Comments regarding Spring Hill Nursery (aka SpringHillNursery.com)

Springhill nursery may have cheap plants but then if they never ship them to anyone it is easy to sell something cheap. i ordered on april 27th 2009 and every day my shipping date changes sometimes it changes three or four times in a single day. they never reply to an email so forget about getting a response through that. and all they can tell you when you call them long distance is that your order is in the process of being picked and boxed and will be shipped as soon as they can. some of the plants i ordered started out being shipped in 1st week of may the next day it was the middle of june then the next day it says it will ship in mid may it is now may 13th and the order showed will ship in june 8 2009 in the morning now in the evening it says the order will ship may 20th. it is a constant shell game with these people and after spending almost 100 dollars on plants i am fed up with this company. i have contacted the BBB but still have not gotten a solution to the problem. even the BBB can not get these people to ship the plants they took my money for. I have talked to my credit card company and they said they will not allow the charge to stand so at least i will get my money back. bottom line avoid springhill gardens like the plague it is.

Guess I am one of the lucky ones concerning SpringHill. I placed an order 2 weeks ago for some ferns and got them today May 6. They are all healthy looking plants. Wish I could say the same for a few other nurseries I've done buisiness with this spring. There's got to be one good apple in the barrel.

I placed a medium sized order with this company. This first shipment was a collection of 4 clematis. It arrived in excellent condition. Well-rooted, lots of leaves, moist soil. Couldn't have arrived in better shape. Hopefully the rest of my order will arrive in the same excellent condition.

I ordered about $100 of plants for only $80 using a discount coupon I found online. I got some astilbes, geraniums, daisies, rudbeckia, verbascum, salvia, and vincas.
I received the package within a few weeks (these are living things so it's not as simple as pulling them off a shelf) and everything was packed carefully and looked as I expected. One of my two rudbeckia was missing, so I wrote a quick note to customer service and within two days I got an email saying they had put two more in the mail for me (which I've also received and looked great).
Most of the plants arrived with no leaves on them and no signs of life but I have been helping my mother with her gardens since I was a little girl, so I knew that this is what plants look like when they have been dug up from under the snow in April and then put in a box and sent across the country!
The geraniums showed up as little straggly roots but they are looking amazing now and some are even 6" tall! The vincas came with good leaves and are doing well. A couple are already starting to trail and root. One out of the six is not doing too great, the growth that was on it when it arrived has died, but it has a little shoot coming up so I think it'll be alright. The astilbes looked like dead pieces of driftwood but all are putting up little fuzzy shoots! The salvia are doing very well and growing so fast I'm going to have to stake them in a couple of days. As for the verbascum, daisies, and rudbeckia, they have been growing slowly and looking a tiny bit tired, but I just reread the Spring Hill website and realized I was giving them MORE water to try to perk them up... and those 3 plants do not like wet feet. So once I stop drowning them I think they will do great.
The beautiful plants you see in the catalog are about three years old, so I am expecting this first summer to be one of greenery and careful attention. I'll add to my post when they bloom.

I decided to give this company a try since I know friends who have had great success with them. I used the $25 savings certificate for an order over $50. I received my entire order in a timely manner, that is not the issue. I found out about this site 'after' my order was placed, but decided for wishful thinking in the grand scheme of things, since I had no experience to write about. I ordered 3 blue fragrant lavender and we planted them in a timely manner according to the planting directions. I know a dead plant when I see one, (these were wilted when we received them and I had hoped they'd bounce out of it). Two out of the three are dead and the third one looks iffy. I called the Customer Service last weekend, and told the lady they'd been in the ground one week and two are dead. She said that perhaps they are in shock, give them another week and see if they bounce back. They have not and the third one is looking sickly now. They are dead or dying. I've read on here that the company can black ball you for too many dead plants. That scares me as I also ordered three snow in summer and they look sickly too. I emailed the company about this 2 for sure dead ones on 4/27/09 and haven't received a response yet. I doubt I'll be ordering from them as I'll just stick with my local nurseries. I wish I'd paid attention to the warnings. The pictures in the catalogs make everything look so good and it is our desire that we get that result too, but we've got to have good plants to work with from the get go....not wilted ones.

I ordered 2 "planned gardens", an assortment of bare root and potted plants. My order arrived yesterday. It was well packaged and everything looks good - the potted plants are very healthy, and the bare roots are well packaged and not dried out.

