Comments regarding Burgess Seed

I purchased over $50 worth of bulbs, plants, and trees from EBurgess.com this year. After waiting for over a month, I contacted the company to see if my order would be shipping soon. The customer service rep informed me that it may take 2 more weeks to ship. At this point I kindly asked for my order to be cancelled. She said that she did not have the power to cancel orders and that I would have to email customer service to cancel my order, which could take up to 2 weeks to process.

After sending an email to cancel my order with EBurgess.com, I expected that this mess would be finshed. Well, about a week later my plants showed up on the doorstep. I decided to give the company the benefit of the doubt and planted the seedlings/bulbs in my order. After all, if I decided to return the shipment it would be at MY CHARGE!

At this point most of my plants have been in the ground about 3-4 weeks. I can safely say that only about 1/4 of my order is still alive. The canna bulbs have all rotted, the evergreens lost all their needles, and the blackberry plants are dead sticks with no sign of life! I am mad as heck that I lost $50 on plants that are not growing. To send the plants back would cost me more money than it's worth. Please take this as a cautionary tale. I have had a very bad experience with this company.

"On Oct 28, 2011 1:44 PM, Burgess Seed responded with:

We did receive an order from this customer on 04-27-11. Our website does state to allow up to 2 weeks for processing and the order is then scheduled to ship based upon availability. This order was shipped on 05-13-11. The customer’s order was already in shipping at the time their request to cancel was received.

We are sorry to hear that some of the items did not survive. All of the items are covered under our one year replacement guarantee. We would be more than happy to issue replacements for the items that have died and do hope that the customer takes advantage of the guarantee as we do not require the items to be returned. We have tried to contact the customer via Dmail and have had no response.
"

I ordered several trees from them this year and was pleasantly surprised to find that unlike most of the nurseries these trees were actually dug up with all its roots and not sheered off right under the ground. I have planted them and so far they have leaves on them. I also purchased several plants including two rose bushes and they are all doing well. I was pleasantly surprised with my plants and have ordered again.

Dead and dying plants thrown in a box. Some things looked like they had been on compost heap for awhile. Those plants were either dead when packed or the box was packed weeks before it was shipped. Terrible customer service too.
Really awful- cant imagine how they stay in business no repeat customers if they send stuff like that.
Never had plants shipped in syuch terrible condition.

"On Oct 28, 2011 11:10 AM, Burgess Seed responded with:

Many of the plants are dormant when shipped. Since they are dormant, and not leafed out, they may be mistaken for dead. After being planted and usually within 6 weeks of warm weather, they will come out of dormancy and show signs of life.

Once prepared, the plants are packaged and shipped immediately. We have been in business since the 1930’s as a result of the fact that most of our customers are pleased and satisfied with their orders and we are extremely proud of our part in the horticultural and gardening industries.

We were able to contact this customer via dmail concerning her $60+ order. The customer had taken advantage of our guarantee and received a refund for the $12 worth of plants that died.
"

The worst mail order company I have ever dealt with.

All the plants came in dead except for the onion sets. The customer service should be renamed customer dis-service. It took 5 letters and phone calls to get a replacement. The replacements had most all of the roots cut off. In the end the only thing I got for my $150.00 order was some onion sets.

Be careful, they have multiple brands that they sell under.

"On Nov 3, 2011 9:35 AM, Burgess Seed responded with:

We have contacted this customer via D-mail and hope that they took advantage of our guarantee and offer for further replacements/credit on any dead product."

Why anyone would order from this Company is beyond me. I got 25 strawberry plants....(ok...we are talking a $6.99 product which was less that 10% of my total order) that arrived completely covered in mold and smelt horrible. Thinking maybe they'd come out of it, I planted them. Within days, it was obvious they weren't coming back. I informed Burgess customer service that I'd like replacements, but that everything else was doing great. Easy...Right? Not with Burgess. Since I'd planted them...I needed to wait six weeks
'to see' if they'd come out of shock, then send them back the plants with the original shipping labels. Are they SERIOUS!!! So, off they go into the mail tomorrow. They are a joke!!

