Comments regarding National Arbor Day Foundation

I have personally never had any trouble with this company. I have been a member for several years, and all of the products I have ordered from Arbor Day have been of relatively good quality, especially the fruit trees I ordered in 2005 and 2006.

This is the second, and last, year I will receive dead plants from this organization. Last year the free red maple was the only tree that sprouted. All the fruit trees were DOA. This year, one of the plum trees was dead. I don't mean that they just didn't sprout. I could find no living tissue on the plants. I was not disappointed in the size to price ratio, but I am disappointed that the organization supporting tree planting nationwide would ship dead plants. I won't order from them again.

I ordered a Koosa Dogwood, Lilacs, and a Sugar Maple, along with the 10 free trees, last fall. They sent a free Red Maple.
The Koosa and Lilacs were very small, and the Sugar Maple and Red Maple were about 3 foot whips.
I planted all of them and although the Dogwood, Maples and Lilacs are looking spindly, they are alive and growing, although slowly.
Out of the 10 free trees, only 2 are leafing out, the rest appear to be dead.
Not a big deal about the free trees, and the others didn't cost enough to lose sleep over, but I won't waste any more money on plants from the NAF.

On one hand, I feel I should not complain about anything given as 'free.' But, on the other hand, the company's goal is to get more trees planted... I'm assuming they mean LIVE ones. I laughed when I read that people found all ten trees in their mailbox, but I thought they might be exaggerating just a little. They weren't. All ten of mine fit easily into one medium size pot. That was about two months ago. Today I noticed that one of them has one leaf sprouting. The rest look exactly the same as they did two months ago. Yeah... I'm betting they aren't going to be providing much shade this year. ;-)

I guess I have mixed feelings about this company. Not sure where the .org comes in, as they certainly have the facilities/amenities and corresponding business ventures of any corporation. I was a member for two years (didn't renew this year), being annoyed by the constant ploys to get my money and the incessant mailings asking for it. Looking at their site and what these dues are "paying for" is kind of insulting.

That said, even if the 10 free trees for $10 annual membership fee is nothing more than a clever marketing gimmick, it IS a buck per tree, and you can't really expect a 4 or 5 ft specimen that you'd pay 10 - 20 times or more for elsewhere. The free trees I have grown have done well as a group and I have some 10-20 ft tall nice trees to show for it, which is not a bad return on a few bucks.

I did order some of their "regular" maples (which incidentally are much larger than the "free" ones) that have actually ALL done phenomenally well. Their website also has great information if you're doing research on trees or need help identifying them.

I also received the 10 sticks and one extra stick that was to be a lilac bush. There were maybe 3 of the sticks that were quite large and had a good root system, but all the others were very puny and looked like nothing more than twigs!

The reason for the neutral rating is I planted everything in pots a few weeks ago and must say, for the most part, that all of the sticks I got, except for one, are sprouting and growing huge leaves like crazy! There are a couple of them that we feel are big and sturdy enough to transplant to our yard, with protection of course.

Since we have 5 acres, my inlaws gave us their 10 tree order as well. Since we did not have any more pots and most of the sticks were already sprouting leaves in the bag, we decided to go ahead and transfer all of these to the property.

So far, no luck with those. Some of them I can't even find anymore. I figured they have gotten trampled by wild animals, or they have been overgrown by the rest of our property. But they ones that I did find look dried up and have no growth anymore. What a waste, we should have put them in pots first.

After I get all the potted trees put out in the yard, I will continue to see how they grow and then change my rating accordingly.

I also got 10 twigs, only one grew, this company is a big JOKE !!

I've planted several of the "ten free trees" over the past few years. They are all started in the nursery area (fenced in vegetable garden) and grow there for a couple years to get some size. While many of them die/never grow at all/dead upon arrival, the ones that do survive and get transplanted are healthy and nice.

I placed my order in the fall and planted the day they arrived. By this spring everything had died (approx 10 trees) except for the two free forsythias they sent. Conversely, everything I ordered from Miller's Nursery is doing very well!

Yes the prices on Arbor Day Foundation are cheap, but is the disappointment worth it?

We started a membership with NASF to help landscape our combined business and home property. I heard good comments about them over the years, and looking at their prices figured they were a safe bet. Our 'premium gift' for membership was ten flowering trees. Looking at their catalog, we assumed these 'trees' would be 1-4 foot branched seedlings/saplings. We were disappointed when they arrived today small enough to fit in our mailbox. To make it worse, the mail carrier expressed her sorrow that her 12-years of experience showed this was about the best we could expect from them.