So, what is the problem, you ask? Well, this is Zone 5. Our last frost date is May 26th. We still have a foot of snow on our still-thoroughly-frozen ground. We are WEEKS away from being able to plant anything here. And yet, here is the accompanying planting information, telling me to get things planted asap, a day or two for the potted plants, up to 3 weeks for the bare roots. Not gonna happen!

I have contacted the company by e-mail and have received prompt responses, so possibly this should be a neutral rating - which I will change it to if the company follows through with replacing plants that don't survive to be planted.

Bottom line - no good nursery should be shipping to Zone 5 the first week of April!!

I have to say that I was greatly impressed with the customer service at Springhill. I Received my plants as stated. When ordering by mail, I have learned not to expect what I would get at the store due to shipping constraints, so I consider how plants do when actually growing. I received defective plants and I emailed them one evening, not expecting a reply for several days. I was shocked to have received a response the next day with a shipping # and expected delivery date! The plants that made it are growing well, a white feather hosta beautifully filling out already.

I am having issues with a a Blue Sea Holly now that is dying and the other Black Barlow Columbine has rotted as well, but I anticipate smooth sailing when I call to report it.

I would recommend Springhill and am planning to do business with them again.

I ordered 3 Sensation Lilacs with a $25 discount and they arrived on time packed in plastic air pillows with no problem. The new top growth was a bit yellowed due to too much time in a box. The roots were thick and healthy. Upon being exposed to sunlight they greened right up and started growing quickly.

I received an order confirmation, a shipping confirmation, was billed correctly and have had no reason to call customer service.

These are easy plants, certainly not exotic, but nothing went wrong.

I have about 10 Mock Orange shrubs that I ordered from Spring Hill two years ago. The shrubs are just beginning to leaf out this year and I am waiting to see if I get blooms this year. I am very impressed with the vigor of these plants, they grew to well over 8 feet in two years (with Bayer 3-1). I also have several roses from Spring Hill which have been very hardy and performed well (JFK, Audrey Hepburn and Royal Amethyst)... this is more than can be said for about a dozen J&P roses I lost to canker, poor grafting or just general unhealthiness.

I found a coupon in an online forum to get $20 of merchandise free from Spring Hill - just pay shipping. I therefore got a dwarf orange tree, including pot and soil, for only $7.95. Although I was a bit nervous given all the bad reviews here, I figured it was only eight bucks. It was shipped promptly (indeed, earlier than the estimate said, which I guess might be a problem for some folks but wasn't an issue for me) and arrived today in great shape. I'm looking forward to enjoying oranges!

I submitted my first online order with them on March 25th, the items were shipped on Sunday/Monday and I recieved today.

Privet Hedge, Freedom roses and a few other bare root items.
I was really nervous after reading some of the reviews, However the items were well packaged, moist and looked very good.

I read the mixed reviews and decided to take a chance on Spring Hill, as it is the only way I could afford to fill my garden areas. I ordered approx $95 of plants after $25 coupon. It was a mixture of plants and bulbs/roots/etc.

Customer service has been excellent for me - responses in no longer than 1 day and replies within an hour in some cases.

I asked a question about shipping and charges before I ordered and reply was very quick, detailed and answered all my questions.

I placed an order and it was shipped in 2 shipments -
1) Fern collection shipped a week early and incl. a Painted Fern shipped as small plant in good condition (packaged &received in good condition)
2) The rest of the order was shipped to reach by the first day in the estimated shipping range. The plants (8 total) were all in good condition, except 1 was a little yellowed. My poker primrose even had a little 1" poker already growing. Roots, bulbs etc were all packaged well.

Problems encountered:
1) Of 3 Dwarf Gaillardia ordered, 2 were the same, 1 looked totally different. No mention on packing list that one was substituted.
2) A couple of the Liatris bulbs felt a little soft.

So, I emailed cust service (directly from last correspondence I received) to ask if that was normal for the bulbs (I've never worked with bulbs) and to find out how I determine what the 3rd oddball plant was.

I got a response same day saying they were forwarding my questions to their master gardener and got a reply from Karen @ Gardens Alive (next day) apologizing for any inconvenience and informing me replacements are being sent for the above items and will reach within 1 week. (which I did not even ask for at this time)

I guess I must have been one of the lucky ones because I can't think of any company in the last couple years which has been as pleasant to deal with as Spring Hill.