"On Nov 2, 2011 7:40 AM, Burgess Seed responded with:

We do typically ask that the plants are allowed 6 weeks to begin showing signs of life. Strawberries are shipped bareroot and may appear to be dead since they are not leafed out and actively growing. It can take up to 6 weeks during warm weather for plants to come out of dormancy and show signs of life. Also, in transit, it may happen that a surface mold will develop. This does not harm the plant, and needs to simply be washed off before planting. We do have a one year guarantee and do not require that the plants be returned for replacements. We show that a replacement for the strawberries has been issued. "

i ordered many fruit trees and others trees from this company in good faith after reading their replacement policy. i had 3 pussy willows, 1 poplar, and many of the the fruit trees to arrive in poor condition or dead. i sent a list of what died along with my shipping label to them. lo and behold they said they never received my letter, could i sent proof of order. i sent the credit card statement with the order on it to them, by certified mail this time. they write back and say without original shipping label they can't do anything. i wrote back that they lost the label and requested the credit card statement, by certified mail again. i got the card saying they received my last letter , but still have not gotten any new plants. these people are not trust worthy. if you do order from them, good luck, and photo copy your shipping label, and sent all mail certified. i guess my next step is to try small claims court.

"On Oct 28, 2011 1:43 PM, Burgess Seed responded with:

We are sorry to hear of the problem with the trees. We have checked all of our files and do not show that we have received the original shipping label for this order but did make an exception and issue replacement upon receipt of proof of purchase. The replacement order was shipped in May and we are assuming everything is satisfactory as we have not had further complaint from the customer. "

I ordered my first order on April 1st, 2011. I still have not received my order and they charged my card on April 5th. I have called them and they said "bad weather" etc.... It is April 29th and I still do not have either of my orders....

Don't do business with this company. You will be sorry....!

"On Nov 22, 2011 9:46 AM, Burgess Seed responded with:

The package had shipped prior to this posting, and we assume was received shortly thereafter as we have not received a response from the customer via Dmail and have had no further correspondence."

Posted on April 9, 2011, updated April 20, 2011
Why leave a comment here? This company is pretty much hated here and elsewhere and apparently they do screw up a lot. However, my experience with them was great. I got hazelnuts, a russian mulberry, a bush cherry and a currant. All arrived when they said they would. All were healthy and had GOOD roots systems. Some other companies prune the roots or simply jerk the plants from the ground. All had viable buds here. Several were already starting to burst bud. I planted them and we'll see how things go. I might have to come back and change my rating but for about 25 bucks I got a heck of deal so far.

In January 2011 I ordered 12 Creeping Phlox and 3 English Lavendar. I received both orders 2 weeks ago. Since it's not quite warm enough to plant outside, I soaked them in a bucket of water and decided to plant them in planters and put in the greenhouse. They are all healthy plants and my full order was all there. Will I order from them again? ABSOLUTELY.

This seed company had the best seed prices for your dollar, the asparagus roots and other seeds were remarkable, the asparagus were growing within 6 days after planting. Customer service was great. I will do all my seed orders through them.

I bought 100 strawberry plants and four Dahlia's. All but two of the strawberry plants are thriving and two of the four Dalia's have come up. For what I paid for the lot (less than $50 with shipping) I'm 100% satisfied! I already have several plants that have fruit on them already. My mother ordered a couple hundred dollars worth of seeds and plants and she is pleased with what she has received thus far. I plan on ordering from them again in the very near future.

I ordered from this company last spring- 402 plants for a park. All 402 arrived dead. Not one was even close to being alive. (When I scratched the plants, they were black all the way through.) I contacted the company who told me they were just "dormant" and told me to plant them, so I did. Nothing-nada. These plants were definitely deceased. Unfortunately, my husband threw out the shipping label which they require for returns, but after emailing the company and providing a copy o f my credit card statement, they agreed to issue a credit voucher (this took 4 months- long past planting time in ND!) There was a formal event in the park and we couldn't have empty flower beds, so we were running around getting these plants at other locations to make sure everything would be right for this event. (What a headache!) I've since talked to and emailed their customer service people several times. They have never sent me a credit voucher. It's been almost a year since I placed this order (that resulted in 402 dead plants that were sent completely dry- no water on the roots, no wonder they were dead!) They have promised the credit voucher for our little park since we paid hundreds of dollars for dead plants and they should provide it, but that in itself has become a headache. So far, they've been very good about emailing me back immediately to tell me that they can't find any credit voucher associated with my account, but as soon as I tell them what happened and show them what I've sent to them and what they've since promised, (I kept copies of those emails) I don't hear from them again until I wait a week or two and start the whole process over again by emailing or calling them, only to be told they can't find a credit voucher in our account, etc.. Save yourself the headache and don't order from this company. Apparently, they can't tell the difference between dead and dormant plants. (I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and choose to believe they can't tell the difference rather than they DO know the difference and are intentionally swindling a little private park out of a good chunk of the annual planting budget.)

