Comments regarding Swallowtail Garden Seeds

I ordered the bulk packet of Alexandria Alpine Strawberries towards or at the end of May. They arrived in under a week and were packed very well. I planted seeds in 18 cells and so far every seed has germinated and are catching up with some Mignonette Alpine seeds I planted.

I will order from again as they have certain seeds and varieties I can't find locally.

I ordered 22 different kinds of viola seeds from swallowtail. My germination rate is fantastic! I'm already planning my order for next year.

Posted on June 1, 2010, updated June 1, 2010
I am absolutely furious. While I did receive my order within a week, half of my order was wrong. I emailed 3x, called and left a message for them to please correct the order - nothing, no response, nada. I really needed those seeds for a wedding. I can understand a mistake, but ignoring requests for customer service - NOT acceptable.
Thanks for nothing - I'll be broadcasting the word about this everywhere I can - I am THAT mad

"On Jun 1, 2010 5:00 PM, Swallowtail Garden Seeds responded with:

This customer placed an order with us on Friday, May 21st which we shipped on Monday May 24th. There were two items on the order. One that was out of stock, having sold-out earlier in the day and one that was in stock. The order we sent was not incorrect, we simply did not have the product for one of the two items.

For the out of stock item she ordered 5 packets. What we did was to give her 5 FREE packets of similar item (she ordered the color white, we gave her free cream colored flowers). We made this as clear as we possibly could on the invoice. However the customer seems to have thought we made an error, sending cream instead of white, and that we were unwilling to fix it. That was not the case, we did not have the white and we gave her as a gift the closest possible product we had to the color white.

For 12 years we have routinely given free substitutions for out of stock items. Although surely there must be some, we are not aware of another company (seed or otherwise) that gives their customers free merchandise when an item is not in stock.

We are certainly sorry this customer is upset. And we appreciate that the negative rating was changed to neutral. We are not sure whether our email to the customer and the refund of the entire order came before or after the customer's post here. I can tell you that no one at our company was aware of this post at the time the full refund was given.

We tried to do a good thing. The fact that we have this kind of attitude toward our business is what has kept us going these past 12 years. We love what we do, we care about our customers, and we feel it is precisely the kind of action we took with this order that best communicates these deep feelings.

We regret it didn't work out better for the customer, but we also want to let this customer know and every member of Dave's Garden know that each day we go to work with the mission of making people's days, lives and yards brighter. Far more often than not we succeed, but when we don't it is never from a lack of trying. WE CARE

"

Very pleased with Swallowtail. Excellent selection of unusual perennials. Received my order with no problems very quickly, within several days. So far, very good germination rates.

Placed a seed order on April 7 and received it on April 15...No complaints here! Will order again!

I have made purchases from this company for 3 years with good results. This year they said they sent out my order in 2 shipments, and gave me confirmation numbers, but only one of the shipments was ever sent out. I called 4 times requesting them to call me back. They never did. They had charged me the entire order. I told them they needed to ship me the items they never sent, they did send me the seeds, but they rebilled me again. I tried calling them 2 more times, and they never returned any phone calls. So I contested it with my credit card company, and they couldn't contact them either! The credit card company refunded my money as a reliable customer! I will not buy from them again!

I placed an order with Swallowtail Garden 11. 01. 2010
Order accepted.
My repeated inquires given no result. I never got a response.
I can no longer put up with the different treatment according my order
and 3.04 2010 I cancel my order.
NO MORE ORDER SEEDS FROM THIS PLACE !!!!!

I find myself very disappointed with the custom service, or rather lack thereof, at Swallow tail seeds this growing season of 2010. Having ordered from Swallowtail in 2009 with great results I did not hesitate to place another order this season back on 1/8/2010. Received part of my order on 1/15/2010 with a note that the rest of my order was back ordered and would be sent in two to three weeks. The back order never came, when contacted; the only response from the company (Lynn) was they would check into it. Yesterday I finally received one of the three packages of seeds on the back order, with a note that the others were out of stock. I'M SORRY; when I contacted the company about my back order the other seeds were still available, as I had checked. Swallowtail seeds have some issues on following up on ordered out. The seeds I received yesterday should have been started a month ago to be ready to transfer into the garden and do me no good at this point in the growing season.

