Comments regarding Botany Shop Garden Center

This only applies to an online purchase, nothing to do with the physical store.
I had bought a Valley Forge Elm from the Botany Shop before the Joplin tornado and had no problem. Great price, fast shipping and excellent quality.
But this purchase after waiting four weeks, two Princeton Elms had not shipped. I called and got an excuse that the shipping department was out of control and my order would ship that Monday. A week later still nothing billed to my credit card. Their website is down, no one answered the phone so I left a message saying not to process my order, the ground at my house is frozen and I no longer want the trees. And if they do ship something I will either refuse shipment or dispute the charge.
I cannot say what their brick and mortar business is like, but do not buy from them online. I place an order with another vendor on Saturday and they called Monday and asked if they should ship now or wait. I said ship now. That is good service something the Botany Shop has lost.

I can strongly recommend against placing an order using this company.

I placed an order early in August,received an automated email response. That is the only communication I've received since placing the order.

When ordering the web form prompts you to select a requested shipping date. The shipping date I selected was 8/8. It is now 8/29.

I sent e-mail inquiries about the whereabouts of my order on both 8/18 and 8/24. And received no reply from the company.

Really no plants are worth the stress and difficulty resulting from putting yourself into this type of situation with a mail order business. I'd checked the Dave's Garden Ratings and against my better judgement decided to give it a try myself. Never again...

I sent

AWFUL!! Ordered 3 plants in February with a shipping date on May 20th. Never received the order. Started calling at end of May, and Patti (owner) said... "they are coming soon". Well.. they never came! Repeated calls and Patti's promises of "they are in the mail"... never amounted to anything being delivered. This continued until the end of June, when I requested my $60 be refunded. Patti said "Sure..no problem. It will take a few days for the credit to be posted to your credit card". Guess what never happened... No money credited on credit card. I called 3 more times with 3 more empty promises of the $60 being refunded to my card. As of today (August 1st) - Patti now hangs up on me when i call to ask her why the $60 hasn't been refunded to my card. STAY AWAY!! She sounds very sweet and polite on the phone - but don't trust this company!

Posted on June 27, 2016, updated July 20, 2016
Posted on June 24, 2016, updated June 27, 2016
Stay away from this Company !

Something has changed for the worse in Botany Shop management or ownership. You can see that earlier reviews were good but that is not true, today. There is a complete lack of business integrity.
My order was late coming and I got in touch for updates. Two completely polite phone calls generated only excuses and 4 follow-up emails received absolutely no response whatsoever. They have no intention of filling the order.

But worse, they actually believe they can keep the payment. This is more than bad faith. It is theft.

Don't imagine that your order will be the exception because it is small, or you are a nice person, or your cousin used to buy there. This business now seems quite comfortable with dishonesty.

Did not have a great experience with the Botany Shop. I placed an order online on June 5 and called and spoke to a woman on June 14 after not hearing back from them. I was told it would be several more weeks before my order was filled. Given that I was going out of town for several weeks, I cancelled the order. Then, on July 15, I get charged for the order and have the order shipped...of course, I am not home to get the trees which, subsequently, will be dead by the time I get back home. I called and spoke to the owners (I presume) and was told there was basically nothing they could do for me since they had no record of me cancelling the order. So, long story short, I suppose it is somewhat my fault for trusting the word of the woman I spoke to on the phone that the order was cancelled and for not getting a cancellation number or something. So, when I get home, I will have 3 dead trees for $125. They may be fine to deal with in person, but I would caution any business via online or the phone.

Posted on June 21, 2016, updated June 30, 2016
Posted on June 19, 2016, updated June 21, 2016
They have a web site, "Endlesssummerhydrangea.com' where I attempted a purchase. The banner on their main page says, "Botany Shop Garden Center" and their invoice has the same title. Considering how they treated us, I suspect they are changing their URL as bad reviews pile up.
In March I ordered one lot of 10 hydrangea rooted cuttings, expecting to receive them soon after our zone 4 last frost date. In mid May I called to verify that our order was still valid. I was told, "if you ordered on line it is still active". A week later I called to get a ship date, and they sent out the order. The problem is, the order is for one lot of 10 plants and they sent one plant. I called and reported the issue and they said they would ship additional plants. A week later I called and they said, "we ship only on Mondays and Tuesdays so your plants wont spend the weekend at the post office. I waited another week and the plants did not arrive so I am now making this post.