"On Oct 28, 2011 11:09 AM, Burgess Seed responded with:

We are sorry to hear of the problems with this order. We do stand behind our guarantee which states: If any item you purchased from us does not live, for a FREE REPLACEMENT just RETURN THE ORIGINAL SHIPPING LABEL along with your written request within 1 year of receipt.

We have contacted the customer by dmail. Although we received an initial response, she did not respond to our dmail in which we explained that we were confused by her posting/complaint and suggested that perhaps there was a mixup as the order with our company was for 480 sedum and more than a dozen shrubs of various kinds. We have offered to replace any dead items from this customer’s order but have never received the requested information including a list of what is dead and needs to be replaced. We certainly are not trying to take advantage a customer, let alone a local park, and we would never knowingly send out dead product. However, we understand that product may sometimes suffer while in the mail or may not successfully transplant and that is why we do have a one year guarantee which we feel is extremely generous as it is more than enough time to see if an item will transplant successfully.
"

Ordered birch and willow trees and hostas. Arrived in plastic sack, no protection around the plants. The hostas were in sandwich bags, no soil, no wet paper, etc. The "trees" are sticks less than 1/4 inch thick...yes, low prices but poor quality product. Poorly identified, some not marked at all; just identified them by elimination. Ordered other plants from another company and will use them again. Friend ordered also from Burgess and was also disappointed; she doesn't expect her plants to grow. Too bad, catalog seemed put together well. Guess you can't tell a company by their advertising.

One of the worst businesses that I have ever tried to deal with !!! Customer "Service" is non-existant, and I was advised that the "Queen of the Office" does NOT accept phone calls ! My order has been cancelled and the credit card charges have been protested.

"On Nov 8, 2011 10:28 AM, Burgess Seed responded with:

We are sorry to hear that this customer was dissatisfied with our call center. The call center is located here at the nursery, and supervisors do regularly take phone calls. This customer was contacted by dmail on 4/6/11."

I recently received a shipment from Burgess Seed and Plant Company. It consisted of their Mint Mix, which is one Spearmint, one Peppermint, and one Chocolate mint. Now, if I hadn't recently received mint plants from two other companies, I wouldn't have any basis for rating their plants. However, I have now seen what three companies deem worthy of shipping, and Burgess isn't even in the ballpark. Their plants were very tiny (I'm talking about 1/4" to 1/2" at the most for the Chocolate plant) and in poor condition. In fact, I don't think the Chocolate plant is going to make it. Additionally, the Chocolate plant wasn't even identified, but I was able to identify it by elimination. Even the plants that were identified only had fragile slips of paper for that purpose. Now this last point is not really very important by itself, but it does serve to illustrate a certain careless, or "don't care" attitude.

I reported my dissatisfaction to Burgess. They responded, "We're sorry you feel that way". Now I know why they have racked up such an unfavorable score. In the future, I'll come here before ordering from a company which which I am unfamiliar.

"On Dec 5, 2011 8:09 AM, Burgess Seed responded with:

We do care about our customers and our plants! We have contacted this customer via dmail, and discussed the replacement guarantee should the plants not make it."

When I got my 1st shippment I opened it to find two of the seed packs were missing a corner and they were empty I e-mailed them and told them I wanted replacments They e mailed back and said I had to return the items with the label . I emailed again and said I just want to get the Item I ordered in usable condition.
Today I called them I told the woman I talked to what I wanted and she told me it was against company policy. I told her to send the stuff back would cost me more than they were worth.
I personaly think these people have no Idea what it means to deliver customer service.
I will never order from this company again. I noticed this company has way more negative coments than possitive

"On Nov 3, 2011 9:36 AM, Burgess Seed responded with:

We did not ask the customer to return the seed, only the original shipping label from the package. We also requested she send if available the empty seed packets so we could better determine the problem and fix an internal error if there was one. A replacement of the seed was processed 3/23/11."

