Comments regarding Seedman.com

I have ordered seeds and supplies several times from Seedman. Each time I have been pleased with the price, quantity and quality of the merchandise I have received. Shipping has been prompt.

Germination rates have been no worse than those from other tropicals suppliers I have used. As often as not, I have to admit most failures are probably mine. I have had good success with his germination aids.

I had occasion to email with a question on a Sunday night. I received a response before 9:00 AM the next day. I am pleased with this company and will be a repeat customer.

On February,10 2009.

Both times i ordered from you i got my seeds fast.Thank you for sending them out right away,it took less then a week to get them.I will be ordering from you again.Thanks

I have to say I cannot find seeds cheaper for the quality. They had a half off thanks giving sale. I can say for certain that there is no other place in the us where I can find Trachycarpus takil seeds by the hundred for $17 on sale. The seeds arrived in great shape. The tracycarpus were short a few seeds, but the manager sent a whole extra package for the mess up! I was assured that it was because the large packages are filled by weight which makes sense cause I would not expect someone to sit there and count out hundreds of seeds. The service was very good, and very quick to respond to the problem. The seeds are also guaranteed to be true to name or they will replace/ give your money back! For a species that has been so mixed up in the past, it is very reassuring to buy from a company that has such a guarantee. Many place do not make any such promise.

Jim over at seedman.com is great. I have ordered here multiple times... I highly recommend their "wonder soil with worm castings" as I have great luck with it.

I have only had germination problems once (on a GAC plant) and Jim sent replacement seeds as soon as I told him they did not germinate properly.

Great selection, friendly service.. A++++++++!

Won't ship to Australia, not even small packets of seed that are permitted entry by ICON. Their reasons are pretty vague. They say they haven't got the required paperwork for Customs. What paperwork??? They are shipping small packets of seed, not plants, nor shipping container loads of grain.
Other seed suppliers in the US ship small packets of seed to Australian customers regularly and they fill out nothing more than the small green Customs label at their post office counter. Only large orders over 100 grams weight may require a phytosanitary certificate depending on species.
The only times a company may have problems with Australian Customs/AQIS is through wrongly labelled or contaminated seed. And in such a case it is the customer who will cop the wrath of Australian Quarantine, not the supplier. It seems unfair that this company has decided to exclude Australia altogether when their website states "Worldwide Shipping". I suspect they do not ship to NZ either.

Ordered a bunch of seeds, followed directions some of the seeds are starting to sprout, the Cana and Camelia. Recommend using the special products the seed man offers for hard to sprout plants: smoke and the seed sprout packets. Excellent service, fast, packaged great and there are notes on the hard to start seeds. Rare and unusual seeds need extra care.

Valaree W

I ordered a pcket of seeds on 3-20-08 thru the mail as I worry about giving info, over the net. I received seeds today! They were very well packed and included good directions. I'm a little worried about germ. rate after what I've read, but really, even if you buy seeds at the store your not gauranteed 100% germ. Hopefully, these will grow. If they DO germ, I will definitly order from them again as they have very good customer service and the seeds arrived VERY fast!

I have puchased from this company on several different occasions. My concern with them is the wrong information on their website and on seed packs. I noticed that the varities are not labelled acurately. Shipping was fast and prices reasonable, but I probably won't purchase here again.

I am pleased with this company's timely delivery. I am also
pleased with packaging and germination info.
I have had no germination on 2 of the zinnia seed I ordered.
I have no germination of caulifower, and 1 variety of spinach.
1 out of 6 bird of paradise has germinated after 1 month.

I have ordered from them twice now and am very dissapointed with the low germination rates (some 0%). I ordered Japanese Maple seed (0% germination), a variety of bananna seed (20% germination), sago palm seed (30% germination) and bird of paradise (10% germination). I sent an Email (4 months after planting) asking that the Japanese Maple seeds be replaced as none germinated (they were supposed to be pre-stratified and ready for planting). I received a one sentence reply stating that they can take 2 years to germinate. That was all that was said... Very dissapointed overall...

I order seeds and puff :)) they were here lightening fast ! Great packaging, bonus name tags, nice instructions. Great prices and service ! I will shop again and highly recommend shopping here with Seedman !

Fast shipping and excellent customer service. When I e-mailed to ask about a low germination rate, I received a personal, informative reply, with an immediate offer to replace the seeds.

I ordered about a dozen different varieties from the half-price sale. The seeds arrived promptly--in 10 days--and were neatly labelled with planting instructions. The company was out of one variety, but I rather expect that during a sale, and a cash refund was enclosed. (That's always much nicer than a credit slip!) Also enclosed were enough blank plant labels for all the seeds, so I was quite impressed.

The company is very kind to customers and provide various rare seeds.

I have ordered some 4 dozen varieties of (primarily tree) seeds from Seedman over the past 2 years at three different times. Overall, I have had some species provide 80% to 95% germination rates while other varieties have been 0%.

While I don't know much about testing seeds for viability (other than looking at them with an experienced eye), I have worked in forestry in the tropics for 5 years and have collected and planted thousands of pounds of tree seeds. On occasion, entire batches from a single tree that looked healthy would fail. Therefore, I have not yet been disappointed by SeedMan due to my own experiences. However, I debated posting a 'neutral' since the failure rate has been slightly higher than I would have liked.

Having been involved with farming, greenhouses, and commercial growing for more than 35 years I would like to say that seedman has been true to their advertising. Tobacco seeds that I have purchased from them have done well and had a better than average germination rate for raw seeds. It has been my experience in the past that many times things are just as they are said to be. I plan to deal with Jim at seedman in the future.