I can highly recommend this company!
I purchased 6 cultivars of Elderberry 27 plant in total for a late fall delivery. I received an email from Michele telling me the date I had picked would not be the best for the plants unless they were going in a greenhouse. After a couple more emails (all were responded to quickly) a ship date was decided on and the plants were shipped.
They arrived on the date agreed on, they are nice plants that are individually labeled and were very well package (only one leaf broken off!)
I will not hesitate to purchase from them again.

I ordered 2 green giant trees. They arrived large, lush, thriving trees both are around five foot tall. I had two phone conversations with a very nice sales lady. About the order and shipping times. She was very nice and easy to work with. I am very pleased with this company. The prices of the plants are good and the shipping rates are great compared to a few of the top rated companies on the top ten listed in the watchdog section. Some have put shipping prices so high, as much or more then the plant. I can no longer buy from them. I am glad to see a company like this still offering good products, service and prices. I will order again.

I ordered 2-4 plants each of TheBotanyShop’s American Elderberry cultivars, in quart pots. As I was ordering over $100 of plants, with shipping at $50, I made a phone order and asked if they would work with me for shipping. The lady who helped me knew pretty much what they had in stock and double checked everything. She was willing to work with me on shipping, so I made several changes - I was NOT an easy cutomer. Michele, the lady answering the phone, handled everything with patience.

I made the order on Friday, and they shipped on Tuesday. This was important as we'd had a cool week and temperatures started climbing. If they had delayed the shipping it would have been a disaster, and it almost was as the UPS man left the box in the sun when there was shade not two feet away. The plants were expertly packed, and now 4 days after getting them they are all doing very well. They are all exactly as advertised, and are just what I wanted. One label was missing- but it was not a problem as not only are the plants labeled, but the plants of the same type were packed beside each other and the pots have a color-coded rim that makes it pretty easy to figure out which cultivar it

I bought elderberry starts from Mike Shade of Botany Shop and found him very knowledgable and passionate about his stock. Upon transplanting the stock that I bought, I found wonderful root balls, just the right size not root bound nor wimpy, I will purchase from this guy again without reserve.

Ordered 50 Thuja Green Giant trees. They were supposed to be "oversize" quarts 24" to 30" tall. I measured them and couldn't find one under 30". In excellent condition upon arrival. They were very well packaged and the soil was still moist upon arrival at my house (4 days after shipping). Communication was okay. A few days after I placed my order someone contacted me with an expected ship date. The date passed by almost a week so I contacted them to check if the trees shipped. I was informed at that time that they would ship that day. It worked for me because I wasn't ready to plant yet anyway. I'm very happy with my order and recommend giving Botany Shop a try.

Purchased 25 tiny little peat pot Thuja's spring of 2009, then 25 of the same the following spring. Iv'e lost a total of 2 trees, but they seemed sickly when I planted them and I'd placed them at the end of a row just in case - which was a good idea as I don't have holes in my long rows at least. Most are now as tall as I am, some are taller by at least a foot, I have at least 4 that are kind of runty but are still green and if not thriving at least trying, one of them had a root attack by moles which I was a little late on pounding down so the roots probably dried up a bit during a critical hot spell and zapped the poor bugger. All in all these Thuja's are darn tough considering they have been planted on top of an unprotected hill in central MO with brutal sun, wind, heat, that brutal cold winter of 2010/11 and not a whole lot of attention by me. As for the business, heck they were pretty nice. Delivered healthy enough trees on a timely basis, took a call for some advice nice and polite. Price is excellent and product is as described 'One tough fast growing tree'. I did note that two of my healthy ones had a bit of brown out at the terminals this year (2012) - I finally inspected them and found droves of what I can only call 'schmidt bug cocoons' (or rhymes with Schmidt anyway) hanging all over the affected areas. It gave me great satisfaction to pick them off manually and give them what for, and those two trees are currently bouncing back nicely. I'd buy from this business again.