From the beginning, if I ordered more than one type of plant, one plant would be good and the other would look as if it were dead and usually was. The replacements would look pretty much the same. The last time I ordered, they refused to send my replacement plants, but gave me a gift certificate to reorder my plants that didn't cover the cost of one Harry Lauder Walking Stick. Can someone tell me how to put these rip off people out of business? Maybe if we all take them to small claims court for the small amounts they owe us maybe someone will pay attention.

"On Nov 22, 2011 9:47 AM, Burgess Seed responded with:

We are sorry to hear of the problem with some of the plants ordered. We do have a 1 year replacement guarantee on all of our plants and we do stand behind this guarantee. If a credit voucher was issued it would be for the total purchase price of the item in question. If the customer had wished to replace the same item(s) as originally ordered, we would so with no additional cost to the customer even if the price of the product had gone up in the meantime. We have tried to contact this customer via Dmail but have not received a response."

I was redoing my entire front yard last year and spent many hours of planning and checking prices, zones, etc. and finally sent them a large order. When it got to the point of planting the items, I emailed them- no answer. When I called 2 times, they said they would be on their way. The third call informs me that the order was cancelled. Of course, it was then too late to reorder from someone else! I WILL NEVER ORDER FROM BURGESS AGAIN!

I did receive several items before that and they looked as though they had to scrape the bottom of the barrel to fulfill that much!

"On Dec 12, 2011 1:16 PM, Burgess Seed responded with:

We are sorry to hear that there was a problem with this customer’s order. We have tried to contact them via Dmail, but have not received a response.

The reason that most orders are canceled are because a customer either requests it or because there is a problem with payment. Without more specific information about this customer, we are unable to provide more information regarding their complaint.
"

I placed my order January 21, 2011, expecting to receive my seeds within their requested timeframe of 10 days to 2 weeks. I have inquired several times about how soon could I expect to receive my order. Last week I asked them to cancel my order as I had finally purchased seeds elsewhere. They said they were sorry but 2 packages had already been shipped. Today I received part of my order--nearly a MONTH after placing the order. Very poor service. I won't order from them again.

"On Nov 2, 2011 7:40 AM, Burgess Seed responded with:

We did receive an order from this customer on 01-21-11. As stated on our website, processing of an order does typically take 1-2 weeks. Seeds begin shipping at the beginning of February, and nursery stock begins shipping at the end of February to the warmest climates first depending on availability. We do show that this order of seed shipped on 02-08-11 and tracing shows delivery on 02-18-11. "

ordered the 100 plant strawberry everbering collection around 95% survived and I had lots of strawberries the first spring in good soil this june being the start of their second season should be real good.
Burgess is good at least for strawberries

I purchased 4 apple trees. They looked half dead when I received them, very poor packaging, but I used them to what I thought was good health. They did not last the winter and when I sent for replacements they sent 4 dead apple trees. They never got leaves. When I complained they said only one replacement. I wish I knew of this web site as I would have posted this sooner and not brought plants from one of their other companies, which I did not know they were afillated, and only half lived. Compaining to their local Chamber of Commerce did not do any good. They sided with the company. I have brought mail order plants for over 35 years and have never been dissatisfied with any other company.

"On Nov 3, 2011 9:37 AM, Burgess Seed responded with:

The original order was shipped in April 2006. In April 2007, the customer stated that the 4 apple trees had been doing well, but did not survive the harsh winter. No complaint was made against the 23 other trees/shrubs that were sent and a replacement for the apples was sent that same month. Several months later, we received a complaint that 3 of the replacement trees were dead. However, at this time the customer was out of warranty. "

I would never order from these people again. I ordered plant and trees of which one species I ordered 4 of them. Upon arrival it looked like they were dead, but bare roots sometimes look that way. I planted them as directed, One grew but the other 3 never got new growth.

I contacted them concerning this and after much complaining they sent a replacement for them. Again, I planted them and this time NONE of them grew. I called them and they were going to issue a credit. That was a year ago.