As far as the plants go, I have no doubt that they will grow wonderfully. The rest of the roots, I will have to see. I'll update later when the plants have some time to settle in.

I ordered plants from a recent promotion that including shipping the plants now and paying later.
I ordered a couple of weeks ago and just received my order. Here's how it looks:
Pink Coneflower-just roots in plastic bags with what looks like peat moss-we will see
Starburst Ice Plant-Nice sized plants-green and plump- packed in plastic air pillows
Crazy Daisy-Smallish plants but healthy and green packed in individual plastic cartons
Bear's Breech-Really nicely packed-larger plants than I expected and very healthy.

I'm pleased with this order and will definitely order perennials from Spring Hill again and will happily pay my bill immediately.

I just found your site, but I have to tell you about my experience with Spring Hill Nursery. We saw the Sorbet Peony in their catalog 3 years ago and ordered it for a specific spot in our garden. The root arrive looking really nice so into the ground it went. It sprouted and the plant was green for the first two years. The third spring, we got our first flowers. Imagine our disappointment when what we thought was the Sorbet was, in fact, a standard red Chinese Peony. I called the company and explained what we had and offered to dig up the plant and mail it back to them. The customer service rep I spoke with said to wait on that and that she would see what they could do since it was 3 years from the date of the order. 10 days later, we received another peony root, clearly labeled "Sorbet" with a note attached that said we should enjoy the Chinese Peony and in a couple of years should really enjoy the Sorbet. These folks are tops in my book. That's customer service to the max.

I've ordered 2 times from Springhill. The 1st time (2007) we had a extended Spring freeze delaying shipping. I had no problem cancelling my order and getting my money back. The other time I ordered Spring 2008 with 50% coupon & my plants came in plenty of time for the season and were packaged beautifully. The plants were healthy and I was quite impressed. I had 95% success rate and the only death I had was due to a bad plant placement and rabbits.

We have ordered from them twice. They were very pleasant to work with. One order came in one bulb short and they immediately sent out another package of 10 bulbs in return mail. The complete order other than a couple of carnations were healthy and much larger than we expected and packaged perfectly. The carnations that we lost were replaced and sent to us within two weeks. No hassle or having to return shipping labels - a simple phone call to very pleasant and helpful customer service - nothing like farmer's seed ( the rudest woman I have ever had to deal with). We just placed another order with them and know that our plants will be shipped in spring - as posted on website.

This past spring, before ordering from Spring Hill, I read many of the reviews which were very mixed. This of course made me very nervous but since I was getting everything 50% off I took the chance. I'm SO GLAD I did. All their flowers turned out beautiful. I ordered my flowers early so Spring Hill would have plenty of time to process my order and ship them at the perfect time for my zone. I'll be ordering from them again, as will my friends!! Note: I ordered 30 plants.

Ordered about $200 worth of plants (at a 50% discount), all showed up neatly packaged. All but 1 grew well. I would order from them again if they have a good promotion.

I am sorry to read about people's negative experiences with Springhill. This spring I received a catalogue with an offer where I could buy up to $25 worth of stuff and not have to pay anything. How could I go wrong? So I bought a white tree peony named Goliath and paid like $2.00. It is growing nicely in my yard, and I hope there will be flowers in the next few years. Although my Dad bought a Mock Orange from them 4 years ago that was supposed to be very fragrant. It didn't bloom until after he died and Mom was waiting for it to bloom in his honor and she was really angry because it had absolutely no fragrance AT ALL!!!!! I told her to call them but she has not gotten around to it yet.

I ordered approximately $200 worth of plants from Spring Hill in fall 2007. Mostly basic perennials: Shasta daisies, monarda, coneflower, achillea, and the like. Nothing tricky. I knew that because this is mail order, the plants would be smaller than locally purchased plants, but I'm starting a garden from scratch and have the time and patience to let them grow. (I don't have the cash for the prices our local nurseries charge!) This was before reading all the poor reviews, so I was a little worried!

