Comments regarding Gurney's Seed & Nursery

Years ago while living in the Midwest, Gurney’s was a quite reliable “go to” mail order garden and nursery company. But this past fall a spring shipment order was placed for a number of items which included several new varieties of asparagus plants. The only positive part of the experience was placing the online order in the fall. The rest was frustratingly disappointing.
1. Customer service must be outsourced to a foreign country. Very difficult to understand the customer service agents.
2. The first item shipped in spring was sent too early for planting, and was significantly substandard to the size ordered.
3. The rest of the items were continually put into a “back ordered” status that went beyond their ever being delivered at a proper planting time. Therefore, the order was canceled.
4. The canceled order was only partially acknowledged with a “catalog credit voucher”, which will probably never be used due to the substandard products and service currently being offered.
5. A monetary refund was requested, but not honored.

Based on this very unsatisfactory experience, I cannot recommend ordering from Gurney’s.

I ordered some vegetable plants in January. My credit card was charged supposedly so they could hold my order. Now it's April and I find out that some of the things I ordered are out of stock and won't be in until after my planting times. Now I have to scurry around to local nurseries to try and find what I need. This happened last year as well but I thought it was because of the pandemic so that is why I ordered so early this year.

I WILL NEVER SHOP HERE AGAIN.

I ordered +$70 seeds in February. The acknowledgement said three of the packets were on back order, the rest ready for shipping, and would arrive in mid-March. When I looked in mid-March to see when I'd get them, it had changed to late March. And then it was put back to April. At the beginning of April I looked and they were STILL all ready for shipping except for the 3 on back order, but now I could expect them to arrive late May. They never once notified me of the slippage, I had to keep looking up my order.
I normally sow my seeds late March/early April to get my plants in the ground at the beginning of May. Seeds arriving late May would be utterly useless. I cancelled my order. And got a message from them saying it was because of Covid they were so late, would I like them to chase up my seeds?
I ordered everything again, this time from Victory Seeds. They were cheaper, they came 4 days after I ordered and seem to be germinating well already.
Will never order from Gurney again.

I bypassed other suppliers to order purple passion asparagus from Gurney's, which they said was available. No word for 2 weeks and when I tried to track my order found the item was now listed as BACKORDERED. 1) this should have been known and identified from the start 2) Gurney's should have contacted me to tell me this 3) when I relayed this in an email which claimed I'd get a Customer Service response, I got an autogenerated reply saying they were too busy to respond! That was ten days ago with no word or updates from them since. I finally cancelled my order as it's too late to plant them: my other asparagus is up now. I'll never deal with them again.

A few years ago, I would have been posting a positive review for the excellent Gurney's Whopper strawberry plants I received, as I had no issues with the product or the process. However . . . now I've been extremely frustrated with the poor customer service this company is providing regarding a shipment of nut trees I ordered from them in January of 2021 (3 months ago). The first tree arrived in good time and will hopefully (hopefully) flourish and prosper; we shall see. The second tree, oddly enough, was carried by the FedEx van PAST my house in Illinois all the way to Olathe, KS—almost 420 miles away from my home! And there it still sits in a FedEx facility that is most likely NOT climate controlled, dying a little more each day, while my two calls to "customer service" reps in India have yielded no actual help, but only requests for me to wait 14 business days for my (probably dead) tree to finally make its way back to our house. This performance goes well beyond poor customer service into customer harassment territory, and I will be contacting the Better Business Bureau in a few days once I have more details. Meanwhile, I'm still waiting to see how the last shipment of the remaining trees pans out. I would like to add that I gave Gurney's a chance last year on a second shipment of strawberry plants, which arrived DOA. At the time, I was very disappointed at their refusal to take responsibility for shipping dead product and to then refund my money, instead granting me a semi-worthless merchandise credit. Suffice to say, I will never—no, not EVER—order another nickel's worth of anything from Gurney's again.

I have placed two orders with this company. Last year I ordered strawberry plants. It took 6 weeks to receive the order and out of 25 plants only 2 lived. To their credit they offered me a full refund. This year in January I ordered two pea fences. I called them today to see what the hold up is and they said they would not be shipped until the end of April which is past planting time. I cancelled the order. They have been good with the refunds but have found that I cannot rely on my orders being received or in one piece.

Three concerns about my order from Gurney's
.
First, the total amount $22.73 was posted in a order confirmation email.
They actually charged $22.75.

Second, seeds were sent USPS first class flat rate..total cost of shipping 1.20, actual charge was 5.99.

Thirdly, an informational text was sent (from Gurney's) with a nonexistent tracking number from a different shipping company.