They have a sister company in Bloomington as well, I won't do business with them either.

"On Nov 28, 2011 12:08 PM, Burgess Seed responded with:

We received an order from the customer on 03-24-09 for $54.65. We do have a one year guarantee on our product and a replacement was sent in May 2009 for 4 gooseberries ($11.39) that were complained about. The gooseberries would come out of dormancy and show signs of life within 6 weeks of planting in warm weather. We do not show receiving any further complaints or requests for replacements within the one year warranty time frame."

I love Burgess. The prices are really good. Last year I bought their Rosy Red Robin rose for the front of my house. They came barerooted and I soaked them overnight. The next day I planted them in horse manure and they ended up growing three feet tall in 3 months! I pruned them back to a foot tall for the winter.

I bought English Lavender from them, they haven't grown much. I'm hoping they do better next year.

This spring, I'm planning on buying a couple hundred feet of privey hedge for my rose/hedge/topairy garden. Only complaint I have is slow shipping, but their good prices make it worth the wait.

After getting a Burgess' catalog by mail, I have spend hours selecting plants for my new garden. I even got on-line, and scrolled thorough their entire site. Finally, I have ordered large stock of plants from this company. I was very exited, couldn't wait till my order would be processed. After a long waiting period, I finally e-mailed a request with updates on order status. To my deepest disappointment, the company replied that they "are not able to fill my order at this time."
Wow! What a stupid reply - no explanation, no apologies for wasted time, not even attempt to contact me earlier to let me know what the heck was going on with my order. They do not care for their reputation. And, I now tell all my neighbors, friends, relative - please do not waste your time on this worthless company. They probably will soon be out of business.
And, reading all the feedback from other gardeners, I see it will happen to them very VERY soon.

Everything they sent was painfully slow in arriving, from 3-5 weeks and when it arrived, much was damaged. Many of the plastic bags containing the "living" plants were broken and the plants were dead and dried out. I requested a replacement and that was also very slow to arrive. There were other plants that died within the first week of planting and most of the wild flower seeds and the tomatoe seeds never germinated but by then I just had all I could take and just gave up, realizing that my $118.77 spent for a birthday suprise gift for my wife was a total fiasco as everything arrived way after her birthday and was pathetic. I WILL NEVER DEAL WITH THIS COMPANY EVER AGAIN.

i ordered in Spring of last year and received crap plants. i ordered bulbs and received paper nothings, i ordered flowers and got roots dried and shrivaled in a plasitic bag

i contacted them and told them i needed good plants and they just sent me the same junk over and over through 4 requests, 3 replacements and nothing was worth even putting in the ground, there was nothing there to plant in the bulbs. i even sent them the bulbs back and said that this is what you are sending me, this won't grow and they just ignored me, said to respond in writing through USPS which i did and then of course the warranty ran out and they said tough luck so to speak, they would no longer send me anything else. i told them they never sent me anything that would grow and they said the warranty ran out the last time.

this company is not gardener or customer friendly, they don't care what they send you just that you get something for your order and then i got junk. miserable company, i would not waste your time and effort ordering anything from them no matter how cheap.

Posted on August 3, 2010, updated August 6, 2010
At this point I will be fair and call it a neutral. I am new at buying online but definitely not new at planting and raising trees. I have close to 200 trees already that I started from very small trees. I have trees that I have cut branches off other trees and raised trees from. But we put in a new house out here in the country in West Texas and my husbands friend gave us a Burgess catalog and showed us the hybrid poplars. The fact that they are supposed to grow very fast for shade was the draw. So I ordered 20 of the 2 to 3 ft. I had the holes ready. I had the drip line set out and ready. I even had potting soil for them. I worked my you know what off on this. They arrived a week late. Ok, leaving on vacation in two days so had to get them in the ground fast. Planted same day they arrived. Left the fast (more like a steady stream) drip going on them and it rained for two weeks everyday, turned into monsoon season due to a tropical system that came through. What more could a little stick with roots ask for? I am shocked and appalled to say that out of 20 trees only 5 have lived. OMG. I dutifully sent a letter to Burgess with the mailing labels and upped the order to the 3 to 4 ft trees. I spent $18 to expedite the letter to them to get these trees back here. The USPS said the letter arrived 7/22. Burgess says they got it 7/25. Dang!!!! 3 days to open a letter?? Ok, so my bad for trying to speed things up. Today is aug 3 and still not shipped. I guess they have to go get the sticks and root them out lol. In the meantime I have stuck a globe willow limb in the ground put water on it and wala I have leaves on it, same with a weeping willow. As for Burgess and this summer growing season its not looking promising. Will update later as this story progresses. Oh yeah, thank you for dropping names of other places to buy from. I took notes.

