Woodland Iris Gardens

I just found their website but couldn't find them in garden watchdog. They are located in Modesto, Ca. They have really good prices and some I'd like to have but would like to know if anyone has ordered from them before and what kind of experience they had with them.

Here is a link to their Garden Watchdog listing:

http://davesgarden.com/products/gwd/c/1178/

YES!!!!!!!!! I have ordered from them for 3 years now and they have great stuff, most all is of good size, only had a couple things that were in my opinion a little small, prices are great and I would say all in all great to deal with. You also get at least one of their introductions, Lorraine has been wonderful to deal with and a very nice person, have had several good converations with her. Well worth ordering. I know I will again this year:)

I went back to the watchdog but still didn't see it in there......geez, I must need sleep.
anyways, thanks makj. Their prices are so good and there are some I'd love to have. I'll let some others know also.

They have some bad feedback BB.

BB - I'd buy elsewhere if I were you....

I agree with Mrsj... pick a different company

I recommend Snow Peak Iris......

Have you all ordered from Woodland? or going by feedback, I can say from personal experience that when I have ordered and if there was something a little small, I told them and they sent another, 3 years and I would again order from them.

Okay, thanks for all the info . I usually give consideration to one bad comment, but more than one is enought to tell me not to order. Since I'm particular about which ones I want I don't like hearing of mis-named ones. I've ordered from Schreiner's two years in a row and have always been happy with theirs so I guess that's who I will stay with.

You're likely to receive the occasional mislabeled iris from virtually any grower. In fact, the ONLY seller I've never heard of sending out a mislabeled iris is Superstition. Of course some growers have a much worse reputation for keeping their iris identities straight than others, and some have worse customer service than others when errors do occur. As buyers, we want to deal with the growers whose mis-IDs are minimal and who bend over backwards to rectify problems when they occur and keep their customers happy. That's where the Watchdog comes in handy. It'll tell you not only which growers are least likely to send out mislabeled plants, but which will immediately correct the error and replace the plants with smiles on their faces.

Laurie

When I decided to sell iris, I thought, naively, that I would never make a mistake and send a customer a mislabeled iris. A few years of the realities of managing large quantities of iris have taken care of any hubris; now I recognize that some errors are going to happen no matter how careful I am. Here's a story to show what I mean.

I once bought a beautiful iris named Celtic Prince, and put it in bed 7. It vanished. Two years later when I dug that bed, I had still never seen so much as a leaf; Celtic Prince was marked as a Croak in my records. Bummer, but if happens. Bed 7 was dug, tilled, and planted with buckwheat and other cover crops for one year. That fall I tilled it again to incorporate some new organic matter. The next year Bed 7 was tilled and planted with peas and beans. The third year Bed 7 was tilled and replanted with iris. The fourth year - now, keep in mind I already had the darn thing for two years and it didn't send up a leaf before all this digging happened, so this is six years from the initial purchase - I had a lovely bloom of Matinata in Bed 7 with - say it with me - one Celtic Prince blooming happily in the middle, about nine feet from its original location.

I assume a fingernail size chunk of rhizome somehow survived, sat around in there, and six years later it somehow managed to get its act together and bloom. Botanically, with no cycle of replenishing nutrients, this is highly unlikely, but there it was. Because it bloomed, I caught it. But if it hadn't, there is a chance that a customer could have ordered Matinata and I would have dug up the lone Celtic Prince rhizome and sent it. I mark my iris when they're in bloom every year and immediately dig ANYthing that might be an error and quarantine it, but if that one little guy hadn't bloomed, I never would have known it was there.

Obviously large amounts of mismarks indicate some kind of problem, but please don't write off a company that makes an error from time to time. Personally, I feel horrible when it happens, and I go to great lengths to not have mismarks. But as long as there's iris that are as tough as that little Celtic Prince rhizome, and there's deer knocking over markers, and human errors that sometimes result in writing "Latin Lover" when you meant to write "Latin Rock", things will happen. If it's just an occasional error, better to base your recommendation on how the company handles it.

katie

Very good post, Katie. People who haven't had your experience might never have understood the problems without your explanation.

Great post Katie, I'm not surprised an iris would survive under those conditions. They are tough suckers.

And a plug for Katie, while we're at it. The iris I got from her business Stoney Creek Iiris, last year were just lovely, and the correspondence I had along the way was great. It was a totally pleasurable experience buying from Katie.

I, too, have had unexpected errors crop up in my iris beds, in spite of meticulous bed maps, computer databases, and garden markers. In my case, it's the deer who occasionally lift a rhizome, carry it a few feet, then drop it in another part of the beds. Twice now I have found certain iris cultivars growing in places where they have NEVER been planted before.

There simply is no preventing those sorts of occasional errors. The best we can do is correct them as soon as they appear in our beds, and make good on any incorrect irises accidentally sent out to customers.

Laurie

And speaking of another good place to buy irises, Laurie's Shadowood. Lots of great medians too. Every one I've received from Shadowood have done wonderful, and been true to name. If there was ever a mistake, I have no doubt Laurie, or Katie would make it right, no hassles.

Why go with a place that has so many negative ratings, like Woodland, when our own members here sell such great irises?

Good commments from everyone. Mistakes do occur, heck I can't even keep my own garden organized with names, and yes I've had things pop up that I didn't know I put there. So I think bad customer service is the worst mistake a company can make.