I'm glad to report that this summer I'm showing about a 90% success rate with my Spring Hill plants, which I consider quite good. (NC is in drought conditions, after all, not to mention our heavy red clay.) The stuff that didn't grow (lost about half the lavender; asclepias didn't break dormancy) was my fault--poor site selection, a few things were marginal for my microzone. I'm not asking for replacements, because the results would likely be the same and I knew they were riskier choices for my garden. For the rest, planting in fall and patience on my part is paying off.

The pink delight butterfly bushes are now each about 4 feet tall and blooming their heads off! I had little hope for these, as they arrived in 4-inch pots and were nothing but a couple of short sticks. I also had to move them several times due to some emergency landscaping fixes. Once the weather warmed up, though, they started growing like weeds. Wow!

The Shasta daisies, yarrow, and marguerites have grown bigger even than the site descriptions, have taken over the front bed, and have been blooming nonstop for over month. Monarda's big and blooming. Rudbeckia plants are sporting huge leaves and many, many blooms. Same with the coneflowers.

All in all, I'm very pleased with the results of my fall order from Spring Hill, and have put in another order for delivery this fall. My experience with perennials is that it's better to plant them in fall instead of spring. Shipping conditions are better, meaning better plants on arrival, and the plants have the winter to establish strong root systems.

Regarding customer service, I honestly have given up expecting good service from ANY company, but when I emailed to report that my butterfly bushes hadn't arrived, replacements were sent as soon as they were available and shipping conditions were appropriate. Good enough for me.

I placed two orders this season online, one with the 50% off coupon and the other with up to 70% of offer. A few of the plants did not grow. Although I realize the sucess rate from ordering mail order plants is not usually 100%, I sent a detailed replacement request and the replacements arrived super fast and much to my delight I received more plants that expected. I even have blooms on the Lupine, which I have never had any luck growing. There was only one plant, Columbine that was out of stock. I was told they would send it next year. Overall, I am very pleased with the my plants and the Customer Service and will order online again.

Generally, I've had good experiences with Spring Hill. I appreciate that theirs is often the first of my several plant orders with several different companies to be delivered. I often get theirs before I receive anyone else's. I have had great luck with their columbines and quite good luck with their white dragonflowers and delphiniums. Once in awhile, a bareroot plant fails to break dormancy and may have been dead when I received it, but that is rare. When plants are dormant, it's hard to tell if they actually are still alive. If I order twelve plants and eleven grow, I feel I've done quite well. And these are the kinds of numbers I've usually experienced. I think it is unrealistic to expect 100-percent dormancy emergence, though it's nice when that does happen. Many factors can effect a plant's coming out of its dormant state, that might not be caused by any fault of theirs.

They always send me an e-mail letting me know when my order will be / has been shipped, so I know what to expect, and it always arrives within the time-frame they indicate.

I have used their coupons and have saved quite a bit of money. I also belong to Garden Solutions, and I get a members discount when I order.

I intend to continue ordering from Springhill, and am surprised by all the negative reviews I see here.

I was very satisfied with Springhill nurseries the plants arrived as described and on the date they were scheduled, I had ordered the red perennial garden collection and every plant has grown beautifully and is the envy of my neighbors! I also ordered the primose lilac and it too is looking very healthy and beautiful, I have to also mention that I ordered the old fashioned purple lilac and left it in its container while on vacation, I forgot to mention to have it watered with my other plants much to my surprise it was barely allive I planted it and 3 days later there were several leaves on the plant I'm looking forward to the future with my trees and plants and would definitely order again from Springhill nurseries.

This was my fist order with SpringHill Nursery. I ordered 50 strawberry plants. I've had really bad luck with all the strawberry orders I have placed this year and I have to say that SpringHill got it right!! All of the plants had nice strong roots and 95% of them were already sprouting healthy "baby" leaves. I've already planted them and they are doing strong. Shipping was average, but I did order strawberries a little late in the season for my zone. I have not ordered any flowers or plants from them. I would order from this company again.

Will update on how well the strawberry plants stand up.

I could just slap myself....i always, always check for reviews before ordering online and have never had a bad experience. The first time I did not check online, was dealing with Spring Hill Nursery....website was great, prices were great...however I just had to cancel my entire order as they keep pushing back the shipping dates and the amounts ordered are not the same as they show on their order status. Trying to contact them by e-mail is like trying to get a root canal....I am not sure they even read their e-mails...I ask specific questions and all they keep replying is to check their FAQ page on their website which doesn't tell me anything.....I am so mad at myself for falling for this one and I was so looking forward to enjoying my garden this spring.....lesson learned...