At first I was impressed with the promptness and neatness of the packaging. I started my seeds in January as soon as I got them. I have still not seen any germination from my bananas, bird of paradise, kiwi, pygmy date palm, and tree tomato (cyphomandra).

I wrote to the company about a month ago and expressed my concerns. I detailed over several lengthy paragraphs what methods I had used and queried whether there was anything I had over looked. In my processes. All I received was the following response...."Both the kiwi and banana seeds take on average between 3-8 months to
germinate,
Jim"

Gee thanks for nothing..... I know that this is in part true but with as much as I started I would have expected to have seen something by now. What I would really like to see is documentation that the seeds that I received were actually tested by an independent lab that would estabilish the stated viability purported by the company.

I have been growing stuff from seeds sucessfully for years and also have a bachelors degree in horticulture. I have never had this bad of luck with any other company.

I just received my seeds and (after being VERY nervous after reading negative feedback on numerous different seed companies) was surprised at how healthy and promising the seeds looked! And a MAJOR MAJOR plus is that the palm seeds DID NOT FLOAT! Woohoo....that right there is half the battle! I expect germination to be great and will be doing business with them again! (since I am SUPER picky, that's really saying something!) :0)

I ordered from them and received my order in about a week. The seeds were labeled and included instructions. They have a huge selection to choose from, stuff nobody else has. I'm placing another order now.

Seed were delivered in 10 days. Packing OK. Service great!

Waiting to see germination results. (Garantie for germination was included).

I HAVE BEEN STARTING TROPICAL SEEDS FOR MANY YEARS AND DO NOT EXPECT MORE THAN 60 TO 70 %GERMINATION OF THE NUMBER OF SPECIES I BUY FROM DEALERS. I PURCHASED A DEAL ON BANANA SEEDS, 6 VARIETIES FOR $14.95; 10 SEEDS OF EACH. THE ORDER WAS SHORT ON THE SEED COUNT OF TWO VARIETIES. ALL THE SEEDS OF ONE VARIETY GERMINATED, 0 GERMATED ON THE OTHER 5. I WILL NEVER ORDER FROM THIS DEALER AGAIN!

NO SECOND CHANCE FORM THIS DEALER!

I have made two orders from this company for tree seeds. The order arrived very quickly with well labeled instructions.

The germination rates were not very good from many of the seeds. However, almost all my eucalyptus seeds germinated. I have yet to see if my other seeds grow as their suggested time for germination isn't up.

Although the germination rate is not super high they offer seeds that I haven't found any place else. I will use this company again.

Just recieved my third order from this company. Very pleased and would highly recommend.

I like Seedman very much, as well, but am relieved to read that others have had low germination rates with their seeds. I've ordered from them twice now. Both times, many of the seeds I ordered never germinated or germination rate was pretty low. And some of these were for plants I've always had booming success with, including basil, echinacea and sage.

That said, I will likely order from them again --- but for the next year or so, do my most *important* ordering from other companies, and save the Seedman ordering for those wonderful exotics they offer.

we ordered calif. poppy seeds and about 10 different garden vegetable seeds. they arrived very fast with good labeling and plant markers included. BUT, after planting our seeds in early september, in sc, we had no germination for lettuce (usually very easy), broccoli, cauliflower,kale, etc. our mustard had very good germination. we tried again with the lettuce, broccoli and cauliflower. still no success. we are waiting for spring for the verdict on the calif. poppies (please germinate and flower!!). i don't think we'd deal with them again

so far so good. less than a week from order to delivery, and the order was placed late on a friday. everything is here including the name stakes. I will update if anything noteworthy happens during germination.

Very pleased with what I received. Here is what I ordered and the quantity of each so that you can be the judge of the value:

White Chinese Pine - 6 seeds
Scotch laburnum - 4 seeds
Cedar of Lebanon - 5 seeds
Monterey cypress - 20 seeds
Japanese pink dogwood - 5 seeds
Sweet bay laurel - 3 seeds
Japanese maple - 20 seeds
White flowering dogwood - 11 seeds
Spindle tree - 16 seeds
Japanese pagoda tree - 4 seeds
Himalayan cigar box cedar - 15 seeds
Giant sequiouia - 20 seeds

The total was $26.30 plus $3.50 shipping. I received them within 5 days of ordering and they were shipped in a padded mailer. I will give the germination rate in a future update.

I have ordered from this company twice and have had nothing but good luck. These shipped faster than any company I've ever orderd from; I've always received my seeds within a week of ordering and everything was exactly as I ordered.

I ordered several seeds from them in early 2001. The order was shipped very promptly and nicely packed. However my germination rates have been nonexistent for pomegranates and very poor for strawberry spinach, and very poor for red sunflowers. Red okra had very good germination. Yellow watermelon had 100% germination, but some of the seeds were infected with worms.

Great people to do business with! They even called me over the phone to ensure I got my seeds! Now that is great public relations. Highly recommended.

I ordered from them in 1998 or so when I first discovered seed shopping on the web and before I knew anything about the various companies out there. I was impressed with the big variety of seeds offered. However, in retrospect, prices were high. Quantities were small and germination rates were low to nonexistent, but some of that may have been due to my relative inexperience at the time. There are too many good companies out there for me to order from them again.

I ordered various seeds from seedman.com & none have germinated in 2 months since I ordered them. I know it is not how I care for them because I have been given seeds from friend's plants & these have done well & I have also grown plants from fruits I have purchased, etc. Has anyone else had this type of problem, that all of the seeds purchased failed to grow? I bought palm tree seeds, cactuses, flowers & houseplants.