Now, you might laugh at this, but.......my computer geek children are trying to convince me to use bar codes to help reduce errors. This is a hazard of raising engineers; they can't help but approach any problem with logic, and they are always sure that there's a technological answer for everything. Their idea is to divide my beds into units by size, plant one variety in each unit, and use the actual bar code on the railroad ties that I have edging my production beds on the hillside. According to them, I could stand out there with a little hand held device and zap in the appropriate info, all of which would be transferable to the computer. With no typos, which is a lovely thought. I mean, I'm still embarrassed about having "Slutty Mood" on my website for 24 hours instead of "Sultry Mood". Oops.

It sounds so wonderful. I could pre-set the date, walk outside on a rainy day in May, and scan the bar codes to have a record of bloom dates. Or just punch in a different code to record other data, like "needs new marker". As opposed to my current method, which is to fish out a ratty index card from a pocket and scribble something on it with whichever sharpie I grab first, which will smear in the rain anyway, and then of course I can't always read my handwriting. (Why does your handwriting start getting smaller just when you start needing bifocals?)

The kids are thinking of the kind of inventory, like t-shirts in a warehouse, that just sits there and behaves itself, of course. The red Medium t-shirts don't multiply like crazy and crowd the yellow Small t-shirts off their shelf, which is exactly what some of the iris would do in the kids' perception of 'units' of garden space.

It's like the data system they've set up for me for the business in the first place. When I sell an iris, it's automatically deducted from the inventory number I entered in the spring, which is very cool. But you're iris growers, so you see the problem my kids didn't: the iris don't just sit there. Some multiply, some sulk and do nothing, and some will inexplicably vanish. So my inventory numbers, carefully programmed though they may be, are really only guidelines.

But there's probably some merit to the idea. Does anyone have any expertise programing bar code devices? Any librarians out there? I have hundreds and hundreds of sheets of paper with dated notes from the clipboards I carry with me when I check beds, but some of them are barely legible. There probably is a better way. Any thoughts?

katie

Hi Katie - I have no idea if there is a better way but I must tell you that your "Slutty Mood" comment tickled me! Thanks for the good laugh and good luck with your new system.....

Don

life is full of " unplanned and explained" it happens, I for one know Woodland has always been very good to me and I have only had one mislabeled iris from them, when i buy iris it is usually 50+ from them, year after year and i would say one iris is pretty good!!!!!!!!!!

I have ordered from them in the past, and I've found that if you order early the rhizomes are larger than if you order later in the season. Also, they have always done right by me and eager to correct anything that I am unsatisfied with. They have always been polite to me and honest about sizes if I call and ask them. I would certainly order from them again.

~Margie

i dont hold the size of the rhizomes against them. They grow thousands of variety in a small area so they tend to have smaller stock especially at the end of the season. I think the prices reflect that. If I want that awesome of a price, size will be sacrificed a bit. No biggy to me.

They shipped me extras and any that didnt make it they replaced the next year without question.

superstition iris gardens is wonderful, every rhizome I have bought are HUGE and it does not matter if it is a $3.00 iris or a $20.00 iris. happy shopping!!!!!!!!!!

I have never ordered from Woodland -- which has beautiful pictures in their online catalog. On the other hand I ** have** ordered from Superstition and have always found their prices to be inexpensive for product received and rhizomes to be large and healthy. Their ordering system is kind of a pain. You have to request a catalog and then look at their pictures on Webshots. They actually have a lot of pictures, but it took me a long time to figure out how to match up the catalog with the pictures. Since I learned how, though, I am a big fan. They have a huge inventory of qood quality stuff.
There are lots of other good ones, too, with top ratings like Snowpeake and Napa Valley and Iris4U and Maleville and Mid-America -- all of which have web sites. One of the great things about iris is that there are so many wonderful vendors to choose from.

And limited spaces in gardens.:(

Limited spaces are definitely a bigger problem -- one I have problems with as well.

Superstition was difficult for me until we got this computer and after I was able to lurk in the library. They are very reliable people.

Yes, and they have thousands of interesting cultivars. I am a big fan, and I am a fan of other nurseries as well.

once you order from superstition, and you see how great the iris are you are sold on them, plus they do have a lot of iris to choose from and awesome $$$$'s you get a lot for your $

put in a big order with Woodland before I saw this feedback. Relatively new to DG, I just could n't help myself, the idea of getting my 2nd tier list for not much $. Now waiting with anxiety for things to bloom.

My 1st tier list are purchased from the grower if possible, or someplace like Snowpeak, Cooleys or Schreiners otherwise.

this is first year the deer are a problem, and they are oddly selective about uprooting things. They've yanked up alpha gnu three times and touched nothing nearby, walked into the middle of the rows and yanked up one here, one there.

In 2006 a dead tree toppled from our wooded area and landed nearby a new bed - I watched the impact concussion toss five just planted irises five feet up in the air. They landed almost 10 feet away, and not one went with its marker.... In 2007, a treetop sheered/ wrenched off in a big windstorm/minitwister that didd some major damage. The broken, heaviest part twirled 180 degrees and plowed through the same bed. Nature just isn't particular about name tags!

We all have to learn to chart the beds including me as I have had some seedling marker trouble in the past. That way if markers are damaged there is some chance in coming close to reality.

well, I'm chagrined and then some. I have a lot this year that lost markers in the wind. I "Charted" the bed - on the computer - and when I've gone back to look - it looks like DH or I one have written over that file with another "updated" file that didn't have about 300 place markers set. I'm going to have to find my original, soil encrusted, garden notes.

This message was edited Jun 3, 2008 10:33 AM

Ouch!