California Gardening: Bad Experience with Good Nursery - Need Advice Please, 1 by sybilshappylife

sybilshappylife wrote:
When I got my first email order from Annie\'s I was so impressed with the way the plants were packaged - exactly as advertised, and exactly as I expected from all the wonderful reviews here at DG. So, I was very confident about placing a second order. What a disappointment that was! The root balls were not packed in that fiber paper stuff, there were no sleeves to keep the plants securely in their slots in the shipping box inserts. The only \"protection\" was a piece of paper over the top of the 4\" pots secured by three rubber bands. On five of eight plants at least one of the rubber bands came loose and snapped onto and around the poor little plants themselves, breaking stems and breaking off leaf ends. Two of the pots fell out of their cardboard slots and were lying on the bottom of the box spilling soil all over the place. Those two are papavers which are now dead, I think. I have contacted Annie\'s by phone and email trying to get an answer as to their intentions for packaging their plants in the future. If they are going to continue to use this new method I just can\'t risk the money to buy from them. I cannot get anyone to answer this question. The only person I\'ve been able to talk to told me she\'s new there and that she did not know the method of packaging that\'s promised on the website. I can\'t get past this person to talk to someone more knowledgeable. Does anybody know what\'s going on there??? Annie\'s has some plants I would dearly love to have and I can\'t find anywhere else to get them, but my confidence is just shattered - not just by the sloppy packaging but also by the total lack of interest or response to the problem. Any advice would be helpful. Thanks, Syb