I had been researching the "Green Giant" Thuja for a few months before I decided to order from The Botany Shop. I ordered them last year (07/2011) they (21 quart sized trees) arrived in beautiful condition. The directions enclosed were extremely helpful, and followed to a "t" have resulted in trees that tripled in size.

The zone in California where we live is 7b and pretty much the pacific northwest borderline for these little guys to stand a chance. I am extremely impressed with not only the customer service from The Botany Shop but my beautiful Thujas. I just ordered 30 more this morning, and if I could get some extra help (lots of cobble in the soil to clear out), I would order 100. Thanks again for the beautiful trees.

I had visited The Botany Shop in Joplin, MO. several times in the past years and have purchased many plants from them. Recently, I had found some nice Burgandy Redbud trees that were exactly what I wanted for $75.00. I had to wait to purchase them until after I was able to remove the current dying tree from my yard. I stopped in again, talked to someone about planting and looked at the trees a second time. About 2 weeks later, I came to purchase the tree and found they were now $150.00. The $75 charge "appeared" to have been written over and changed to $125, then totally scratched out with $150 now written neatly in the upper left corner of the tag. I found one in the display marked $125 in two places on the tree, but was told it would not be sold at that price because the pot was the $150 size. There is a 20% off sale going on now, and trees are in big demand in Joplin as people are redoing their yards after the tornado. I really think someone found an opportunity here to make a larger profit at this time. I was told the $75 trees that I had looked at earlier must have all been sold, but there were two rows of them two weeks ago, and a currently priced $75 trees is very young, in a small pot and less than 4' tall. Definitely not what I had seen two weeks ago. I'm not saying I was lied to, but I have a hard time finding any other explanation for the marked up price change on the tag, and no way to explain why I wasn't allowed to purchase the $125 tree as marked. The Botany Shop has had a good reputation in the past, but I and my friends won't be doing business there again.

"On Jun 11, 2012 9:38 AM, Botany Shop Garden Center responded with:

I am very sorry that we did not help the lady properly. I as the owner started to talk to her and another customer sidetract me. I apologize and hope she returns,
Thank you
Mike Shade"

I ordered 4 varieties of elderberry plants. Less than one week after having ordered them they arrived in beautiful condition.

I just recieved my 4-1gallon Goji Berry plants plus the 2 pollinators and I am very impressed on the excellent condition they arrived! I have not have had such luck with (other) nursery mail order companies. I am happy to see how large the plants are for the price point with not a single leaf broken or damaged. I have not been able to get (the other) mail order Goji Berry plants (microscopic in comparison) to live long enough to know how well the Goji Berry plant will grow in The Smoky Mountains. I am hoping this year with a little care, luck, water and plenty of sunshine to have a small crop of fresh Goji Berries. Best Wishes to all and happy gardening!!

I had originally ordered my Goji berries from someone else who never shipped them to me, and that's why I came to The Botany Shop because its a legitimate store. You can go to map quest and zoom in and see their green houses, and call their number and personally speak with them. They answered all of my questions and gave me great information about the goji's as well as the triple crown black berry I ordered. The plants arrived the next week, all of them in excellent condition. I cannot express how happy I am to be able to find a trust worthy source online to order from. Purchasing from The Botany Shop gave me peace of mind because I knew they were experts in the field. When I sent out emails I received prompt replies within hours. I want to personally thank The Botany Shop for keeping up their end of the deal, and I will continue to purchase through these guys!!!

I ordered a couple of small "Lavender Twist Covey Redbuds" during the winter. They didn't blossom in the spring, so after a couple of e-mail messages to the Botany Shop they promptly sent two healthy replacements.