Having checked out Dave's Garden watchdog website, I am obviously not the only gardener very disappointed in Swallowtail's lack of follow-up on orders out. I will not be ordering from Swallowtail seeds again and will be sharing my experience with other gardeners, so they too, do not find themselves disappointed with their seed ordered from this seed company. To many good seed company's out there to do business with to mess with one with poor customer service.

"On Apr 6, 2010 3:37 PM, Swallowtail Garden Seeds responded with:

This customer had issues with 2 of the 13 items ordered. One was a back-order for which our grower experienced a crop failure, the other item we did send late.

When we heard from this customer today we promptly refunded the full amount of her order, over $35.00. When addressing customer concerns we always err on the side of generosity. We did this before we saw this posting on Dave's Garden.

While we recognize Dave’s Garden as a valuable venue for people to express their opinions, because March was easily the busiest month in our 11 year history, and because the responses we hear (provided to us directly) from customers remains overwhelmingly positive, it is that feedback which feels most meaningful to us.

So yes we did send 1 $3.95 back-order late (but in our estimation and own experience in our gardens not too late to plant as it is very fast growing) and because the customer was dissatisfied we refunded the entire order. We are sorry to have upset you.

I received the seeds within a few weeks, and the packaging was very nice, better than I have received from any other vendor. The website does seem to have problems, though, as I wanted to browse and cannot bring the site up.

Bad customer service. I ordered about 35 dollars worth of seeds and the bulk of the order shipped within a couple of weeks. I have had pretty good germination rates with the bulk of the seeds.

The negative review is because one of the seeds was backordered and a note said it would ship within 2-3 weeks. That is fine, backorders happen. However, after well over 6 weeks passed and the seeds didn't show up, I emailed the company. No reply (its been a week). I called the company a few days ago and the represenative said she would check on this and call me back (I gave her two phone numbers). Guess what? No call or email response. As it is only one seed packet, I will probably just write this off... However, I am thankful that it only cost me a couple of bucks to find out how bad this company is. Some people have paid a lot more! This kind of lousy customer service is inexcusable....

I'll never order from them again. I had success with 12 other companies seeds. Yet Swallowtail's Campanula,and Rockcress seed resulted in zero success. Zero success twice with customer service as well.

I made a small seed order with this company (thank god) back in January 2010. I waited the customary 2 weeks and then after another week I e-mailed as to what happened to my order.A person named Lynn answered and said she would check on it.After another week or so with no responce I e-mailed again, Lynn responded that she was still checking and that I would get a answer in 24 hours.After a couple of days with no word I wrote again, no answer.I wrote again and this time I told them my patience was running low and If I did not hear from them I would consider the case closed and write my loss off as a bad experenice.I also told them I would write a neg. report to the garden watchdog.Thinking this might get someones attention. Either nobody cares or they have all gone on vacation.I had high hopes with this company because the positive reports out weight the negitives.But my experenice was negitive.

Posted on February 11, 2010, updated March 2, 2010
2-11-09
Swallowtail has no clue what customer service means. The website was not working properly so I did not trust its "secure" claim; as such I faxed the order in and mailed a check for my seeds. I requested confirmation of my order in the fax and in follow-up e-mails and phone messages. 2 weeks after placing the order I still have not received any response whatsoever from them. At this point I'm ready to cancel the order and hope I get a refund. It is amazing they operate this way!

"On Feb 18, 2010 11:03 PM, Swallowtail Garden Seeds responded with:

This is the peak of the season and it may well be true the order took 2 weeks to process. However, our shopping cart is secure, being monitored by GoDaddy.com and certified by Security Metrics.

We let our customers know on the "How to Order" page on our web site that for time sensitive inquiries, they will want to use our phone number to contact us.

