'd just waited another couple of weeks for my local garden centers to put their fruit trees on clearance. I know that Lehman's near Council Bluffs, IA only charges $30 for their potted Granny Smith compared to $27 for Gurney's bare root version! And Lehman's has excellent customer service, unlike Gurney.

Today, after waiting more than 3 weeks for my Sundance tree to arrive, I went on Gurney's website to check the status of my order. Not only has that tree not shipped, but my order was canceled. They did not send me an e-mail notifying me of the change, and when the invoices arrived with my previous two shipments, they indicated that the tree would ship soon. They sent me e-mails when they shipped the other trees. Why not send me one saying that they were not going to ship the third?

Overall, my experience has been disappointing, and I won't be ordering from Gurney again.

I ordered two tophat blueberry plants, two climbing clematis (BOGOF), and some watermelon seeds from Gurney's online. It took over two weeks to receive my order and the plants will be lucky to make it. They are the most pitiful things I have ever seen. I have planted them in containers and am waiting to see any growth. I am marking my experience as neutral for now, but plan to update. As of now, I would not order from them again.

I had been a Gurney's customer for over 35 years and had substantial loyalty to this supplier. However in the last three years, I have gotten such poor products and variable service, that I have given up on them. Their pepper and tomato plants mostly arrive dead. The asparagus arrives in October for a spring special with no notification of the delay and after the order had been cancelled. Their peas, beans (pole, bush and lima), and corn seeds have poor germination rates and I end up having to buy seeds locally and varieties which were not the ones I wanted simply to get plants up in time for harvesting. I have received sweet potato plants in late July, almost three months after planting time. To their credit, they did give a refund for the sweet potato plants, but getting ahold of their customer service is difficult and time-consuming. Never again with Gurney's and never with any of their affiliated companies.

I will never order from this place again. My plants were dead when they arrived. The fact that they do not have a 1-800 number should have been a clue. It has taken me weeks and three long distance phone calls and I still have not recieved my refund. Their call center is not located in the company and they are very unhelpful. I am still out almost $30 and the phone charges. Order from someone else.

My husband ordered 36 ice plants for me as a surprise for my birthday. They arrived today. Out of the 36, 1 might make it. They were packed 6 tiny plugs in a plastic container. 2 containers have nothing but dirt, not even any dead stems. The other 4 are a mess of green SLIME. I found one plant with 2 tiny leaves on it.
My husband has tried several times to contact them by phone and he either gets"the party you are calling is not available" or it disconnects halfway through the computerized answering service. DO NOT ORDER from this company. It was a rip-off. Even if any of them showed up alive, they were the smallest plugs I have even seen.

I ordered 2 plants. One was very very small, but ok. The other was totally dead. I called their non-toll-free number and was offered a replacement which came 3 weeks later - also completely dead. I just called - twice. The first time I was disconnected for no reason. The second time I called the lady offered me a refund for the cost of the plant. I said I wanted a refund for the shipping cost and she said she was not allowed to do that. I asked why not and she said she didn't know. I asked to speak to a supervisor and while I was in the middle of my explanation she hung up.

Never never again will I buy from this company. I buy from a lot of mail order companies but this has been my worst experience.

Their customer service staff has always been helpful - they're willing to replace any plant or seed that did not perform satisfactorily. One of the best mail order companies I've dealt with

I was very dissapointed with this company. Many others have had a similar experience it seems. I ordered several seeds, asparagus plants, currant bushes, and dry root liorope plants.

1. plants are very small

2. seeds do not ship immediately as described on the website, they actually shipped over a week after the liorope plants.

3. the bushes were twigs with some scraggly roots.

4. my seeds have germinated reasonably well, but the carrots have done nothing at all yet. the liorope have been in the ground since 5/19 and have yet to produce a single leaf.

5. customer service is terrible. one person that i spoke ot on their NON-toll free phoneline actually asked me "what do you want me to do about that".

6. asparagus was so late shipping that it was changed to a fall shipping scedule and i was NOT notified till i called to see what was taking so long. after wich i canceled the order.

I hope that the luck i have with the bushes is better than the carrots. don't wast your money here. swallowtail garden seeds is great for seeds and burpee i'm sure is better for asparagus and currants, i'll be ordering from these two places in the future.

Gurney's suck. I called about their blueberry plants and about their shipping timeframe. I went over the fact that I travel all the time. I was told to place the order and put in a specific ship date and everything will be fine. Low and behold, two weeks later, the ship date has passed and I'm told that the items are now on backorder. Gee after I specifically called to ask about those items, you'd think that they'd tell me that they are on backorder. No. I had to arrange my flights around to make sure I'd be home and now, nada. Never again. They are the worst companies I've dealt with. Not only did I not get my plants and order, I had the additional expense of airline change fees. And they had the audacity to tell me that they're not sure if the website reflects the information because their website an antiquated system that's not linked to the company directly. Like that gives me so any more confidence in them. My advice, find someone more reputable. You'll pay a bit more in the beginning but much less headache and cost less in the long run. Never again Gurney, never again.

In 2006 I ordered several plants from Gurney's, a snowball bush and a Hall's Hardy Almond tree (larger variety) the order came, plants planted. The snowball bush never broke dormancy, not sure why but this year I let them know it never bloomed. Got a quick confirmation and replacement bush, which seems to be happy and growing. YES! The larger almond tree was substituted with 2 smaller ones as they were sold out. OK, no problem. 1 bit the dust over the winter, so I emailed that one didn't make it could I get a replacement. They said probably early April. Mid April no tree, so I emailed for a delivery date. That started a series of conflicting emails from what appeared to be an out of country customer service center, with each answer more confusing than the last. One said my tree was coming from the Netherlands and was held up in customs-not probable for an almond tree. One said I ordered from Brecks not Gurney's-Breck's doesn't handle almond trees, nor have I ever placed an order with them. I used the order #'s on my Gurney's forms. Several other follow up email responses made no sense so I figured oh well, not worth the hassle of trying to re-explain. I don't have time to train "the help" on doing the job they were hired for. I did get the tree, it came from MO, not outside the US as I figured. It is in the ground and starting to break dormancy. So the guarantee is good, but dealing with their email customer service dept. is a bit of a problem because they don't seem to understand. It seems to be a clearing house for all Gurney's affliates. They must give the help basic answer sheets to draw from rather than being able to handle each concern directly and specifically.