Comments regarding Burgess Seed

I placed an order on the internet with Burgess on February 14th. They emailed me an order confirmation on 2/15 and I noticed that 3 of the plants were not on my order so I emailed the company and asked them to fix it. They responded same day indicating they would. On March 20th, I had still not received them so I forwarded the note back asking for confirmation. I received no response so I forwarded it back on April 2nd. On April 8th they told me it had been mailed out. April 25th I again contacted them to find my plants and they responded by saying they couldn't find my order. After several more emails they became rude and terse. I requested a supervisor but they said the supervisors refuse email only US Post gets a response. To top it all off, I have received all my plants but the 3 missing ones and over half of them are dead. If I don't get resolution soon, I will dispute the charges on my credit card.

Boy I wish I had looked at this page before I got involved with this sorry company.
I ordered three plants from them. Not a big deal about $20.00 worth including shipping. Two plants arrived about 6 weeks after ordering, one dead and the other recieving last rites. But in the spirit of good faith I potted up both. Nothing happened after 6 weeks. The last plant ordered did arrive and looked ok, so far so good. I sent my shipping label back as directed for replacements of the two plants that arrived dead. A couple of days ago I recieved a letter back telling me to wait 6 weeks to see if they bud or leaf out.
I am going to write a not so nice letter and see if they will live up to their garantee. I know they will never see me as a customer again.

We ordered 58 dollars worth of plants from Burgess and the order arrived looking rather dried out. We planted everything including grape vines, apricot trees, asparagus etc and so far seem to have about 100% success. Of course the proof of the fruit is in the eating so we will see. So far so good.

Nothing but problems... sending their shipping label back, after trying to get it off of the shipping box, again and again... each time I recieved DEAD or ROTTEN plants! I have finally given up and will not persue the replacements any longer. DO NOT ORDER FROM THESE COMPANIES!
( people that mistreat plants like that should be _____! You fill in the blank! )

I am an experienced Gardener. I had used this company in the past (about 8 years ago) & had been satisfied. However, over $80 in plants & seeds that I ordered last Spring did not germinate, bud out, or survirve. I Wrote the company & included the orginial packing sheet as required, however I over looked including 1 sheet for a couple Daisy Trees. Rather than replace the items I did provide a sheet for, they returned the all the info to me & never replaced a thing. Nor have they bothered to contact me via email, phone or mail to followup on my complaint. I am also upset that I get emails from sites for on line ordering of plants & once I get into these sites I find they are combined nurseries, including Burgess. Since I would rather not do any future business with Burgess, I do not trust the rest of the Nurseries in that site either. If they have combined sites, then they are guilty by association in my book.

i ordered $102.00 dollars worth of plants from burgess and then found this watchdog page about the company, ive been waiting for the worst, eveything i ordered from them came today and it looks pretty healthy to me,, I had thought they should have mailed it earlier but we just had 4 inches of snow 3days ago, so, so far i am pleased and will plant and hope for the best{since i am totally new to gardening}

For copies of the complaint filed with BBB (Better Business Bureau) please contact bawamo@hotmail.com and I'll pass it on. The ONLY way scammers like this get "ended" is if word gets around, so I'd DEFINITELY spread it if I were you, and look ELSEWHERE for my plants!

I had placed an order for 3 trees & 6 rose shrubs with Burgess. A week later I found this web site. The comments I saw made me sick to my stomache and I could only pray I would receive nice plants. I was told my plants would ship after April 1st. They arrived April 2nd. All my plants came in, total time from ordering, two and a half weeks. All plants are in excellent condition. Trees are small but I expected that. IT IS MAIL ORDER!!!

The rose plants are huge. A foot out of the ground and green. They look healthier than the roses I have in the ground from last year.

I think a lot of these negative comments are from people who think they are going to get a 3' x 3' shrub with dirt in the mail. Things have to be mailed bare root. Perennial flowers should be purchased in person. If you don't believe me, go dig one up, put it in a bag, and look at it in the morning. Of course it will look dead! And you didn't even mail it anywhere!
If ordered at the correct time, (earlier spring) you will receive them on time. When it comes to mail order you can not consider early April spring any more. That would be late spring if you think of all the orders they get.