The seedlings were bound in one bundle, non-branched and gel-coated, with an average size of about 8 inches. Basically twigs with a few roots. Our plan was to plant these with our three girls. Instead I dug some quick holes while they were napping as they would have been heart broken to see them. I went to the extent of fencing around them to keep the errant leaf or running squirrel from knocking them flat. It felt like a scene from a Charlie Brown cartoon.

I planted thousands of trees with the Scouts in Washington for lumber company reclamations and with the Forest Service for erosion control. Even those trees which we packed sometimes miles into the mountains were larger and healthier than what Arbor Day 'gives' away for $10 along with a ton of fliers asking you to spend more. The giveaway plants at the local nurseries are at least branched 3 footers - and they are free add-ons to any purchase. A nursery couldn't give away what NASF sent - even without a purchase. Very sad for $30 million a year foundation.

A mistake I'll never make again...

After making and order yesterday, I came by this website to see if anyone else had left comments. Was shocked to find a rating of 58%. After a couple of hours, I just didn't have any peace about the order so I called them up to see if it was too late to cancel. It wasn't....so I did. I am leaving a comment here to say that I was impressed with how they handled my cancellation request. They were prompt and pleasant and didn't question me about my decision.

I been a member since 1998 and just think about these trees as babies, they just need a tad of love. There are trees that I ordered that died, but then I considered the fact that I may have planted the new fine roots in a rock hard clay. I read the one person said make a hole and add planting soil to just give a good start for the roots and so on. I ordered a lot and there are trees that all you do is just stick it in the ground and leave it alone, but there are less strong trees that require more thought. Overall I think they try their best, I just let it go when one dies. When I get my new shipment soon I'll use the potting soil and I feel that is best for the less shock... Oh yea to the people that said they received trees when the ground was soild, trees and other woody plants transplant the best during winter, I buy plants left over from stores in dec and they do just fine (you may have to think). Take Care and I think anyone that has trees that died to contact Arbor Day and tell them... How else would they know if they are strong or they made a mistake, they can't guess.

I have been a member of the National Arbor Day Foundation for 5 years and I am renewing my membership for the 6th year this month. I am highly satisfied with the free trees I have recieved I have very big healthy trees for much less than I would have paid anywhere else. They do take time to grow but they are well work the wait. The 2 flowering pears I recieved my forst year are now about 10-15' tall and one of the crabapples has a weeping growing habit. A few trees have died out of the 50 I have recieved most were when I forgot to plant them and they stayed in the house all winter in the bag they came in but amazingly a few did grow. It doesn't matter to me if any die since i am paying to support their mission not to get free trees. I also made a donation and recieved 10 free lilacs which are doing great and bloomed for the first time last year and they were beautiful. I will continue to renew my membership for life.
A small tip: Use a bulb planter to make the holes and fill them in with a mix of purchased top soil and the soil from the holes, and of course don't forget to keep them watered.

I ordered a starter set of trees (2005) and did not receive them until the ground was too frozen to plant (late December). I potted them to over winter in my garage following instructions, but none survived to the following spring. Won't be ordering from there again. They ship too late for my part of the country.

Hello everyone. A couple of years ago I became a member of the foundation. I received ten free flowering trees, I don't recall when I received them but I'm thinking some time around spring. The trees were bare root and they were moist and in good condition. I never had the chance to actually plant them. So I can't blame NADF for my lack of responsibility.
Later I had ordered two apple trees, red and yellow delicious apples. I ordered them for a friend and they are doing well, they haven't produced apples yet, which takes a couple of years anyways. I also received a free Maple tree that I planted in a pot. It is doing good as well. Of course I had to figure what was best for a bare root plant. They do seem to work better if you plant them in a pot their first year, however, I have not yet transplanted my maple yet. I plan to do this in the spring.
Overall I have had a good experience with them and plan to order again. Only this time I know what to do and what not to.
If you have no knowledge of what bare root is, do your homework before ordering from them. Because the reward is worth it.