I am a very experienced gardener but was drawn in by the low prices. I purchased about $500 worth of merchandise this spring through the Burgess Seed and Plat Co catalog and about 1/2 of the order has died. The worst were the berries - including various raspberries and many "native" berry plants (see note below about strawberries). As other reviews have stated, the plants were very small. Some were rotted, others were too dry, others had so little root there was not much to plant, and some that grew started from 4" twigs. They have replaced all the plants that I requested but I am skeptical that I will be successfully with these. I don't know if they will replace the same plants a second time. More from the original order has died and I will be submitting another replacement order. (They did tell me that they would honor their 1-year guarantee on additional plants; they keep the original shipping label on file.) I was more successful with the bulbs and some of the strawberries. I would consider purchasing them again from the same company. Of the four different strawberry plants I purchased only one of the four have not been very successful. Most of the bulbs have come up nicely.

Posted on July 3, 2010, updated July 3, 2010
Posted on May 23, 2010, updated July 3, 2010
Second time around with this company, first time the trees died .I didn't plant the trees right away, might have been my fault. Then I bought some land in upstate NY and I needed trees to plant and they had to be cheap. Burgess sells super cheap trees so I gave them another shot .
I was pleasantly surprised to say the least ! I bought 25 Norway Spruce trees, 18 Douglas fir trees, 6 Canadian Hemlock, 5 Eastern white pine, 12 White Birch trees, 4 scarlett red maples and about 7 full size apple trees and 50 strawberry plants and the pyramid garden they sell in the catalog.
The evergreen trees were absoulutly wonderful ! Very healthy and robust .Burgess sent them in plastic bags and the bag was very moist inside. Cost me less then $1.50 for each Norway Spruce tree and under $10 for 18 Douglas fir trees , incredible bargain ! Home depot sells Evergreen trees for $40 !.
The White birch , maple trees and the apple trees are just sticks and I'm waiting for growth. The white birch trees are growing leaves and look healthy. The apple trees are starting to grow leaves too. The apple trees, Birch trees, maple trees were kind of on the small side but the catalog correctly stated the size.
All the trees shipped appear to be healthy. Time will tell.

The Ozark Strawberry plants were shipped in Bunches of 25 and they look alive, I'm planting them tommorrow. I was expecting bigger plants but for the money its a good deal. The Burgess operator said I should expect strawberries next season.
I just planted all my trees and everything looks fine, overall I'd say I'm very satisfied with my Burgess purchase. You can't beat buying 54 evergreen trees for under $60 ! You'll be very pleasantly surprised with the evergreens. I'd reccomend Burgess if your on a budget and you got time to wait for the trees to grow.

Posted on May 7, 2010, updated June 22, 2010
Posted on April 29, 2010, updated May 7, 2010
Posted on April 22, 2010, updated April 29, 2010
Thus far, I am having a somewhat mixed experience.

Several of the plants I have received arrived in pots and were well-started. They seem to be doing just fine out in my flowerbeds. The blue spruce arrived healthy, and also seems to be doing well.

However, their catalog specifically says that their Mountain Gold Aurinia would be "potted plants". Instead of sending my specimens in pots, they sent bare soil plugs with fine mesh around them. The plants looked dead, although it is reasonable to assume they could be dormant. One of them was slimy and appeared rotten.

I have never had good luck getting anything sent as meshed plugs to grow, even when I gently remove the mesh so the roots can spread out and not be bound. I really don't like receiving plugs for that reason. Well-started plants that arrive in pots always do much better for me.

I have e-mailed Burgess about these plugs, and I am willing to wait the five weeks the planting guide recommends to see if they do anything. They've been in the ground for a couple of weeks, and thus far, there is no sign of life in any of them -- not even the slightest greening..