The seeds arrived two weeks after ordering.

Also-
Customer service via phone was awful.
Email customer service was prompt and helpful.

Will I use Gurney's again?
No.

I ordered four mini rose bushes from Gurney’s this spring. They all arrived healthy and strong and established themselves well. They were also labeled correctly, and I’m happy overall with their quality.

I ordered a package of B.t.g. a few weeks before Japanese beetle season, in order to be ready to spray for them. Two weeks after ordering -- and after the anticipated ship date had passed -- I emailed for an update, which got no response at all. I filed a dispute with PayPal in order to get refunded, and purchased the pesticide from another online vendor (who shipped the day after ordering).

No shipment, no customer service.

If I could rate below negative, I would. I ordered ASPARAGUS PURPLE PASSION and JERUSALEM ARTICHOKE, one arrived moldy and the other was so dried up and shriveled that the 1 pound I ordered actually weighed 9 ounces. I called and was told they'd replace them.....next year. I requested a refund because any company that would ship garbage like that is a company that I prefer not to deal with. To get a refund, I had to speak with a supervisor. I also had to separately request a refund of my shipping, which I did get. My advice to to stay away from this company's 'fake' 50% off sales, you have to add most of that back in the form of shipping, anyway. I will not ever order from them again.

I placed an order in March 2020 for honeysuckle and fertilizer tabs. My order was confirmed, but unfortunately my account was charged immediately despite the anticipated April mail date.
Fast forward to May and I see a partial refund on my paypal account with no explanation. I figured out that 5+ weeks after I placed my order, they would not be sending. No communication. Just me figuring it out and an empty spot in my garden.
I just wrote to them to cancel the fertilizer tabs. Let’s see if they will respond and comply.
Bottom line, disappointment and headache. Will NOT order from them again. Recommend others not even bother.

Posted on February 20, 2020, updated February 23, 2020
Ordered 2 fig trees and some fertilizer tablets. The tablets arrived ok. I don't know if they are any good. But they arrived. When I ordered, Gurney's promptly charged my credit card for the entire order. No mention whatsoever of the figs not being in stock. Only 3 or 4 weeks later did I do an order tracking and both are showing on "back order". Actually one of the trees showed a shipping estimate of a week to 10 days ago but it also shows on backorder. I would not order from them again simply because they charged my card and did not ship. But then there is the issue of my not being notified of a delay in shipping the items. I called them and they had no idea at all when the figs would be shipped.

I paid $225 for 3 Wowza bush cherry trees, which were not as pictured or described on the website (photo available upon request). When I complained to customer service, they apologized for this and sent me a $25 gift certificate.

Can’t speak to the quality of the fruit since these immature saplings are going to take 4 years or more to produce fruit. So I will come back here when I am much older and when my daughters are fully grown and ready to graduate from high school and let you all know how the fruit tastes—that is if these plants make it through a New England winter.

Gurney Nursery Products,
Gurney has most ridiculous replacement policy I've experienced. They send out inferior products that qualified inspectors have likely never seen, then cooked by 90+ F heat while in transit for 5 days. Then the company expects me to wait until 2022 to get some other questionable product that will likely be the same miserable quality that some third party supplier ship out. Again likely the replacement will likely be without a qualified person ever seeing the emulated replica of the first miserable tiny dead mold infested plant. This particular experience relates to a Jaclyn raspberry that measures less than six inches from the top of the 1.67 inch dead primocane section to the tip of the mold infested tangled root system. This is only one of at least six other DOA plants that I’ve received in 2019, and others received in 2018. The merger of Gurneys, Henry Field, Gardens Alive, and other nursery affiliated companies is one huge conglomeration of companies where one company takes the order and another ships out the products. This is verified by multiple companies sending out emails relating to a single replacement. God only knows how many steps are involved in the propagation, storage, plant selection, packaging, inspection(??), and shipping to the customer.

Wes Rice

Posted on May 12, 2019, updated May 20, 2019
Ordered 3 "Jumbo" blueberry bushes at $30 each from Gurney's. The "Regular" were 12-18 inches and $20. They arrived poorly packed in a box with some mostly deflated air packs that did nothing to keep the plants from bouncing around. Considering that they were called "jumbo" and considering that they were 50% more than the cheaper ones, I expected plants of a decent size and certainly bigger than the $20 12-18 inch ones. I would love to be able to post a couple of photos of what I received. The three plants range in size from about 5 inches to about 10 inches. There are reputable online garden companies that sell 3-4 foot, 3 year blueberry bushes for the same price I paid for these twigs from Gurneys. Stay away from this outfit.