Everything we do is guaranteed . Any and all customers of Swallowtail Garden Seeds who do not feel good about their experience with us, are encouraged to contact us using our toll free phone number, 877-489-SEED (7333).

During this time of year many of our employees routinely work 12+ hours per day, 7 days a week. We do this because we care about what we do and how we do it. If we somehow come up short--we pledge to fix it--always. By giving us a call you will give us the opportunity to turn a frustrating experience into a positive exchange.

Thank you."

I was very happy to buy my seeds from a local company, & I liked their selection. I had a question while completing my online order so I called them. A nice woman answered right away & answered my questions. My order was made early (Jan 12, 2010) in the season since I expected my large order may take awhile. I got my seeds in the mail in about 3 weeks. I ordered 36 different kinds of seeds. 29 were shipped, 5 were back ordered (still haven't received them) & 2 were out of stock (Globe Thistle, Blue Glow & Begonia, Non-Stop -- Rose Pink). As far as germination, I've had absolutely no problem. I've had to do a lot of thinning actually. (I had read the poor germination reviews & planted more seeds than I would have otherwise). Other than wondering about the 5 packets that are back ordered (Gaura, Cup & Saucer Vine, Zebrina, Knee High Sweet Pea, Fuji Blue Balloon Flower) I'm feeling pretty good about my experience. I think they have a really nice selection & their seeds are of good quality (based on germination rates). The descriptions & planting instructions printed on the seed packets were detailed & spot on. I will order from this company again.

Posted on January 21, 2010, updated February 11, 2010
Posted on January 16, 2010, updated January 21, 2010
I recently placed an order for bulk seeds on 12-12-09, seeds were supposed to ship with 2-3 weeks. My credit card was charged on 1-07-10. Seeds had not arrived by 1-14-10. Sent several e-mails to confirm order and shipping times with no reply. I sent the last e-mail 1-14-10 informing them my account had been charged and I had not received the order and requested shipping info to trace shipment. Still no reply, I informed them I would issue a negative feedback if they could not extend the decency of a reply to my e-mails. This is not hardly the busy season so I do not know the reason for their lack of response. I called once only to get a recording and since they failed to respond to four e-mails I didn't see the point in leaving a message. Their web site has no way of checking on an orders status or even if you have an order on file. This was my first and last order with this company and while the dollar amount was not huge it is disappointing that a company can so totally ignore a first time customer. I will give it another week and then will dispute the transaction with my Credit Card company and file a complaint with the BBB. No where on the web site does it state they will charge my account PRIOR to shipping the order. Even with just first class postage it should not take 10 days to arrive, I would have thought they would have sent it Priority mail but I guess I should have checked to see how they ship prior to ordering.

I placed an order for several packets of seed in early January. The order was processed and shipped in about a week, and I received an email confirming shipment and a tracking number (something I am not aware of any other seed company doing). Perennial seed is germinating well. I have ordered from Swallowtail in the past and received the same good customer service. I will order from them again.

I placed an order online with the company. Within an hour I changed my mind, and called to cancel. And e-mailed the cancelation. Over the next 7 days I called and e-mailed. I never got a response. There was only an answering machine no matter what time of day I called.
Then they e-mailed me that the product had shipped. Finally on day 8 I sent a letter to the Better Business Bureau and faxed a copy of the letter to the company. Within one hour I got a call from the company: "sorry sorry sorry".
No explanation, just we're sorry and we'll refund your money. And told me to keep the seeds.
When the seeds arrived I was amazed that in a packet that was labeled 75 seeds, there were 25, in a packet label 30 seeds, there were 15.
How does a company get away with this?!

Very happy with this first seed order, recommended by DG's. Nice selection of zinnia seeds. Seeds arrived quickly.

I placed an order with Swallowtail Garden Seeds and received it within a week. Order confirmation and shipping notices were sent. A single item was back ordered, but this was out of perhaps 20. A refund was instantly made for the single pack of seeds.

Packaging is great - an envelope within an envelope, making it very easy to re-seal the seeds you don't plant. Instructions were printed clearly on the label.