We were disappointed by the blue spruce trees we received for planting in the spring-they arrived moldy and really too late for planting in our area so they did not live. We read the comments on your forum and decided to contact the National Arbor Day Foundation Member Services department. This Department was very accomodating in settling our complaint about the trees to our satisfaction.
If you have any problems with the National Arbor Day Foundation, please contact their member services department which we found to be fantastic.

My advice to anyone who is unhappy with any org that calls them is to firmly but politely ask to be placed on their do not call list and to get on the national do not call list if they are not already. It is a very effective way of culling out telemarketing calls especially from orgs you have an affiliation with after the fact.

I do not expect too much from the foundation or the free trees but am looking forward to the one of many opitons they offered me for free intro membership trees. I received the options after writing an e-mail to them about my free tree order. There are actually many many more free tree packages than are listed on their web site.

I received five trees in December 2005. This spring all but one tree was dead.

In my opinion, these trees are nice for the small amount of $ that you spend. Yes, the trees are small. I have found that they grow better if you start them off in a pot first. Some of them take a long time to start growing, but I have ordered several and I'd say 95% have lived. Overall, a positive experience.

I joined the National Arbor Day Foundation late ’04 and later that winter my ten free trees arrived. Yes they are shipped in a plastic bag but despite the lack of presentation they are kept moist and none of mine were at all damaged by the shipping method, which surely helps to keep the cost down.

Even though a few had questionable roots I went ahead and planted all of them. These trees are seedlings and do of course require extra care to grow into trees. Their small size, however, is to be expected for a dollar a tree including shipping and membership cost. It really is a splendid deal and a fun way to get to try out varieties that one may not be willing to spend the bigger bucks on for a larger specimen.

While they were a bit slow to start all but a few of the trees did begin to grow by early summer. When I confirmed that a few were indeed not going to be coming out of dormancy I contacted Arbor Day inquiring about having replacements sent.

They responded quickly and were exceptionally polite, helpful and more than willing to replace not only the trees that had not come up, but when the shipping for my area came along I received ten additional trees as replacement. They were planted this winter and only the goldrains still show no sign of life, the rest look lovely and the ones from the previous year are already showing dramatic growth.

While I was initially questioning ordering trees from Arbor Day based off how small their free trees were, their customer service in regards to my concerns regarding ‘free’ trees was more than enough to convince me that if there were a problem with my order that they would be more than helpful in correcting it.

I signed up for their hazelnut project program and ordered three paper birches, a Pararifire, a smoke tree and a tulipifera. With that came a free red maple and two forthysias. While still of course not huge trees, the trees that one gets from purchasing from their tree store are notably larger than their free counterparts.

I was expecting a little bag of trees in my mailbox but rather I received a rather large, carefully packed box. All the trees arrived safely and looked wonderful. The free red maple was a beautiful three foot plus specimen with good branching structure which by this time has leafed out as have all the rest.

The only questionable items were the forthysias. One looked fine, but the other I was certain wouldn’t make it. Despite that certainty I planted them both and they both have leafed out fully and are already growing larger.

The above mentioned trees however all arrived very shortly after I had ordered them while the hazelnut project trees were nowhere to be seen nor was the calendar that I was supposed to have received for renewing early. Again I contacted the company and again I was extremely pleased with their responsiveness and quick effort to correct the issue.

While no response was given to the lack of calendar (which I assume they simply ran out of), it turned out that the hazelnuts were a filling mistake which they rectified immediately and I received my hazelnuts a couple of weeks ago. They arrived much smaller than the other trees I ordered, rather the size of the free trees, but from my experience transplanting hazelnuts and dealing with their taproots, I definitely feel much better about the likely survival rate of these small hazelnuts as opposed to if they had sent larger specimens with too short of roots.

If looking for instant landscaping trees, certainly one ought to look elsewhere and expect to pay a great deal more. However if in no hurry or planting for the future on a crunched budget, the Arbor Day Foundation has a wonderful variety of small, healthy trees that are a real joy. I’m exceptionally happy with what I have received from them, their customer service and as a bonus they have a lot of tree related projects that they support. I will certainly order from them again.

What I find is that with this company, people order from them expecting huge, bought at the nursery plants, this is not true. I signed up and they sent me an assortment of trees that do well in our area for free. They were small, about a foot or so, but they were alive, that's the good thing, I remember two red-buds had pretty heart shaped leaves. They really are just seedlings, and I had the mistake of planting them where the deer would get them. All the trees in my " tree nursery" where I was letting them grow, were grazed to the ground and no signs of coming back. It's a shame, but they really are trying hard here to help spread planting trees, they just give things that are more high matienence on our parts. I will give them a positive for their efforts, and I reccomend people put the trees in small pots until they are large enough for the landscape.