First of all, I am not an experienced gardener so take what I say with a grain of salt. I bought 5 dianthus plants and a couple of ornamental grasses. None of them lived. I called for a replacement which I did receive-they all died too. Maybe a more experienced gardener could have done better, but I had no luck with this product.

I don't know, mayby I've been lucky, but I've probably placed a dozen orders with Burgess in the past 20 years and have always been pleased. I've ordered a lot of Periwinkle and found them to be the best source at the best price. I've had pretty good luck with their trees, better than some premium companies. Of course, at their price, you're not going to get large caliper trees, but what do you expect? There is a certain advantage to ordering small trees anyway. I got an order of 15 trees today and they look good. I'm happy with this company.

My husband and I ordered several different types of trees from this company. All arrived in time for planting and all were in excellent condition upon arrival.All trees started to leaf out within days of being planted and so far are thriving and healthy.
I had found this site after already ordering from Burgess, and was braced for an unpleasant experience.
I was pleasantly surprised to have no trouble whatsoever with this company and would do business with them again in the future.

After trying to get thru to the 309# (4 hours later) they were very nice or so I thought. I was about to order 300 bucks worth of stuff.. but now I'm scared to death. Of course I could always place the order and charge it on a credit card and if it's [bad] just refuse the charges.. My fear is that now is planting time in Texas and I don't want to wait til the weather gets too hot and it's too late. Now I don't know what to do.. How can this company stay in business for so many years?

After finding this website and reading all the bad reviews, I called the company immediately to find out the status of my order. I wanted to cancel my order if they haven't shipped it. I tried calling the 309 number but the number's invalid. I was furious! I was ready to call my credit card company and dispute the charge. I saw the 800 number on my credit card statement for Burgess. I thought it was strange that they would charge me the full amount if they didn't ship my order soon after. Other online companies don't do that. I was connected to a very nice and sweet lady. She told me she just got trained to support customer service for Burgess. She answered the phone for "CROWN" something company. At this point, I was just glad I got a friendly customer service rep. I asked if any of my order has been shipped. She said 2 of the 3 packages were shipped on 13th and 14th. The 3rd will be on its way soon. I placed my order on the 9th. So that's a pretty quick turnaround time! Whether they really shipped them or not.... who knows! I'm anxious to see the quality of the plants/bulbs. So far.... I have nothing negative about Burgess. I'll let you know soon!

Ordered $280 worth of plants in mid January, 2003. to date, 3-2-2003 I have only received some dried up onion starters worth maybe $5. fortuately I used my credit card and I will object to the charge.

Last year, 2002, I placed a $39.00 order with Burgess. Among the items I purchased were two Paw-paw trees, twenty-five Ozark strawberry plants, a pink water lily, and a Pink Mist smoke tree. The Paw-paw trees arrived apparently DOA, but I planted them anyway. They never did anything. Of the twenty-five strawberry plants, only five survived. The pink water lily, which by the way cost $8.95, turned out to be white instead of pink. White water lilies are very common and can be gotten from almost any lake or pond. The smoke tree whip died, but started sprouting branches from the bottom. I don't expect it to amount to much.

In all fairness, seeds for pumpkins, eggplants, tomatoes and peppers on that same order turned out well.

Due to my own negligence, I had discarded the shipping labels for the items, so I knew I was not entitled to a refund of any kind. Still, I contacted them by email just to let them know that I was disappointed, and why. I found their email replies to be terse and even a bit rude. I ended up telling them I would not be doing business with them in the future. That obviously goes for the rest of the Plantron companies also.

I have ordered from Burgess (and Gurney's) in the past with good luck but the past two years have been a disaster: plants DOA because of poor packaging, wrong variety or not received at all! Though they ALL guarantee their merchandise (!), trying to get them to honor it is another story: I sent the shipping label (a copy- not the original.. I've learned from experience!)as requested, over 20 e-mails and postals, repeat copies...., etc. and still, after 6 months, I have not received replacements or credit coupons. Now they say the replacements WERE sent... then why haven't I received them?! They even requested copies of the cancelled check which I've sent them.

If only I could get some of the varieties and types of plants/shrubs locally, I would never consider ordering by mail but the mail order companies have such a big variety that it is tempting...! I will say that seed orders seem to come with out much problem but the rest is another story!