The seeds were just planted for winter sowing, I will report back on germination. So far I am quite happy with Swallowtail Garden Seeds.

Ordering was easy. Delivery was slow. Communication was TERRIBLE. I have not yet received my order but was today advised via e-mail that my seed order had just now been placed in the mails (after three weeks). You would think that the hectic spring business had ended by today - the end of August - and they would be keen to take care of business. In the meanwhile I had (1) e-mailed them about my order, (2 )e-mailed further with some questions concerning those seeds and (3) left them an irate telephone message about their lack of response. I got no reply to any of those three communications.

Given the poor quality of the service I'm a bit concerned about the quality of the seeds. We'll see.

I placed a big seed order this Spring and had very mixed results. Some packets of seeds had VERY poor germination -- with Magestic Giant Pansies and Pin Up Rose Begonia for example I got only two plants out of the whole packet! But other seeds did very well, and my windowboxes are overflowing with Regatta Rose Lobelia, which could not be more beautiful! Other issues: I ordered some Black Velvet Rose Geranium seeds, which had 100% germination, but turned out to be another, non black seed geranium :( One of the packets of petunia seeds I ordered also had a fantastic germination rate but were not the petunias they were labeled to be. In general, my feeling is that this company is too hit or miss. For the price you might have better luck elsewhere. Also, the shipping was EXTREMELY slow. I may reorder the seeds that did well for me, but I'll be very cautious about trying new things, which is too bad because they have a fantastic selection!

POOR CUSTOMER SERVICE-THEY IGNORE YOUR CALLS AND NEVER CALL BACK WHEN THEY SAY THEY WILL.
I spent $60 worth of money on a variety of seeds and I followed explicit planting instructions provided on the seed packets. I diligently checked seedlings everyday and once I noticed a few sprouting I also noticed they immediately started to wilt and die. This happened to all seedlings across 15 different cellpacks that I had planted the seeds in, offering partial light, full light or darkness as per the instructions. A month into this process and with no results, I contacted Swallowtail and expressed my concern and left a voicemail. I received a callback from a woman who said she would talk the manager about how to handle my situation and instead they never called me again. I called back and left a voicemail saying I was waiting to hear back to resolve this situation (I wanted a refund but never even got that far in discussing since once they realized I was not happy with the results, they decided to duck for cover and never return my calls.). I continued to nurture the cellpacks for ANOTHER TWO MONTHS but there were no signs of growth at all from the seedlings and I had bought approx 17 different types of seeds for Spring planting, and I planted in Spring in mild California weather. It was a COMPLETE WASTE of TIME AND MONEY and worse, Swallowtail Gardens feels they are too far above their customers to resolve any situations. They just can't be bothered with you. Spend your money elsewhere as there are plenty of other seed companies out there. I suggest http://www.mycooksgarden.com which is Franchi Seeds. I found them at the Los Angeles Botanical Gardens Show this year and they are great.

On may 9, 2009 I placed an online order. I did get a confirmation and the product would be delivered by May 12.
It is now June 3rd and I do not have the seed I purchased. I have called, left messages, and emailed this company , no response. I did leave a message each time I called, due to "high call volume". I have no response, and no seed. I did call them again before posting this comment.
I do understand this is a busy time of year for them. But, Im coming up on a month of waiting on my shipment. All I have asked is for help with this situation of why I do not have my shipment.
I feel I have given adequate time for a response. I did give more time than I normally would due to the time of season it is .

I purchased a fair number of seeds from this company. They came very well packaged and I liked that they used little baggies for the seeds inside the paper packs. That's exactly what I do when I open a regular paper pack is immediately put the seeds into a baggie. A fair number of the seeds did germinate and appear to be true to type - but a fair number did not.