Posted on January 19, 2011, updated May 17, 2019
Posted on January 11, 2011, updated January 19, 2011
Posted on January 26, 2010, updated January 11, 2011
Posted on January 25, 2010, updated January 25, 2010
Posted on November 9, 2009, updated January 25, 2010
Posted on March 23, 2004, updated November 09, 2009
One mistake on this year's seed order, but not worth pursuing. Overall good luck with seeds over the years (before and after the bankruptcy) that I have dealt with Gurney. Last year's order left a little to be desired in germination, plant vigor and trueness to type, but not a bad enough experience that I didn't try again this year. The one time I bought plants (about 8 years ago), I was disappointed, but with so many local nurseries with live plants grown for the area, why order plants through the mail?

"On Jan 13, 2011 10:36 AM, Gurney's Seed & Nursery responded with:

Thank you for taking the time to post. We appreciate the feedback to better serve our customers. Thank you for giving us giving us the opportunity to provide you with world class service.
"

Posted on May 28, 2010, updated April 16, 2019
Posted on July 9, 2007, updated May 28, 2010
I ordered from Gurney/Henry Field this spring after ordering in the past. All plants arrived alive, and all but 2 survived our very difficult spring. I planted raspberries, chokecherries, bush cherries, and burning bush. One plant remained dormant for 2 months!! but I knew it was alive because it was green under the bark. In all fairness, I got what I paid for, everything grew, and the company can hardly be responsible for extended hard freeze and days of heavy rain following.

"On Jun 8, 2010 12:34 PM, Gurney's Seed & Nursery responded with:

We appreciate your feedback. Your feedback is used to help provide better service to our customers. Happy Gardening!"

Copy of 2nd email re 2 unshipped items.
The Horseradish and Jerusalem Artichokes were shown as in stock available for shipment in February when my order was placed. This has has changed x2 and both items are now apparently back ordered. Also notice it is past the shipping estimate of 3/29/19 for horseradish., and the estimate has not been updated Now I have no idea what is going on with my order and expect neither item will be available for planting this season. I also note that I received your catalogue in the mail after the 3/19/99 estimated date. You really expect me to order something else from you?. While I've had good service from you in the past, your system is now broken. I would have ordered elsewhere at a higher price where the two unshipped items correctly labelled as not available for immediate shipment when my order was placed . I never knowlngly prepay for items not available for shipment and subject to backorder with indefinite delivery date. Since I don't expect a response to this 2nd request for status, I'm going to go ahead and post a copy of this to appropriate gardener chat boards.

I've had mixed results with Gurney's over the last five years, but most of what I've received has been viable and grown well. In particular, the plum, peach, and apple trees I ordered had good roots and broke dormancy without exception and thrived, growing a couple feet quickly that season. Unfortunately, I moved from that property before fruiting could be assessed so I can't comment on the fruit production. I also ordered an almond tree that was just exceptional with beautiful blossoms the first year, and was so sad to leave it behind that I promptly ordered another for my new place. That almond tree has grown 4-5 feet in two years now, and has a beautiful full shape. A wisteria tree also had a great start before I moved. I recently drove past the old place and every tree is still standing and so tall and full!

In spring 2018 I ordered a shade tree, and some wild flowers. Shipping was fast. The tree that was sent looked decent and leafed out, but soon the leaves began to curl and it died. The roots that were sent to represent the flowers were a little disappointing. I really had to dig in the bag and search for them because some were very small; almost indistinguishable from the soil they were in. They never came up. Fortunately there was no issue in getting a refund for the merchandise. Glad for the refund, but disappointed in the dead plants.

I ordered a good sized amount of items for my garden this year- received some email promotions from Gurneys and was pleased to save $100 off my order. The order consisted of seeds and garden supplies. I called after 2 weeks with no shipping confirmation- fully expecting to have the order sitting on my porch that day. Come to find the order had not shipped- but all items were in stock- the gentleman on the line told me he was releasing my order for shipment- another week goes by with no shipping confirmation. I check the order online today and see it has still not shipped- called back and I was told they are releasing my order for shipment today. I cancelled the order. So very frustrating to have had to wait weeks and weeks for seeds to ship. I'm guessing the customer service call went to a call center overseas as both calls were answered by people with heavy accents- not that it matters- I just want to get my garden in. Never had this issue with Burpee.....

Just received an order of about 32 assorted pepper, tomato, and eggplant plants. All 6 eggplant plants are unusable, one tomato DOA, and the rest are disappointing to say the least. They did refund me, but I won't bother wasting time with Gurney's again.