Last summer I received some evergreens that were less than what I expected. I contacted the company via US Mail, returned my mailing label, as required (after making a copy for my files) and requested replacement for the three trees. I received the replacement trees today and they are perfect, could not be more satisifed with their replacement policy at this point.

I ordered roughly $30 worth of merchandise from Burgess last year in February. The seed arrived within a few weeks, the seedlings, bulbs and roots in early spring. The one dissapointing item was the wisteria, tiny and, apparently, D.O.A. Height discriptions were exagerated on shrub cherries, etc., but acceptable. I chose Temptation corn because of it's purported cold hardiness, and it produced incredible ears very early. Free "Shamrocks" and various items did well, but a terrible grasshopper infestation destroyed my extensive garden in early summer, even eating the Horseradish I had ordered from Burgess, which was up and doing well, so I can't comment on the ultimate success of many things. Unfortunately, I just mailed out an order this morning for almost $40 worth of items, including half a pound of Temptation corn seed and various trees. I just happened on this site as I was looking up the Wesley web site, to see what other items they offered. I had nearly sent in an order to them for around $20, but will now wait to see how Burgess treats me this time before ordering from any of these companies. Prices are cheaper by far than other companies, but I always knew there was a built in scam...when you see half a dozen companies with identical ads, you know something is up.

IN January 2002 I ordered several Juneberry plants, 4 paw-paw trees, some bulbs and a 3-in-one pear tree. All arrived dead or dieing. I called the cataloge customer service dept, talked to someone there that said I would have to return the dead plants if I wanted a refund. I told him that there wasn't anything left of the sticks they said were 2-yr saplings and that the bulbs were rotten and disgusting and smelled so bad that I had to toss them. He said that the only way I could get a refund was with the original plants. I sent the letter telling the whole story and received a replacement certificate in April 2002. I did not receive another cataloge from them untill January 2003. I ordered some bulbs and plants as the trees that I had ordered originally can no longer be sent to California. I really don't expect that this order will arrive in good shape, but I can play this replacement game as long as they can.

DO NOT ORDER FROM THEM EVER.

I ordered nursery stock from this company a couple of years ago in late winter. I ordered from them because of their very attractive pricing. The nursery stock finaly arrived near the end of June on a 95 degree day in the middle of a heat wave. It looked dead in the packing. Took it out and planted it and tried to keep it watered, but out of 100 hedge and 50 forsythia only 2 forsythia survived. Decided never to order from them again. BUT BEWARE! BURGESS IS ONLY ONE NAME THIS COMPANY USES! Later I ordered from Farmers Seed and Nursery. 50 Stawberry plants plus some rasberry plants (12). I Recieved 1 bundle of 25 (22 plants actually in the bundle). When I called them with the mistake they said ok they would take care of it. They sent 25 more plants, and BILLED MY CREDIT CARD AGAIN! This company is a division of a company named PLANTRON, INC. Go check out their rating. Save your self some grief!

I order 50 strawberry plants from this company last year. When
they arrived, all of them were black and slimmy. I contacted the company and they replaced them, however half of the replacements were dead on arrival. Of the 100 plants a total of 19 survived. In addition, I also order 5 blackberry plants, none of them lived. 3 house plants only 1 lived. I have never had such bad luck with plants from any other company and will never even look at their catalog again.

I ordered 70+ fruit trees most all of them grew to my expectations and bloomed and fruited the first year. But the Manchurian Apricot trees just were never good stock so I sent back for more then I recieved them and half of them grew it had to of been the fall shipment that is bad because when I get a fall shipment from them it doesn't do as well but when you order and get a spring shipment it does well. They will replace you plants if they do not grow but no refunds unless you send the trees back within 30 days. I had wonderful expirence with the seed I bought for my farm. All the bean seed and the corn seed grew wonderfully. I bought about 12 lbs. of bean seed and 3lbs of corn seed and the seed grew better than the seed I ordered the year before from gurneys. If you are not satisfied with burgess' then you can order about the same things from Gurneys but usually a higher price. I also ordered 100 strawberry's and they grew wonderfully and I picked several quarts of strawberries off of them the first year. JUST DON'T ORDER MANCHURIAN BUSH APRICOTS! AND YOU'LL BE FINE

I have ordered from this company and at their prices, did not expect much, and was not real disappointed at what I received. Yes some of the perennials come rotten, but when you get 10 of them for $1.00, then I'm happy if only 1 survives! Usually half of them do. I have never ordered anything at regular price from this company. The 2 Mock Oranges I ordered for $2.98 did VERY well, outgrowing one I had planted 2 years before. So it's kinda hit and miss, you get what you pay for, with this company. I have never dealt with their customer service. And always received my plants in a timely matter.