They included planting instructions with our order. Their pricing was very good; in part because they offered an option of the VERY small trees to make them much more affordable.

Posted on May 11, 2011, updated June 16, 2011
Posted on September 23, 2010, updated May 11, 2011
I purchased 6 Polka Raspberry plants from Botany Shop Garden on Sept 16th. I received notice that they were shipped on Sept 21st and they arrived today Sept 23 in the morning via Fedex. The plants were large in 6 in pots and well rooted. They were packaged well and in great condition. They had all been treated with a special chemical to prevent crown gall. I was most impressed. I have paid more for bare root plants from other vendors and been disappointed with the results. These plants will be great. I called the Botany Shop Garden to ask a couple of questions after the plants arrived and was pleased to speak with a live person who was courteous and knowledgeable. It was nice not get a voice mail with a promise to have someone call me back later which frequently means never. I like the service and quality of this provider. I wish they had more of the plants I needed. I would use them more often. However, if there is anything they have that I need, I will be ordering from them again.

My order consisted of 8 green giants and 6 double red knockout roses. The order arrived quickly and was well packaged with complete instructions. My roses ended up very pink rather than red, but after several interesting emails discussing how pink pink was they were replaced. Very happy as a whole. Will order from again.

I ordered Goji Berry plants from them they were fantastic. I also learned you need two different types to make them set fruit. The plants were exquisite really nice. I have 3 different types of Goji's now the one from Gurney's has very thin leaves and each of these has a different leaf type. I hope I like the berries I've never tried them they just looked interesting to me.

Posted on May 9, 2011, updated May 15, 2011
Don't do it! Very poor customer service. If everything arrives in good shape, you may be ok. If something is damaged in shipping, it's another story.

Purchased two trees from them recently and one of the trees had the main stem broken as well as one of the major branches. Their response to my email was just to cut them off and basically live with it. I was purchasing this tree as a gift for someone else, and it certainly was not something I would want to give someone as a gift. I tried to explain this to them on the phone, but was rudely cut off mid sentence and told I had to ship it back to them as my expense!

Just discovered this watchdog page and wanted to add a very positive comment about the Botany Shop orders I placed last year. Ordered a Forest Pansey Redbud tree and knockout roses. All arrived quickly and in excellent condition and all are doing beautifully. The redbud is 5 ft, healthy and well-branched; the knockout roses are blooming profusely as I write this. Given the crazy weather and seasons we experience in the St. Louis region (hot and humid summers, tornadoes, hailstorms, cold winters), the Botany Shop's plants are perfect for my garden as they are grown under similar conditions and in the same zone. As someone who has been ordering plants via mail for decades, I strongly recommend new garderners order from nurseries either in the same zones or relatively close by for optimum plant shipping and successful growth.

Next time if there is one I'll try ordering by mail. No employee identification looked like other shoppers, owner or manager was not helpful did not give options or alternatives other than plant was sold out on-line even though it was present in the retail space in green house. Suggest you move plants to a shipping green house or mark them sold. Good luck with mail order business your local customer service is less than desirable. Did have one employee who gave very good customer service you should take lessons from her.

I purchased 15 24 inch Thuja Giant trees May 2010 from Botany Shop. They arrived as promised and in excellent condition. I planted according to their instructions and watered them almost everyday the first summer and covered with straw for winter. These trees are now 63 to 73 inches tall at the leader and 3 to 3.5 feet across Needless to say I am extremely pleased and I found the people at Botany Shop to be very helpful and professional. These are the fastest growing evergreen I have ever planted.

The 3 Jefferson Elms I received from Botany Shop this spring have grown like crazy! They arrived 2' tall. The tallest is now in late September 6' tall ... the shortest 5'6." We desperately need shade on the west side of our house due to the loss of mature pines to 3 ice storms in 8 years. Looks like we won't have to wait too long to get it!