I just wish that when a company says they are going to send potted plants, they would indeed send them in pots (which are usually little plastic containers).

Burgess does seem to be good about replying to my e-mails, and I'm sure I will hear from them shortly.

In the future, it's possible I could upgrade my rating to "positive". Stay tuned ....

I have to say, I had an excellent experience buying from Burgess. I was nervous after reading some of the reviews but I decided to place a small order (which was still a lot of plants at their low prices) and see how it went.

I did have to ask about my order, because it seemed to be taking longer than I'd expected. But when I e-mailed Burgess they responded immediately saying my order would be there in a few days, and it was. I already had my garden ready to go so I was able to plant them the day after they arrived (didn't want to wait that long as it was very hot that day, but it was unavoidable).

I had a mix of bulbs and plants. A general rundown:

Potted plants: Periwinkle was in good shape, with strong green leaves and stalks. Same for the sweet peas, which arrived well wrapped with teeny but strong green stalks and soil that was still moist. I had ordered two lenten roses, which they replaced with hardy fuschias -- fine by me. These also looked good. The butterfly bush looked a little sad but has seemed to perk up with the nice weather we've been having.

Bare roots: The shasta daisies were TINY, but stalks were green and healthy looking.

Bulbs: Seemed fine, a little smaller than others but otherwise OK. I have to admit I didn't plant them with the greatest of care as I was tired by then, but bulbs generally do well in my garden with little work.

They sent three free peacock orchid bulbs with my order, also a free packet of tomato seeds and one of vine peach, which sounds divine. I will plant them but to be honest I am really bad with seeds so if they don't grow I won't be able to blame Burgess for it.

In short: Everything I got was in good shape. My only fear is the tiny size of the plants: it almost seems like they are too small to make it on their own at that wee size, poor things! But if they were as healthy as they look, they have a good shot in my garden -- only time will tell. I am looking forward to seeing how things progress as the summer goes on, and will report back.

In short, Burgess is a good source for a good variety of plants and seeds at unbelievably low prices.

The downside is that you're not going to get a full, flowering look to your garden right away -- you have to wait until next year (or even the year after) to have full-sized, flowering plants. If you want to fill in a garden right away you are still better off buying from a local nursery. But if you have patience, Burgess is a tremendous value.

Posted on March 5, 2010, updated June 9, 2010
Posted on February 27, 2010, updated March 5, 2010
In early January, I placed orders for seeds with five catalog companies. Guess which one hasn't come yet? You guessed it, Burgess. Despite billing my credit card within a day of the order being placed, they have not been able to fulfill an order of two, count them, two packets of seeds. I only ordered from them in the first place because they had a product no one else had that I wanted. I called a few weeks ago and was told the order would go out that week. Still nothing. I sent an e-mail today and will wait and see. It is about time to plant these items. Other catalogs charge upon shipment and only for what's shipped. Territorial Seed did such a good job, I made a second order from them and have had that order for weeks, too. What is wrong with Burgess?!? Also, any fool can tell that the pictures depicting the flowers and fruits on many of their offering are hand drawn. Crap, most other catalogs at least photoshop REAL fruits and flowers to make the yield look abundant. For anyone who thinks Burgess offerings look tempting, I have some swampland in Florida to sell you. Or maybe you'd like to buy the Brooklyn Bridge from me? Anyway, there are those who say the prices are cheap. Well, $18.00 (shipping and seeds theoretically included) for two packets of seeds is NOT cheap. I'm a chump.

Bought goosberry and red current in May, 2010 from them.
WHAT WAS I THINKING??? Ordering without reading this tread first? Received complitelly dried out plants with no moist cover over the roots. They put very small plants with bare roots into plastic bags and dropped it all in a huge green 20 gallon plastig bag for shipping. There is no chance for them to survive...
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Waiting for them to respond or reimburse the money. Hope for the best.

I purchased about $100 worth of plants from Burgess before investigating reviews for the company. Needless to say, I was a little concerned when I read about so many negative experiences. Fortunately, I found my purchases with Burgess to be a great deal!