As a first time buyer from SH, I placed two orders this spring. One for my home, and one as a mothers day gift. Due to timing I had to cancel the Mothers Day order. When I called I wasn't put on hold, and I was able to speak to someone immediately and had no problems cancelling the order.

I just received the order for my home last night. All of the plants look in fair to good condition considering they have been inside a box and on shipping trucks for the last week. I was impressed, especially after reading the reviews on this website I was a little concerned about what I might get in the mail.

Overall I am very pleased with the customer service, and the condition of the plants. And as far as timeliness goes, I recieved my plants on the first day of the estimated shipping date I recieved from Spring Hill when I first ordered the plants.

Very Happy, will order from them again and again.

My Spring Hill order arrived quickly and the plants were healthy. I was short one plant, called Spring Hill and spoke with a pleasant customer service rep who appeared genuinely concerned about the missing item and maintaining me as a customer. Within one week my missing plant arrived.

I ordered from them last month and rec'd my plants in about 10 days. I've planted everything and so far it's all doing well. I've ordered from them once before and had the same positive experience.

I too used the $25 coupon and ordered the following items: a climbing shell plant, edelweiss, lily of the valley, a bleeding heart plant, and a set of three Heritage raspberry plants. All arrived in good shape, except one of the three raspberry plants that looked dead to me, and I put them all in the ground the next day. Everything quickly thrived, except the raspberry I thought had been dead in the first place (the other two had green buds on them, this one had no green at all-- bear in mind this is my first year really gardening, so I thought maybe I was a poor judge of quality) and the bleeding heart.

I waited a month and then called them to report the two problems. At first the customer rep seemed confused-- "So you want planting advice?" (for dead plants? Uh, no). I told them that I'd been very happy with the rest of my order but I wanted these two items replaced. Although they tried to schmooze me into adding on a few "specials," they immediately agreed to replace my dead plants without any additional costs or shipping. It took about ten days for them to get here, but arrive they did. Oddly, the bleeding heart bareroot plant was much larger than my original one. I was happy to see that although I'd specified only one raspberry was dead, they'd sent me another three-pack, all with green showing.

Considering the $25 off a barely-$50 order I got, and the replacement plants, I'm sure I was not a profitable customer, and I appreciate the nice plants I got out of the deal. I found the customer service to be a bit odd, but ultimately they were perfectly helpful. I'll be cautious about reading the issues on this site, but my experience is that if you speak up, they'll come through for you.

I had never ordered plants through a catalog before, and when they sent me a coupon for $25.00, I thought I would try it. I received my plants in less than 2 weeks after I placed my order, and they were in perfect condition. I ordered a lilac which never even wilted and the others were roots and are already a few inches tall. I've read other reviews but so far I only have good things to say about them. I would definitely buy from them again.

This was my first time buying from SpringHill so I came here first to read the reviews. I was a bit worried with the negative experiences some people had. There was a special going on with 20 dollars of free plants. So I bought a Dwarf Citrus tree and hosta which came out to 20 dollars. I thought what do I have to loose with just paying shipping? I was very pleased when the plants that came in. Both were packaged nicely and were healthy. The citrus was well rooted and multi-branched little tree. The hosta tuber was already getting new growth. I now have them both planted and they are doing great!! I would buy from them again.

I have mixed previous experience with the company. The customer service was always very nice, I never had any problems with refunds or replacements. However the last shipment 2-3 years ago was a mess: the packaging was awful, the soil all over the box and broken/moldy plants. I did get a refund, no problems, but it left a bitter taste and I stopped ordering online.

After reading reviews I decided to give another try and used $25 coupon in the beginning of April to order 4 plants I couldn’t get in the local nurseries. My plants came 2 days ago very well packaged! Alive, not moldy or broken! In fact, they look very healthy. Small but healthy! I would probably buy again but in small quantities and on sale.