On many (guesstimate 1/3-1/2) of the seeds I purchased and have planted from Swallowtail I have either 0% germination or very poor stands (with some I have others purchased from other companies growing right next to, same conditions, just fine with the appropriate percentage of germination and appropriate seedling vigor for my conditions). Although I am new to having my very own garden (hence my large order, to fill new beds!) I have been in horticulture for years so I am well aware what it takes to germinate and grow on seedlings, and aware that not all seeds have excellent germination naturally and some lines are less vigorous than others, and that my one-size-fits-all growing room results in some not doing as well as they would in their individual optimum conditions, but I expect better than what I got.

All that said, I might even be okay with - if the company would answer my emails and address my concerns, ideally with troubleshooting assistance and/or replacement packets if needed - I did pay for them after all and got no plants out of many of the packets I paid for! With the poor germination on many and almost total lack of communication (they did in fact reply ONCE when I sent a positive e-mail to them about one particular variety which came up well), I don't believe I got my money's worth this time.

Quick and accurate service, generous amounts of seed, nice selection at a nice price, packets clearly labeled, ship date and confirmation email let you know when to expect your order. I would order from them again with complete confidence. Thanks!

I have ordered from this company for several years, and have always been delighted. They have a great website, an excellent variety of seeds, they provide a generous quantity of seed in each packet, and I've had very good germination results.

I got what I ordered in a timely manner, the seeds were clean and in good shape. I'll report back with germination rates. At this time I would recommend them.

Pretty nice selection of flower seeds. Would certainly order again. Delivery took only a couple of weeks.

Fast shipping, everything came as promised. Would order from again. Has many flower seeds not seen any place else!
The prices are great also :) Should be in the top 30 stores list!

I have ordered flower and vegetable seeds from Swallowtail for the past 3 years. Their website is simple to use and contains superb photographs. Each year, I find many unique varieties that I've never seen anywhere else. Seed germination has been excellent.

This year I placed my order in early January. A couple weeks later, I hadn't received the seeds & was champing at the bit to start my early sowing. Voila'! The very next day, an overnight express envelope arrived with my seeds! The company spent a good bit of money to get them to me this way, and I appreciate it! I've recommended Swallowtail Garden Seeds to all my fellow community gardeners.

I placed a small order by mail back in November.I have called them twice and each time they seemed they were sincere about what happened to my order. The first time they said they had mailed it the past week, the second time they said they would track the order since it shipped two weeks before. I gave them my e-mail and phone number.I never recieved either one as to what happened to the order. I was looking forward to these seeds.I'm giving them a nuetral rating in hopes they will deliver. If I recieve them,I will surely write another review.

In the past month I have ordered 2 small orders with this Company and both times I had to call to find out when my order would arrive. I never got to talk to a rep, just leave a message. E-mails go unanswered. Both time it took over 10 days to get from Cal. to Arizona. If you have LOTS of time, these are your folks.

I ordered from Swallowtail Garden seeds for the first time recently. I received a nice package today, and everything looked great! There was lots of information and planting instructions on each packet. I would recommend this company and will definitely order from them again in the future. =)

Tiffany

Ordered several tomato seed packets this year. They were here in one week. The seed counts were good and the packaging was kinda neat. Yes, they will be hearing from me again.

Great selection. Excellent website that is easy to use. My order arrived quickly. Germination rate was excellent.

I ordered a number of seeds from this company this year and found them to be wonderful seeds. They all germinated wonderfully and are growing very well. When there was a question about my shipping address for my seeds, not only did I receive several e-mails but phone calls as well. I will definately order from them again next year.

I ordered several seed packets from them this year and was very pleased. They had a great selection, reasonable prices, and fast shipping. Germination was excellent and the flowers so far have been lovely. Will definitely be back for more next year.

I have been buying seeds from Swallowtail for two years. They shipped very fast and all seeds were well packed. I have successfully grow some beautiful plants from their seeds. Will keep shopping with them.

I am really pleased with Swallowtail Garden Seeds. Before I ordered I sent questions via email and their response was quick and very informative. I placed my order with ease through their website and the seeds arrived promptly. They were neatly packaged and included good directions. I can tell that they really enjoy what they do and are willing to help their customers along. They have a very nice selection of seeds and I appreciate the reasonable shipping charges. I will certainly order from them again.