Allow me to add to the compost pile of complaints. I ordered from them spring of 02. After numerous attempts I got someone on the phone, only to tell me that I did not have an order pending. Good I thought. Well my rotten irises, moldy daylilies etc., arrived the first week in November!!!!!
Did I mention I live in Minnesota? How does this company stay in business. Is it because typically individually our orders aren't enough to bother filing with the BBB? FYI one of the stores with Plantron, "Farmer Seed and Nursery," used to be reputable at one time with good stock, obviously before Plantron aquired them, too bad. Part of the trickery is they have various addresses on the back, however all of the catalogs have the same photos and are easy to recognize.

I ordered from Burgess during winter 2001 for the Spring season. Nothing arrived. Email communications kept telling me that my order was sent on such and such a date. Of course, nothing arrived. They finally sent me a voucher for the amount of my order. They neglected to send me a catalog for my next purchase. This voucher will expire soon and I will be out of my money. Is anyone taking action?

I also received my shipment in several mailings and all in dead or dying condition. I requested a refund and even sent my shipping label! They refused to send a cash refund, but after several letters did send a replacement certificate for HALF of the money I had paid in the original order. I was instructed to use this in the next catalog...Problem is they must have removed my name from their mailing list---------haven't heard from them since JULY.

I have ordered from this company only once. Shipping was to begin for my zone in early March. I received the practically dead plants the end of May. I called and emailed several times- only to be told the product had been shipped (when it had not). I returned the sick stuff and tried to get cc credit. It was not until I contacted my cc company and disputed the item that I got my money back. The cc company just charged the order back to Burgess. All I can say is there are too many "good" companies to deal with than to tolerate this. Buyer beware.

My dad, an excellent veteran NC farmer of 79 years, ordered $150.00 of seed corn from Burgess Seed Co. in March of 2002. (We have always ordered seed.) When called about the absence of delivery, Burgess says it was shipped in June. He finally received a very small packet in JULY! We HARVEST sweet corn in late July, not plant. They said, "send the package label." It was sent. Nothing. All who have ears to hear: NEVER, ever buy from this company!!! $150 is a huge hole in a farmer's already tenuous profit margin.

I have ordered from this place twice in the past 2 years. The first year I orderd only tree saplings. I received the order on time and the trees were small but looked alive. Unfortunately, after one year in the ground (and a lot of care on my part) I only got a 25% take rate. Here were the results: 12 Blue Spruce (3 yr.old) all died; 3 White Birch all died; 6 Douglas Fir, 3 still alive; 8 Russian Olive, 4 still alive.
This past spring I order more tree saplings and 2 kinds of perennial plants. My result were just about the same as last year. This year (unlike last year) I did return the shipping label and ask for replacements for stock that did not grow. I also called (finally got thru after many, many, many busy signals) to request more replacements as I later found more stock that did not grow. The replacements did arive but were very sad looking (especially the perennial plants) and the tree saplings were just dry sticks. The only item I received from them that I was glad to have ordered is their "Handful of Hosta" -- 9 plants that are growing fine.
I learned my leason. I will not order from these guys again.

In 2000, I ordered 2 apple, 1 peach, 1 pear, 1 apricot, &1 cherry trees. When they arrived, the peach was broken just above the roots and the cherry was all dried up. I wrote to the company on 8/4/2000 about the problem. They sent another little peach, that didn't grow, and a cherry tree that has cherries that is nothing more then a seed with skin over them. The cherry was supposed to be North Star, which it isn't. This year when the trees bloomed and put on a few fruit, the tree that was sold as an apricot is also a cherry tree with the little bitty fruit. I contacted Burgess and they say because its over a year that they won't do anything. Fruit trees don't fruit the first year, so how can you know what you have? I guess when you deal with a company that makes their living by cheating, you are going to get ripped off.