Over the years I've ordered quite a bit from Gurneys and normally had received good-acceptable products. However Nov 2017 I ordered a SUBSTANTIAL amount of bare root fruit trees, berries and grapes. My early ordering earned me no preference in shipped quality of product in fact, I find ALL of the product shipped to me is 4wks past zone date and inferior. Bareroot grapes are either old (3-4yr) or seedlings with little root system. Fruit trees also are either very old (4-5yr and hard pruned) or 6 month seedling. Items are frequently missing fro shipments. Customer service is now in India and I've learned this company is an aggregator of small misc suppliers - that's fine but there's no quality control. I CAN NO LONGER RECOMMEND GURNEYS AND INFACT CAUTION BUYERS - BEWARE OF THEIR BUSINESS MODEL AND AVOID ALL THE HEADACHES I'VE EXPERIENCED.

I reluctantly ordered a Juliet dwarf cherry tree for my wife in 2016 because of my past experience with ordering from gurneys. The tree arrived with a good amount of foliage and a well developed root system. It was well packaged. I planted it in a XL pot and followed the directions on how to care for it over the summer. It did well over the summer. It lost it leaves for the winter. I put it in my 3 season porch to try to make it easier on the plant for its first winter. When snow started melting, I put it back into my yard. A few leaves came and then the plant died. I tried to revive the tree by pruning the ends of the branches to stimulate growth and put fertilizer in the pot. I decided not to ask for a replacement because the warranty period was over and I've had problems with customer service in the past. This is my last purchase from gurneys.

This was one of several companies I ordered from this year. I ordered plants and trees from them only once but it took weeks to get everything. My order consisted of a gala apple tree, a fuji apple tree, 2 paw paws, and some early girl tomato plants. The tomato plants were DOA, but they quickly refunded me for them.The gala went out of stock. The fuji arrived healthy and in great condition and is now fully leafed out. The paw paws took the longest to get here and were a bit dry in the box on arrival. Only one survived. I have had great luck with their seeds, I just don't think I'll order anymore living items from them.

Of the four items I ordered, only the Yukon Gold potatoes were acceptable. They are growing great.

The Canela potatoes are diseased. All the leaves and stems have small white spots and leaf curling. This was evident as soon as I started them indoors. The problem is not my dirt, because the Yukon Golds were started in the same mix right beside the Canelas. I tried planting them anyway, but the disease completely took over the Canelas and I had to rip them all out of the bed to prevent infecting the Yukon Golds.

The sweet potato slips were completely dried out and dead on arrival.

The Apache Blackberry plants were tiny sticks and I'm still waiting after a month for any signs of life from them.

I called Cust Service and evidently woke up a guy in the Phillippines. He refunded my entire order cost, to their credit. That's the only positive thing about the whole experience.

Gurney's is strictly a discount house. With all the other high-quality nurseries out there, I'm amazed they are still in business. I'd urge gardeners to shop elsewhere. If you're getting their emails, I suggest you unsubscribe so you won't accidentally get sucked in by their specials.

I tired to use them because they had everything I wanted and the prices were competitive. My aim was to get everything from one place without running around to multiply local nurseries-convenient one stop shopping. My bad. First they let me order something that in fact was out of stock. Now I had to do exactly want I didn't want to do-search multiply local sources. Then the ship dates just changed and changed-and changed again. The changes certainly were not for the better. Of my final 2 items the shipping times changed 4 and then 5 times. Calling "customer service" is akin to trying to have your dog explain why they can't write. Beyond a bad service/sales experience.

Overall my experience has been very positive. I ordered two of their sale 'Rainbow of Roses' collection. They were shipped within one day and arrived around 8 days later. All of the bare root roses were in great condition, good size, with nice roots and all looked fresh and not dried out. They were packed carefully. Plus it was a terrific value, even with shipping it came to only a few dollars per rose..
It is late for bare roots and I will baby them along, I knew when I ordered them that I would need to give a little tlc. But I am so happy with my order. I would definitely order roses from them again.
I ordered a packet of seeds at the same time though, it has been weeks and I still do not have the seeds.

I have been ordering for years through them and so far everything I've planted has taken off. They're only one of 3 that I use I even use them more than burpee.

I live in Florida, and spring turns to summer quickly. I ordered Asparagus roots and a packet of asparagus seeds. 3 weeks later, I still did not have either. I queried and they told me that the roots were sent to the warehouse and waiting on the seeds to be sent out together. 3 weeks later, I got the roots and no seeds, as they sent them out separately. I still haven't received the seeds, but they credited my account, and told me that they were sold out. This isn't acceptable to wait so long.