I had joined around a little over a year ago. I chose the "blossoming trees" consisting of the Hawthorne, Crabapple, Dogwood, Red bud, and Goldenraintrees. What you get is very thin seedlings that couldn't be more than a few months old. (look like 6-8" sticks). Following that you will get a ton of junk mail to purchase even more stuff. Six out of ten of my trees have survived, and now approximately 15 months later I have trees that are from 9" to almost 3' foot high. ( I have good soil, and I mulch, and water) I don't really see the situation as a loss because I do get satisfaction from how well the few trees that I have are doing. Just be aware that you get what you pay for, and this is a company like any other, that has to turn a profit to survive.

I have not had personal experience, but have read the comments and done a little research as I'm very concerned where my donation's go to. And I'm concerned about this one.

There is a site that keeps track of these guys It's called Capital Research Centre. //www.capitalresearch.org.

I did a quick compare. It looks like Arbor Days director earns more salary than the director of the Sierra club, the World Wild Life Federation, and the Humane Society (US, not UK) BUT it earns only about 1/4 of what WWF does. Well see for yourself.

In 2003 Arbor had a revenue of $28,418,604, Sierra club a revenue of $51,814,307 and WWF a Revenue of $105,928,516. Yet the president of NADF earned $302,193.00, as opposed to the President of Sierra Club ($167,083.00) and WWF ($214,542.00). A mere manager at NADF earned $94,246.

The president of the Arbor Day earns more then Sierra Club and WWF, yet the organization brings in revenue less than the others.

Links to validate
//www.capitalresearch.org/search/orgdisplay.asp?Org=NAD100
//www.capitalresearch.org/search/orgdisplay.asp?Org=WWF100
//www.capitalresearch.org/search/orgdisplay.asp?Org=HUS100

This Arbor Day has a manager earning almost as much as the CFO of the Sierra Club. Makes you wonder where your donations are going doesn't it?

Again, I've no direct contact, so delete this if you feel it's necessary, but it looks like I'll have no direct contact either.

Jen

Having at one time a year or so ago, worked with people in this organization I have to say I saw a lot of envolvement with children. I really liked that. So I too donated.

Now I get bombarded with continual requests for more money. Yikes. How many trees died for all the requests for money I've gotten? That doesn't say much for their cause.

Another thing that bothered me was that I never really saw where else any of the donations went to, other than more of thier own programs. They did do that well, promote thier own programs. But I never saw pictures of trees they planted. I never saw any reclaimed or saved rainforest pictures. The web site seemed very commercial (buy buy buy more and more), maybe I missed it but for an ecologically minded organization, they don't seem to do much.

uquea

Like most of us, I received a mail offer to join the National Arbor Day Society. For a $10 donation, I would receive 10 free trees. I mailed my check off and then I read this forum. When my trees arrived, about a month later, I was not surprised to receive 10 little twigs--I had already known what to expect by reading this forum. As promised, I received 2 redbuds, 2 dogwoods, 2 hawthornes, 2 crabapples and a crape myrtle. They were packaged in a rooting gel and, ahthough very tiny, they were alive and the roots appeared healthy. Each tree was identifiable by a paint color (or lack of one) dabbed on the tiny twig. Since I could not immediately plant them, I heeled them in a garden bed and intend to plant next week when it warms up. I am going to follow the instructions and plant them in worked up soil in a garden bed and leave them there for two years before transplanting to their new home. My yard is not yet fully landscaped and in just about two years, I will be ready to create some new beds along the sides of my property. I am hoping that my little twigs will thrive and be ready to move to their permanent home at the same time! Yes, they are very small, but the NADS is a good organization, so if my trees make it, great, if they don't, I will feel that I have simply made a donation to a worthy cause. Actually, I'm not unhappy that they are small--I was not ready to give them a permanent home. I really don't know where I would have planted them if they were larger. I think that with a little planning (like my plan for the new beds in two years) the Arbor Day Society can work for you. If, however, you are looking for nicely sized trees to plant now for gratification in the next year or so, that is not what you will get. These are very young saplings, mere twigs, of approx 12-15 inches and 1/8 to 1/4 in diameter. The crape myrtle is even smaller and I don't believe it will actually grow in zone 5 unless it's a new hardy variety. To summarize, I'm not sorry I joined. I like a good challenge, love to watch things grow and will be delighted if my trees make it and a little sad if they don't. They also give me the opportunity to do a little "dreaming" about my future beds and how I can incorporate my new trees into them!