In early April of 2002 I placed a substantial order. Several weeks later, I received a few packaged seeds but nothing else. It's now July 2 and I still haven't received the rest of my order. Nothing. I have called them 2x a week for the past three weeks and get the same story. I have been told that the problem is in shipping. Customer service can't do anything but write up the order and that's it. I wanted to cancel the order and they told me to write a letter. I said they really didn't want a letter from me as mad as I was. I finally talked to a supervisor and told her to cancel my order. I will never order from this company again.

This company is sending plants that will not survive. I received small cuttings that allready were dead when I got them.
They do not answer my complain done by e-mail

They guarantee their products but plants sent by both are small and often DOA Burgess sent back my original plant packing slip telling me to wait (I had waited over 2 months for the plants to grow.) - they said one needed to wait for 6 weeks. I immediately sent the material back and am still waiting for replacements. Their products are poorly packed, small to minute and don't grow. I will never do mail order again.

I ordered a number of plant material from Burgess and the Clematis vine was not the variety I ordered. I was disappointed in trying to reach the company. Their phone line is constantly busy and it's very difficult to receive a credit on merchandise. The best approach if placed on a credit card is to file a dispute with the credit card company. I won't be ordering from Burgess again.

I had trouble with these companies, more than once all on 4 seasons road in Il. first order sent in Feb returned to me 1 May 02 showing my credit card had been denied. On talking to credit card none. but looking at the order they had just put in an exp date for my card and of course wrong one.
in ks. we also need to plant early or forget it.
strawberries were ok when 2nd order came but the rest of the order was almost totally a loss. mold on plants. sticks for plants i.e dry inside and roses almost toally did not survive. would not order from this company again. and will not try to get adjustment as it cost me enough just to get the order, I believe house of wesly is part of this group, 4 seasons nursery and some others. DON"T buy from them.

Lordy I wish I had read this site first I orderred quite a bit from this company, the lilly of the valley tree, elephant ear bulbs the red dawn tree and lilacs all arrived but the lilacs so I e-mailed them and am currently getting the runaround as described by so many here. guess I'm not getting my lilacs from this place am I? you live and learn will seek more reputable companies in the future. by the way the trees they send are very small the lilly of the valley tree did'nt make it and they sent three elephant ear bulbs and one arrived rotted overall not a great company!

I ordered some seeds from them. One was a packet of cucumber seeds. I GOT 6 SEEDS! That was it! I have never gotten such a small number of seeds in a packet in my life. Unfortunately, the description on the web site page does not make any indication how many seeds would be included in their packet. I would not order from them again.

Please allow me to add a NEGATIVE response on this company. I ordered in early February, 2002. I called the number repeatedly before finally getting through. I was told my order would be shipped "after March 1". In late March when my order still had not arrived, I called (many times receiving the busy signal before getting through). I was told it was being shipped and should arrive "soon". Half of it finally arrived about April 1. I called again (busy, etc), finally got through and was told the other half of my order would be shipped "after April l". I still have not received that part of the order. I echo what others have said about planting times. It is now getting in the 80's in the Texas Gulf Coast area. There is no need to wait to send anything. We were planting tender plants in mid-March.

In fairness, the "handful of Hosta" was very good and is thriving--way too late, but in good shape. The stargazer lillies looked good but have not grown out of the ground yet so I am neutral on that one so far. The package had a flier talking about the "dormant stage" for the bare root items. Believe me, they weren't kidding about that. The flier also says to give them 6 weeks to "come out". Now they have had my money since February and they want me to wait until mid-May to ask for a refund.

Do not buy from this company if you want prompt service or if you are expecting very much.


I will NEVER order from Burgess again. In fact, their catalogs will go straight to the garbage!!

I placed an order at the end of March for carnations, black eyed susans, and coneflowers. The prices were excellent. Four weeks later, I still have not received my merchandise. After reading this site, which I was unaware of before ordering, I have sent an email to cancel this order. I could not reach them by phone. Please not that in southern georgia, the conditions were fine to plant these flowers in March, so that should not have been a factor. I will keep you posted on my results.