I ordered about 60 plants in 3 different waves, spaced out over a week. All three orders were filled and arrived at my door within 3 weeks. The plants were all small (to be expected with rock bottom prices) but vigorous. From flowers, to ground cover, to veggies, to fruiting trees, to vines, all the plants I ordered are doing well and establishing themselves.

I ordered from Burgess and other companies affilated with burgess whe i lived in Georgia.The lilies i ordered did wonderful. one of two butterfly bushes did good, one of two roses did great, the other arrived looking dead, suckers grew out of the rose and produced a completely different rose than i ordered . Everything else i ordered either arrived dead and died shortly after. Since my husband got orders to another base i didnt request replacements. I ordered again here at our new place in Colorado in the winter. All other companies i order from e-mail you when your plants ship, Burgess doesnt. The order arrived while i was visiting family in another state for two weeks. several of the plants died. Burgess will only replace if i mail them original mailing label, another comapny replaced a product just by me calling them and telling the information they needed. Burgess wont. So Because of repeated troubles with the company on my two different orders to them. I have to give them a negative and will never buy from them or their sister companies again. As a new gardener i bought from the companies with the cheapest prices. As a more experianced gardener I now now to buy from companies with good ratings from daves garening and my gardening magazine. Buying cheaper plants will sometimes end up costing you more money and frustration than their worth.

We have ordered twice from Burgess and have not been unhappy. We expected very small plants for the price and while some of them were indeed small, actually just a handful of roots in some cases, they grew just fine. We also ordered 10 Lombardy Poplars which were actually much larger than we had expected. All but one lived and even though we had accidentally discarded the shipping label - which they tell you plainly to keep - they still offered to send another. They are all doing well. As to the long shipping time, it is no longer than we expected. I guess if you want to pay rock bottom prices, such as a tree for $2.50, you have to expect some drawbacks.

I read the terrible reviews for this company prior to ordering, but decided to take a chance because they had all of the specific items that I was looking for at great prices. I figured shipping would take a while, and I received my order about 4-5 weeks after I placed it (which I anticipated).
All of the items that I ordered were great. No, they weren't huge, but they all seemed healthy and after planting them, they have flourished (I ordered various fruit plants/trees). Obviously I don't know the long-term results, but I have had the plants long enough to feel confident that if they don't do well, it isn't the fault of the company.
I have no complaints whatsoever - except maybe the slow shipping which I expected - although I admit that I'm still hesitant to place another order with them because I wonder if I just got lucky with my order given the amount of negative reviews.

Ordered several 'potted' plants, received tiny plants barely past the seedling stage. (the pots were slightly larger than a standard shot glass.) 2 of the plants died within 3-4 days. Contacted Customer 'Service' and was told I needed the original shipping label from the box my husband had already recycled. Apparently they don't have shipment records?? Retail replacement cost would have been less than $6 but customer satisfaction does NOT seem a priority. A 2nd shipment arrived a couple of weeks later and 2 of the grasses were slightly larger and in OK shape but 6 others were small plugs and some of the bulbs were soft and moldy. Their low prices are attractive but in this case you get what you pay for. I would recommend staying away from this company and their numerous affiliates.

I ordered 2 each of Almond, Pecan, And Hickory trees off of Burgess. My wife orded a couple bushes and my mom ordered some grapes and strawberry plants. Everything has lived so far except my Hickory and Pecan trees. They very much appeared dead on arrival with major butchering of the roots. In fact one of the Hickory trees was just a stick with no visible roots at all. My complaint is that I may only have four dead trees but these trees were clearly not living when sent plus the things that did live are doing just ok because of the massive butchering of everything. I probably won't even waste my time sending them back and ruin another growing season. I understand when you get items this cheap they will be smaller than normal but when they don't take care of the roots, To me that is inexcusable. I ordered two 6 ft, 3/4 in calipers Honeycrisp apple trees and two 6 ft, 1-1/4 in caliper English walnut trees off of Boyer Nurseries and they both were sent packaged in stiff cardboard wrapped in heavy plastic with moist shavings on the roots. The roots on these trees are enormous. I paid about twenty dollars each for these trees with actual shipping but I have about a four year head start on anything I could get at Burgess plus they are healthy and thriving. My first choice is always at local nurseries where you can look over what you buy but if I can't get it Boyers is my second choice from now on.