On Aug 30, 2005 I joined the Arbor Day Foundation. I had received an offer to join and receive 10 Colorado Blue Spruce saplings. My wife was looking forward to receiving the trees with great anticipation. Since that time I have received several requests for more donations and offers of a free gift with each offer.

I agree that when you contribute to the foundation you are mainly making a contribution to assist in providing educational materials to others and to assist in providing trees to be planted around the country. Most of the plantings, though, seem to be covered by corporate sponsorships and to be only in the hometowns of these sponsors.

If I had responded to every request for a donation I would have probably donated around a hundred dollars since August and it is only the middle of March.

At this time I still have not received the free Spruce trees.

"Stung once, shame on you; Stung twice shame on me; Stung three times I am a fool." Since I have been stung by the foundation on my first donation I do not feel that I should make anymore donations. The only proof I have that they have used my donation to any good is their newsletter that tells me about the corporate sponsored undertakings about to take place.

By failing to make good on their promise to me they have shown that I cannot rely on the information that they publish.

I have a number of trees that I got from National Arbor Day. I liked the free trees as a bonus and now after a few years actually have good sized tree to show for the effort of joining.
Last year I ordered several of the smaller sized trees because I am in no hurry to see big trees and benefited by getting a lower price. They are all doing fine as is the free maple they sent with my order.
I don't have any complaints about their products. You get what you pay for. If you want big trees there are plenty to choose from locally at the nurseries.
It is much like growing from seed, you do have to baby them as saplings until they can be set out to grow as the big guys.

Several orders in 2005. Some good and some bad. A few trees I ordered I was pleasantly surprised by. A few were major disappointments. Their ordering and fulfillment system is clearly a disaster given my own experience and that of others on this comment page. I ordered two memberships last spring, one for myself and one for my girlfriend. My free trees came right away and I planted them. I think mostly they are doing fine. My girlfriend's pack, delivered to the same address, for some mysterious reason, was not shipped until fall. I think they will mostly survive too. In the Spring, a few weeks after joining, I ordered 10 oaks. It was still easily cool enough to plant them where I live but they told me it was too late for spring shipping and they would ship them in the fall. In September I ordered some other trees and got them almost right away, planted them fine and they seem to be okay. October came and went, no oaks. November came, Thanksgiving crept up. The day after Thanksgiving, after temperatures had been in the teens for a full week and a foot of snow had fallen here, my oaks showed up at last. I emailed. Reply: "we couldn't ship earlier because of fall heat, but we'll ship you another batch in the spring" (a full year after ordering?). Okay, great, but why did I get all my other trees from them on time? They clearly need some decent software upgrades!

I joined Arbor Day as a contribution. I read a comment from years ago for people to quit whining about the "free" trees and stuff. Hear Hear!

Arbor Day is wonderful. The programs that they support and train for around the United States are quite the lifeblood of america.

Ja, I am a "tree hugger" and proud to be one!

PS I don't mind if the stems they ship grow or don't grow. The little free things are fine, and they are sweet for attempting to send some gifts. I am happy and thankful for this
company and their attributes. Please give them a break and support them, not berate them.

I have been a member of this organization for better than 10 years now and feel very positive towards it. The free trees I have recieved have always been twigs - some better than others but always twigs(small bareroot stock). Please keep in mind that this is not a gardening supplier or business but an educational charity - realistically, what do you expect for a
$15 donation - Stop whinning.

I just thought I would relate my experience. I got the 10 trees and yes they were what appeared to be twigs. I put them in the ground just like I was supposed to do and they grew inspite of me. I watched a rabbit bite three of the twigs off even with the ground and they still came back and grew a couple feet before winter came. Its now winter and the 10 "twigs" now range from 2 feet to 6 foot tall. Arbor Day is alright with me and I'm hard to please. You just have to take care of the little guys!