Gurney's does take FOREVER and did push my order out once or twice, but for the price, I am extremely happy with what we ordered! I spent about $150 with a 50% off coupon, so got around $300 worth of merchandise. Every plant we got was alive and within the few weeks we have had them, established themselves and took off. We planted some summer blooming bulbs and I'll be surprised if they don't bloom sooner! They've grown like crazy! I will be ordering more from them in the future. Can't beat that price and quality! Even if the communication isn't the greatest.

3/ 21 ordered shallots and garlic del est 4/9-4/14 - 3/27 status update del est 4/6 -4/11 - 3/29 shipping confirmation - del est 4/1 - 4/3
4/30 ordered onions - del est 4/9-4/14
instead of shallots & garlic received strawberries - within the est del date though - emailed them - 4/13 they said would reship - est del 4/16-4/28 - shipping confirmation 4/21 - no est del on this email - 4/25 received shallots & garlic - most of the shallots were rotten and the garlic was sprouted already 4/29 email that they were refunding for the garlic & shallots - but they didn't refund shipping cost so I paid shipping for rotten product
4/29 received onion sets - growth on top mostly brown - looked like they had been rootbound in pots - roots brittle & dead - bulbs shriveled - so angry just told them to look at the pictures i sent - 5/5 finally received an answer - said they were resending onions del est 5/8 - 5/20 - emailed them immediately not to send more since they would be too late for our purposes & we no longer trusted gurney quality - haven't heard from them again so far but this will be the last time we order from them & we had been satisfied customers for years, until now

This company is holding my money, plants, seeds hostage with constantly pushing out ship dates all while the prime Spring growing season is slipping away. No way on earth I will ever do business again with this company.

On the bad side, Gurney's shipping schedules are ludicrous. I placed an order in January with multiple items on it, and I have STILL not received all the items (my order has been shipped in three batches of plants). The projected shipping dates for the last set of plants changes constantly, even after I called and complained.

On the good side, every plant I have received from Gurney's so far has been healthy, of reasonable size for the price, and ready to grow. And I made my order in the first place because I was able to get a variety of tree from them for $19.99 that I couldn't purchase from anywhere else for less than $60. (That tree was about 3' tall on arrival, and marked with a Spring Hill label despite being purchased from Gurney's.) Also, I ordered on their half-price sale and checked multiple other sites to make sure I couldn't buy my items more cheaply elsewhere. Always do that first!

In sum: if you buy on their half-price sale, AND if you're willing to wait a ridiculously long time for your plants, at least the plants will probably be healthy when you get them. But don't ever buy from them at full price, and don't ever buy from them when you're in a hurry!

Posted on February 13, 2015, updated April 20, 2017
Posted on February 10, 2015, updated February 13, 2015
Posted on February 7, 2015, updated February 10, 2015
Posted on February 6, 2015, updated February 7, 2015
I have been a customer of Gurney's for years, but their sluggish shipping is making me reconsider. I got a message that they had shipped my order January 30, and I could expect it 2/1 - 2/3. It is now the 6th, and no one can tell me where the order is. Just "wait until February 12" and we will reship if you have not received it.

It should not take a week or more to get 4 packets of seeds! And this "wait another week" is unacceptable.

Don't waste your time! I placed an order on 1-2-2017! When it came time for my growing zone to open for shipping, my order starts getting put off exactly weekly. By the time I was put off a third straight week,APRIL 2,2017 I called and canceled. Don't tell someone the product they ordered will be shipped on a ceartin day and then get put off without notice! Bad service! Don't order from gurneys you'll grow old waiting for your order!

I can't speak to their seeds as they were never delivered. I placed a large order on February 27th, 2017 for seeds, seed starter trays, and mesh "pots". As of April 5th, the only thing I've received are the pots, the very LAST things I need. They changed the delivery date on the seeds to mid-April now. I cancelled the rest of the order and they refunded the balance. guess it's back to Home Depot again for plants and seeds. Getting a late start on starting the seeds. Oh well, should not have trusted Gurneys after all of the negative reviews.

- Extremely SLOW order processing.
- Extremely SLOW shipping.
- Shipping updates they provide are meaningless as they continuously change (for the worse).
- Poor customer service.

If you sign up for their email list you will get "special offers" at least once (and sometimes twice) daily...which really aren't that special. While they have a great selection it does no good when your order arrives too late to plant.

There are many other more reliable and more responsive companies out there...my suggestion is that you avoid this one.

I ordered 3 bags of their Blueberry success mix on 2-22-17. It was supposed to ship early in March. Today is 4-1-17 and it still hasn't shipped. Never again. Buyer beware!!!!!!!!!!!