I ordered 13 Green Giants about 2 feet tall and planted them according to the instructions provided. They were received in excellent condition and appeared healthy. They did brown slightly during the first few weeks, but then came back to a beautiful green color. They are already showing growth of 6 inches after only a few months.

I also found their website very informative with a lot of information on the trees.

Super happy with my Ellen butterfly plant I received today,just a few days after ordering! Its a nice size plant and looks nice and healthly with a few buds ready to bloom!! I will surely order from the Botany Shop again,thanks for the great service and it was a pleasure to do business with your company!

I purchased and planted 40 18" Thuja's from Botany Shop in October of 2007. I setup the drip line, mulched, used landscape fabric and have fertilized. I have an extreme amount of clay, and believe that it has taken the trees time to root. I struggled through the winters keeping the trees straight with the harsh winds we experience, and staked them multiple times.

That said, I am now seeing huge growth, and these trees are between 53 and 63" tall. I just removed the stakes and they are very solid. I didn't lose one of them, and they all look very healthy.

I will absolutely use Botany Shop again!

I bought 4 Giant Green Thujas from The Botany Shop and received beautiful trees (shrubs) within a week. I had bought some from another company that I was really pleased with but when I needed more they were sold out , so I thought I would give The Botany Shop a try, not only were the Giant Greens bigger but they were also cheaper. I'll need more soon and will be getting them there. Great company!

After reading all the positive reviews here and needing a 1,500 foot long privacy border, I confidently placed an order with Botany Shop.

The 300 green giants that I ordered last week arrived promptly and in perfect health. I spent about 8 hours total planting my new trees, and I can now confirm that each and every single tree was in excellent condition and larger than was advertised.

Botany Shop is a great company with excellent communication, perfectly fast service, and a product that met my expectation. If only all companies in the world were as reputable as Botany Shop. I hope you guys stay in business for many years to come. You deserve all the success you get.

Rec'd 16 16"-18"green giant thujas in peat pots in excellent condition. Extremely helpful customer service. Would definately recommend!

I purchased 70 Thuja Green Giants (8-11") in Jan/Feb 08. They arrived 2-3 days after I placed the order, neatly packed, with the dirt held in place around the root with a biodegradable bag. I had a couple of questions (sent via email) about planting that were answered within 2 days (great service).

I was not able to plant them for about two weeks due to my work schedule and placed them in a shallow pan with water. I finally got them planted. They immediately started showing bright green growth. I will definitely order from the Botany Shop again (I still need about 50 more).

i bought 25 green giants. 16 to 18 inch in peat pots.
when they arrived at my home in perfect condition i was impressed. when my wife looked at them, she was even more impressed.she kept saying how beautiful they are.
if u are looking to buy some thujas(green giants). i would definetly buy them at the botany shop
25 ggs for 75 bucks including delivery (3 dollars a piece)
sais it all. ty botany shop
mark moore fernley nv

We ordered 33 of the Thuja Green Giants at 18-24 inches each. My wife and I had done a lot of research before deciding to order from the Botany Shop and boy are we glad we did. They arrived packed in a box with popcorn surrounding them to protect them while in route. Each tree had a clear plastic bag neatly tied around each separate container and you could still see the condensation, proving they were sealed to keep the tree moist until we could get them in the ground. Every single one of the trees looked great with a dark green color, all standing tall and upright. I quickly got each one planted into the ground and began soaking them. Being that we are on the west coast in Southern Oregon, the ship time and the time it took for me to get them all in the ground, they started going into shock and turning brown. I had followed all the instructions to a “T”, so I gave the Botany Shop a call. They asked me a lot of questions and we determined that even with me soaking them as much as I was, they were still drying out, mainly due in part to the fast drying clay soil we have. We were already using a slow release fertilizer so I did not want to add anything more but water. They proceeded to instruct me to cut around 2 inches off of the top of each tree, as this helps them become bushier at the bottom through their life and might encourage their growth and help with my current issue. I soaked the trees immensely even thought we were already soaking them quite a bit. Basically in the morning and at night to keep the soil and roots wet. And I have to say after one week now they are starting new growth at the bottom on quite a few of the trees and are looking much, much better. If it was not for the Botany Shop I would have probably lost them. Because they dried out I am not sure of a handful of them, but the Botany Shop extended the guarantee an additional 30 days to see if we can’t get them to live first and if not then replace them. All I have to say is, “WOW”. We love Thuja’s and our experience has been excellent in dealing with the Botany Shop. They are very friendly and helpful and desire nothing more than to see you succeed. One recommendation is I would buy the trees at least 18-24 inches tall, because going much smaller, depending on your circumstances, can prove to be difficult in seeing great results unless you are excellent at caring and nurturing your trees. If we would have bought them smaller I do not think they would have survived through this. The Botany Shop is highly recommended and rates high on our list of mail order for plants and trees. Trust me, we ordered from Spring Ridge Nursery, Autumn Ridge Nursery and one other I cannot remember and we had pretty poor results, especially from Autumn Ridge. Order from the best of the best, order from the Botany Shop.

