Comments regarding Gurney's Seed & Nursery

This March I ordered over $500 worth of bulbs trees and bushes from Gurney's by mail. By early June nothing had arrived. Calls to their customer support or sales number were always busy. I finally got through to them in June and canceled my order, and was told I'd get a refund in 3 weeks. No refund has arrived and I see they are in bankruptcy, after having cashed my check.

I ordered $138 in plants from them and should have stuck the money in the ground it may have grown better. I paid in full and nothing grew; they can't be reached by phone or internet. I think they should make good before they bail out. If anyone can help me find these plants please let me know. I hope that there is a real plant company out there but this experience has scared me on ordering from a magazine. How do you find the reputable places?

I also have purchased many trees and plants from Gurneys over the last ten years. The last few years, the quality of stock has dramatically declined. I purchased a Harlequin Maple last fall and it never sprouted. When I tried to call for a refund, I (obviously along with many others) couldn't get thru to them via phone or email, or regular mail either. I suppose the customer is out of luck with the filing of bankruptcy.

I ordered many plants from Gurneys. The 5 bellflowers arrived dead and 2 Canterbury Bells did not grow. I started emailing them in June to ask for replacements to no avail. I also tried calling them and only got the busy signal! Now I know why----they are out of business. From now on, no more mail order for me. I will stick with my local garden centers.

After years of seeing ads for Foster & Gallagher's great nurseries, I place a $500 order with Gurneys. >From the beginning it was a mess; charged my card before shipping, lied about the ship date even though the postmark showed the real date; didn't send 1/4 of the order, but charge me the full amount, when I called, the talking head said new plants were on the way - nothing came. Now I read Foster & Gallagher has shut down all but their "Gift Group" Another reason to shop at local nurseries on a cash & carry basis and expect NO support.

I ordered several items from Gurney's, the seeds shipped were the wrong seeds and they arrived too late to plant, I also ordered potato sets finally received a package (also too late) and the package was empty except for a packing slip and advertisements tried contacting them by e-mail several times but never received an answer. I'll never buy from them again and neither will any of my friends.

I've ordered from Gurney's for several years--until last fall only seeds. They messed up orders in small ways a few times, but always quickly corrected the problem when contacted. I've been very happy with their seeds and have always had good results. However, last fall I ordered peonies and by the time they arrived I was assuming that my ordered had been lost in the mail. I didn't get an order confirmation until 8 or 10 weeks after the order was sent, and then they arrived very late for planting. I planted them anyway but don't have much hope they survived the winter. I noticed that their perennial plant catalogue comes out of Michigan instead of North Dakota where the seeds come from--wonder if it's a different company.

We ordered about 60 fruit, nut and other trees from Gurney's two years ago. Of course we also got some freebies to go with them. The freebies bit the big one, and about 4 of the trees didn't ever sprout. But Gurney's replaced the trees, and two years later I have a beautiful little orchard with fruit and nut trees. And the shade trees are flourishing too! I will order from Gurney's again. The bare root trees need to be planted right away. Don't let them dry out. If you can't plant them immediately, at least cover the roots with 4-6 inches of dirt until you can plant them.

Since retiring and building in a new subdivision, I discovered PBM. This year I decided to try a couple of different companies in addition to my absolute favorites. Bad mistake! Packaging was almost non-existent the products were in very sad shape. I had similar luck with Gurney's and a Harry Lauder Walking stick. That's all I got was a stick about 8" long with a 90 degree bend and no buds. It was dead and getting replacement nearly caused my own. Never again from either of these companies and I was sorry to see one show up in the collection of companies on MySeasons.com.

I won't order from Gurney's again. My order arrived on March 15, 2000 - with still several inches of snow on the ground just outside of Boston (zone 5!) I kept them cool & moist until I could plant them. By end of May, 1 of 6 clematis & 1 of 4 blueberry did not leaf out. I got a busy signal every time I tried calling their Customer Service from late May into mid-June. I sent emails with no response after 3 weeks. I'm sure glad I didn't spend a bundle there!