I was terribly disappointed with the "free" trees that I got with my donation to the company. I am very glad I decided not to place an order until I saw the health of the "free" trees.
Half of them were dead when I got them, the other half did not live. When I received them they were a slimy mess. The paint that they used to tell me what type of tree they were was worn off and it was very hard to tell them apart. They were about 8 inches long with very little root system-most of them you couldn't tell the top of the tree from the root!
I will not buy here ever again.

Oh, dear--this company proved to be my own personal disappointment AND humiliation! I joined....being a huge gardener and I liked their premise. My "free" trees arrived in horrid condition........moldy, juicy rotting sticks in a plastic bag. When I wrote them to say the sign-up trees were a dreadful representation of their organization, and that I'd like the trees reshipped in better condition, they kicked me out of the organization!! =0 I received a refund of my fee with a letter saying they didn't desire to retain my membership!

Hmmph and good riddance.....but gee, I'm not the party who dealt in rot! I prefer green in my garden.......

Order trees for Fall 2004 shipping. When ordering explained that I was in the foothills in Colorado and if trees were shipped after 2nd week of November ground would be frozen. I called and emailed when I did not receive any trees by 11/15. They were waiting for a hard freeze in Neb. before shipping. I inquired about shipping in Spring since we were already getting hard freezes. They insisted that trees would be fine, shipped 11/25. Planted all trees on Thanksgiving day, next day had a big snow and freezing weather, by Spring everything was dead. They would replace for 1/2 price and shipping. I WILL NEVER DEAL WITH THEM AGAIN.

I haven't recieved my 10 "free" trees yet, but I did recieve the several that I ordered. They were actually a bit larger than I expected, and healthy looking. Oddly enough, the largest and healthiest tree I got was the "free bonus" red maple. 2 free Forsythia's they included are little more than soft wood cuttings with marginal roots, but they were free so if they grow, that's a bonus. All trees were at least as big, if not a bit larger, than the catalog descriptions and were packed well with plenty of moisture gel surrounding the roots.

I just got the membership trees. They are indeed small. But i think because I read this forum (After I placed an order for some pear trees and the membership). My expectations were not high to start with. With that said, i was surprised to see that the little trees actually did not look as bad as I thought. I am a novice in tree planting, but these actually look like what I have been reading from various sources viable trees. Of course, i just planted them so who knows how they are going to turn out. I have to say, it is difficult to id them even with the paint key. But i guess because i am treating this as a learning process and a donation, any surviving trees would be bonus.

I received my pear trees a week earlier (with a free maple) THey looked ok at first. They were bigger than i thought they might be (but according to the published sized). However, 1 of them does not have a very good form, i actually think it was cut/pruned/ prepared incorrectly. One of them has a big gash on the main trunk. I told the foundation and they have agreed to replace both trees for me. I planted them anyway, so lets see what would happend. The customer service was very helpful and prompt with reply. I just felt like i should speak up for them. THen again, i still have not seen the replacement nor withstand a TExas Summer with the trees i got from them so...stay tuned...

I do have to say, they do take a long time...I place the order for the membership trees around March 20 or so, and the pear trees 3 days there after. Around that time, the weather was perfect here in texas, not too cold, not too hot, plenty of rain and plenty of sun...I did not know it would take about 1 month for them to deliver the trees because now it is already getting a little hot and not as much rain...I think I might have missed the best time to plant...but Like I said, the overall expereince has thus far been pleasant...we shall see...

After reading all the neg. on the foundation I was very worried about the order I placed. I have to say the trees are just as described and very much alive. I am glad to support the foundation and am very happy with my purchase.

I purchased a membership and also ordered a dozen dwarf Montmorency cherry trees which were about 4ft. tall when I received them. I potted the trees as soon as they arrived @ a month ago. The nail scratch showed green bark. I've watered them once a week and checked them yesterday and leaves are breaking out of the buds. The foundation will replace any that don't grow for half price, but at this point it looks like they delivered good quality trees. If they don't live, it will not be the foundation's fault. I'm very pleased with the quality of the trees I received and especially the price. I'm trying to grow them in upper zone 8, so it's a gamble to begin with. I wouldn't hesitate to order from them again.

I wish I had had seen this web site before I spent my money. The ten "trees" came in a bag, the kind your newspaper comes in, and were all twist-tied together without the first label. Since the Goldenraintree is poisonous and I have horses, I had no choice but to throw them all away. I also ordered two Japanese Maples. There was virtually no roots on these "trees" so I don't know what my chances of keeping them alive are.