I took a chance and ordered 100 bare root (no guarantee???)
Thuja plicata 'Green Giant's. They arrived packed up in foam peanuts and sphagnum moss about the roots in a plastic supermarket bag and then with saran wrapped around the root section also.

The little dears had been predrenched with JB spray,
and their roots were full of nodules of the stuff.

Half of my order was nice and fresh, large and full, with root structure too big for my 5" pots. The other half of my order was puny. Little dried plants, barely with energy, a few miserable roots. If I was a betting woman, I wouldn't put money on the puny ones. Why would they send me two different sets of trees from such a large order? If they couldnt fufill the order all of one piece, then they should have contacted me.

I immediately potted them all up in a very friable peat/black top soil/clay/sand/vermiculite mix, and have them on the north side of our barn till they get over the tp shock, and begin (HOPEFULLY)
to show signs of life and growth.

Two years ago I bought two Valley Forge Elms from this company and I was very happy with them. this time I feel like I got short changed and they figured I wouldn't say anything, and that I also
took them bareroot, so they could pawn off some slips that really weren't ready on me. I mean, 100 trees is a nice order isn't it?
I would have sent my very best and extra, as I do with my chicken
eggs to my customers.

sheri williams
WigglyPaw Farm
Hastings,MI

I received good quality plants, soft-touch holly and hydrangeas, that are doing very well. Prices are a bit more than at other places, but worth it. Gina & Robert are extremely helpful and friendly, even though not all are. Would definately patron again. Thanks!

Thank you for the beautiful Thujas!! I ordered 9 18"-24" and got 24"-32"!! Great shape and in the ground.

Will be ordering again for next Spring to replace MORE Leyland Cypress......

I have and will spread the word!! BotanyShop.com!!!

Joel of Palmdale, CA

My wife and I live in a suburb of Chicago that has been devastated by Dutch Elm Disease. Over the past five years, our neighborhood has lost a majority of the American Elms that once formed an umbrella effect over our street. I promised my wife that at some point in our lives we would own another American Elm. After visiting their website, I spoke with Mike Shade, owner of The Botany Shop about the Princeton Elms that have been tested to be 96% resistant to DED that they had for sale. The Botany Shop had several larger Princeton Elms available; however transporting the tree was a major issue since most large courier services will not ship trees and shrubs over a certain size. With few if any other options available, we decided to drive down to Joplin, rent an open, 5’ X 9’ U-Haul and bring one back with us. The owner (Mike Shade) and his employees Robert and Donna – to name a few, were some of the nicest people (not to mention knowledgeable) that either one of us has ever met. Mike and Donna helped us wrap the tree and secure it to the trailer for a 562 mile journey back to Chicago. The tree made the trip just fine and is happily planted in our back yard right now outside our family room window. I would highly recommend The Botany Shop!!! Thanks again Mike, Donna and Robert for a wonderful experience!!!