I ordered a Bird of Paradise, a Red Powderpuff, and a Cliva From Gurneys the first of February. They shipped them bulk rate in the middle of February. The Bird of Paradise and Powerderpuff arrived quite dead. The Cliva was in extremely bad shape (I was amazed it survived at all) and finally died three months later. I sent a request for replacement of the dead plants, but have heard nothing from them.

Gurney Seed & Nursery has disappointed me this year. I have ordered from them for 29 years. This year's order was placed on April 3. Two days later they sent a letter stating the credit card authorization did not go through. After checking with the credit card company, I discovered that Gurney's had submitted an erroneous expiration date for the card. I tried to contact Gurney's by phone and e-mail. Their lines were continually busy at both the order number and the customer service number. When I did finally reach an order line, they advised they could not help because they were an overflow phone line and could only take orders not check on previously placed ones. After two more weeks of unsuccessfully attempting to contact customer service by phone and e-mail, the supervisor at the order center sent a fax to the customer service center with instructions to make the correction on the expiration date and resubmit it on a rush order. Two more long distance calls later, I found out the wrong date is still being submitted. They now advise they will submit the order again but it will be approximately another 10 days before shipment.

We used Gurney for the first time this year and ended up planting half of the garden twice with Burpee seeds from our local WalMart store (and they are coming up great.)

My experience with Gurneys has not been good. Most all the items I ordered from their catalog were bare-root and never came up after planting them. I ordered other bare-root items from other catalogs and had no problems with them. They also substituted several things that I had ordered, without asking me. The substituted items were not even in the same color family that I was trying to order. It was not acceptable. I was very unsatisfied.

My orders from Gurney's generally ended with disappointment. I have one white phlox and one raspberry daylily to show from several orders. Replacements either died or never made it due to "out of stock". Particularly pathetic was the order I made for 100 daylilies to naturalize a section of my mother's yard. A couple of spindly plants is all I have to show for all that digging. I give up on them.

I HATE this company! This year I ordered two plants from Gurney. They were so called "row-run." It was a real cheap price, but the catalog said that the plants were guaranteed to grow. When the plants finally came, I was shock. They sent it in a PACKAGE in BULK RATE!!! Can you believe that? When I opened the package there were two little roots in a plastic bag with nothing covering them at all. They were BARE. That was only one of my plants that I ordered. A few weeks later the other package came. And this time the package had a HOLE in it. The plants were the same and one of them was beginning to sprout. None of my plants grew, even though I put one in potting soil. I am not very please with this company, and I do not recommend it at all.

I've order from them only once and never again. I ordered 3 types of potatoes. Just when planting season was upon me, I received a postcard saying that 2 of the varieties were no longer available and to return the postcard for a refund. I did that, but only received a refund for one. Well after planting season the last part of the order came, little shrunken tubers. Never again.

I ordered foxglove plants this spring. All of them arrived dead; at least they never grew a single leaf. Gurneys did send me new ones, and they also arrived dead. Don't think I will use them again.

I ordered strawberry plants and asparagus roots from them last year. Both came to me covered in green mold and practically rotted. Half of the asparagus did not live (I ordered 80 roots.) I only lost 30% of the strawberry plants. I don't really know yet how good the strawberries are from the plants I got because they never put on any fruit. Maybe this year.

My mother says she's experienced the same problems with Gurney's, and this same problem seems to have lasted throughout the last 25 years. Every few years she tries them again and always gets the same - poor quality nursery stock. She says their seeds are OK, though. She ordered a gift of seeds and bulbs for me from Gurney's recently. When I got the first part of the order (seeds) it was entirely messed up! I verified with my mother what she had actually ordered, then I called them back to explain the problem. I still haven't received the seeds because apparently now the collection is "back-ordered".