I'm going to say that I am "skeptically positive" at this time. I ordered from them this Spring for the first time. I also ordered from 2 other very reputable Companies from Daves Watchdog lists. My order of several perenials for my new shade garden arrived in very good condition. Some of my plants were potted and a few were not -such as the old fashioned white bleeding hearts. Everything started growing immediately, except 1 bleeding heart. My order was missing 4 pink old fashioned bleeding hearts - they said they would be shipped for fall planting. This was confusing to me since they had sent the white versions. I emailed them - getting the automated reply that they would respond within 48 hours. About 72 hours later, I sent them an email saying it had been longer than 48 hours and I had not heard. They did email me back to explain that this was a busy time and my 4 bleeding hearts are only fall shipped. Oh well, it is possible I missed that notation with I ordered back in March. I did notice that their automated email does not say 48 hours response time on it anymore :-) I sent another email to them regarding the 1 bleeding heart that wasn't growing - they have issued a "reship" on that for me. So, as you can see, my order did not go off without a snag - but I am satisfied at this time with their response. The potted plants I received were packaged as nicely and arrived in as good of shape as the plants I ordered from the other 2 companies were.
I'll update by review as they continue to fulfill this order to completion.

I have had a similar experience with Spring Hill as many of the gardeners here. I should preface that I am not an expert gardener, so someone with more experience may have better luck. In my experience, I had a high ratio of non-growers. They do stand behind their guarantee, but a second shipment of plants that don't grow doesn't help very much. If you call to report non-growing plants, you get the hard-sell to buy something else. The plants that have survived are performing relatively well, but my survival rate was less than 50%.

I set this review to neutral because I'm not an expert gardener, so part of the blame for such a low survival rate almost certainly rests with me. I do, however, have a much better survival rate than 50% with most plants, so I still believe the plants have issues.

On the plus side, if you're an expert gardener you may be able to coax life out of some of the plants that died in my garden, and in that case the reasonable prices may make it worth buying from them.

Also, they have many subsidiaries (or are themselves a subsidiary of a larger company), and they share mailing lists with all their sister companies. I get an unacceptable amount of junk mail as a result, and it is difficult to get taken off the lists.

Placed a small order using the free $20. All arrived well packed, healthy and are doing great out in the garden. Order arrived quickly. I will not hesitate to order from them again!

I ordered a dwarf burning bush and it arrived in 2 weeks. Plant was healthy, blooming, and packed carefully. Looks great out in the garden.

I bought double pink hollyhocks, peaches and dreams hollyhocks, delphinium, and Virginia bluebells. Everything, especially the hollyhock roots & plants, was huge and ridiculously healthy. No complaints here.

I just recently moved in to a new home, and the plantings that the bulder put in were substandard. Looking online for plants at reasonable prices, I too was sucked into Spring Hill's $20 no minimum order coupon. I ordered 10 mums, and received them fairly quickly. They arrived in these mini 2" containers, and although they looked healty, I was unimpressed. Still, I went ahead with my plan of planting them along the border of my front flower beds, and by the time the fall came, they were bushes with a 3 foot diameter and looked more like a hedge! When winter came, I trimmed them back, and now here we are in April, spring just coming into bloom, and these plants are healty, and already 1 foot across!!! I love this company. I have found their customer service to be very helpful, whenever I have called. I find that even though I am still in the trial and error period of finilizing my gardens, I can count on Spring Hill for healty plants, and a variety of styles, colors, sizes, and bloom times. Even the dwarf fig, that was sent in a three inch pot, and maybe measured a foot tall, is now almost 6 ft, in a container. I recommend this comany to my neighbors and friends, and those who laughed at my tiny little puny plantings last year, have asked me for their catalog this year.

After reading the feedback here, I was a little skeptical about placing an order with Spring Hill. But their "Free $20" sucked me in, and I purchased a patio lime tree "kit" for $19.99 (includes soil and planter). I only paid a total of $7.95 (for shipping). Three days after my standard order confirmation email, my order was shipped. It came two business days after that...except it was only the "kit" part--the soil and planter. Both were pretty blah, but I didn't expect much else. The soil will go in the compost and the planter will work fine for transplanting shrubs and whatnot. But no tree?!...I drafted my polite but concerned email in my head.

Well, I shouldn't have bothered. The very next day the lime tree came, packaged separately and quite well, looking frankly great. Healthy roots that were well packaged (and not hacked up like other places sometimes like to do), and even some new growth evident on the tree itself, which is a reasonable 2' with a good form. So all is very well!

All of this was slightly confusing from the website--the "kit" vs. the tree itself--but I certainly can't complain with the end result. I'm sure they'll suck me in again with more coupons; and that's not such a bad thing, apparently!