Comments regarding Greenwood Nursery

Posted on June 3, 2014, updated July 5, 2014
I had a bad experience with bareroot trees purchased through this company. Ginkgos arrived with all roots cut off. Metasequoia arrived with leader topped. Taxodium and Metasequoia appeared to have been harvested in active growth and then dessicated through the climatic uncertainties of shipping in late fall. I will not order again from this company.

"On Jun 5, 2014 10:01 AM, Greenwood Nursery responded with:

Hi Brian,

A staff member has tried to get in touch with you, but you haven't emailed or returned their call.

When you were in contact with us in late fall, they asked if you would please follow up with them on the status of any plants that did not leaf out.

Thank you,

The Greenwood Team"

For now, I'm keeping my review neutral until I see how things develop (or not.)

Back in March or so (forget the exact date) I ordered 50 Russian Olive trees and was informed they would be shipped to me in May, which they were. I have planted many bare rooted trees before, but as soon as I received these I was concerned as they seem very dried out, stiff and brittle, no flexiblity at all, and the buds they had were dried out and would fall off at the touch.

I was prepared to plant them right away, so I soaked them for a few hours and then planted them, but was concerned about the condition they were in when they arrived. I emailed customer service, and spoke with Cheryl who said to cut them back by 1/3 to 1/2 and they should start growing within a month or so, not all would sprout out at the same time however.

Well, it's been about a month, and while I water them regularly, they seem to be getting even more dried out, I'm almost sure they're dead, and felt that they were the minute I first saw them, so I don't have much faith at this point, but I will give it a couple more weeks or so, and then proceed from there. I don't know how long it can take for these trees to break out of dormancy, my experience with the same type of trees, in bareroot form, it didn't take as long as these are, and in fact, the bare trees I purchased in the past, clearly were starting to bud out with LIVE buds, unlike these.

As I said, I have purchased many bare root trees in the past that were of good quality, however I feel that clearly this batch was not, and in that regard I am disappointed with Greenwood Nursery so far, but will reserve final judgement for a couple more weeks or so.

Ordered some Siberian Elm in April. Weeks went by without any communication from the company. When we called, we were told the shipment would be sent in late May. When the trees arrived, they were barely sapling twigs. After lots of TLC, most have survived.

I ordered from Greenwood Nursery for the first time on April 16 - a redbud and a dogwood tree. The people there are very nice and helpful, but I was disappointed to receive an e-mail a day or two after my order saying that it would not be shipped out until the week of May 12 because their shipping department is booked until then. So my trees are in stock, according to the e-mail, but I won't get them until about month after I ordered them. I do appreciate the company letting me know about this delay, but it still makes me wish I had not ordered the trees by mail, but had picked them up at a nursery instead. I will provide an update on how this works out.

I placed a small order to try them out. I ordered two Heptacodium miconiodes, a Weigela Ruby Queen and a Pagoda dogwood. The two Heptacodiums were superbly wrapped and arrived in great condition. The bareroot Pagoda dogwood was also well wrapped and arrived in good condition. However, the Weigela was hardly wrapped at all. It seems that the pot was wrapped in shrink wrap and just place in the shipping box. Needless to say, almost all the branches were broken off and the leaves dehydrated. The packaged was shipped on a Thursday from TN to IL. So, it sat somewhere over the weekend. When I called to complain about the condition of the Weigela, the customer rep told me to dig into the soil to check to see if it is green and alive! I pointed out that I just received the plant and there were dried leaves and green broken branches. The stump should be fine but the rest was pretty beaten up. Her reply was that the plant should recover. I'll take her word for it and I'll plant it.

So overall, I'll give Greenwood a neutral rating. No company is perfect. But why do they ship live plants on a Thursday? Most companies ship live plants Mon-Wed so that the plants don't sit in transit over the weekend. Certain plants are tougher than others and can take prolonged shipping periods better than others. In this case, the Heptacodiums have leathery leaves. Others like Weigela have softer and more delicate leaves, so prolonged shipping may not be too good for them.

I ordered 25 red dogwoods (they describe as sticks and they are sticks), 3 butterfly bushes, 10 christmas ferns, 10 lady ferns, and 5 "husky" whitespire birch.

The dogwoods have shown no sign of life in 2 weeks, I have done everything I can to get something to happen...alas nothing.

The birch were far from husky, they were dried up and what new growth there was , were browning. Two of them are showing signs of life in the ground. Note: They were very small, twig like.

The ferns were dried up clumps of organic matter, they crumbled to pieces in my hand. So they are worthless.

The butterfly bushes are doing well, they added 10 free ones, 6 of them are leafing.

I have a compliant e-mail into them and got a reply after 3 re-sends telling me they are very busy and I will be tended to when they get the time. So, I will keep sending it every week till I am satisfied.

I ordered 10 burning bushes, 3 blood grass, and a patriot hosta from Greenwood this spring. I commend them for shipping out exactly when they promised, and the packaging was good when they arrived. However, I am a little disappointed in the burning bushes. They stated that they would be "9 to 15 inches branched" and they are mostly single stem twigs. They will look hilarious next to the Red twig Dogwoods that I ordered from Miller's that were advertised to be "1.5-2 ft" and are actually 2.5-3 ft very branched healthy shrubs. I guess I will just have to baby the burning bushes along.

On May 3, 2005 I placed my first order with this company partcularly because of all the positive reviews I read on this site. Unfortunately I still have yet to receive my order and when I phoned to follow-up on it I had the additional surprise of having a customer service agent snap at me on the phone that the orders were still being processed and to wait for Fed-Ex to email me my confirmation date and hang-up the phone while I was in the middle of talking.

If this is how Greenwood Nursery appreciates and takes care of their customers I'll take my business elsewhere where its appreciated and I am treated respectfully. I have emailed the owner of my experience and await his response.
So unfortunately I cannot leave any positive feedback after this negative experience.

I have ordered 3 times from this nursery and so far my feelings are good. I have to agree with a former respondent in the area of root pruning of trees. Receiving a 5' tree with its roots so severely cut was disconcerting. How does one plant a tree like this? There's nothing to hold it in the soil. Hope my $75 red bud has more of a root system. The rest of the two orders received have been good sized and viable with one exception and that was remedied immediately. They are quite responsive and their packaging very well done. Their prices are great on shrubs and decent on trees.
Overall quality is quite good. hope my root-challenged Kiku Shidare survives and thrives.

I ordered three trees from Greenwood. They offered some I couldn't find elsewhere and the price for single trees was good compared to nurseries. (Many of their trees are offered only in large groups.) In the first order they sent two trees, one of which was the wrong kind. I immediately contacted them via e-mail and received a reply within 24 hours. They shipped out the other two trees the next business day and were very polite in the process. The correct trees were received two days later via FedEx. The trees are beautiful bare root trees, large and well-packed. I plan to order some of their shrubs and perennials in the spring.