Comments regarding Pinetree Garden Seeds

I have had them ship at the end of the season and they got out my order of perrenials quickly. I have bought some great books, I have had good luck with value, shipping and customer service. I love their sale items!

Sounds like there may be some glitches from what I read. I have a small space to garden, so their seed amount works for me.

I've ordered several times from Pinetree. Their prices are very low and their excellent selection of books supplies and tools are very reasonably priced as well. The only caveat is -- don't buy their perennials or bulbs. Their perennials are super tiny (a year behind most others you'd buy) and their bulbs are iffy too. But as for seeds, I've had excellent success...

I've ordered seeds several years in a row. I like the packet size and price and selection., germinated well unlike those from another mail order. This spring, ordered plants from the spring sale, online, and followed that with email request to apply my coupon that came with seed order. That was answered promptly and done. Blueberry bush($4), bigroot geranium, wintergreen have grown well despite being early summer planted. Lost a siberian iris, just potted oxalis but they looked fine. Arrived with pots moist and wrapped in plastic, greens cushioned in shredded paper. Catalog has some personal notes and usually has scientific names.

I want to support Pinetree, in part because I believe in supporting Maine-based businesses. I appreciate much of what they do extremely well: seeds (every vegetable I've sown is fabulous), gardening accessories, books, and bottles. Where I've been less thrilled is in the woodland plants dept. They arrived tossed partially out of their containers, and often, because of this, broken in stem. Nursing brought most of them back, but it was disappointing. I encourage Pinetree to look into improved packaging for their plants. Hint: the best pkgs I rec'd had bamboo stakes to hold up container wrapping and stabilizing cardboard with only one layer o' plants per pkg. I encourage folks to work with the co. in improving this one smaller area of their business.

I have ordered from Pinetree for several years and have been please with the quality, germination rates and variety. I have found some unique flower seeds that I could not find elsewhere. Shipping has been prompt and the price right! It is a bit difficult to maneuver through the catalog.

I've ordered from Pinetree for several years. This year I procrastinated and didn't order until March. I paid for the expedited shipping and my order arrived in a couple days. My total order with the shipping was about $20.00. I like the fact that they sell small packets of seeds for the home gardener and that they are located in New England. I have seeds left over from previous years and I haven't had a problem. This year I planted two tomato seeds from 2003 ('Gardener's Delight' and 'Brandywine') and they are doing great. I did have germination problems with 'Orange Fantasia' Swiss Chard and 'Space' Spinach (from this year) but I'm not holding it against the company. I just planted something else in its place.

I'm not familiar with their customer service so I'm unable to comment on that. I do order from their website and I can say that it definately can be improved–it's difficult to navigate.

I've ordered seeds from several different companies in the past but I now stick with Pinetree.

Good variety of seeds and plants.

Seeds were shipped promptly, though I did place my order very early (Feb) to avoid the spring rush. Seeds germinated well.

Potted plants (blueberry, cranberry, lingonberry) were shipped just now-- about a month or so later than I expected, but since they are lovely and healthy, bigger than expected, and were very inexpensive, the good attributes balance out the lateness for an overall neutral rating. Had I received the plants in early May, the overall rating woulf have been firmly in the positive category. If they were smaller plants or bareroot stock and I received them now I would be upset as our short growing season is not forgiving to late transplants, but these plants should do fine.

No experience with customer service so no comment there.

I'll give them another try.

I recently ordered from Pinetree Garden Seeds and received my order promptly. My minor beefs would be the small amount of seed you get in each packet and they don't give customers free packet of seeds just a $2 voucher. But I'll still order from them in the future.

I live about 15 miles from this place. I mailed a seed order April 10 and they cashed my check on April 19. So I expected the seeds soon. Other Maine companies sent my seeds with in a week. No seeds came and I have tried to call, the line is always busy. So I e-mailed them. It took 5 days for them to answer and they say my order must have been lost in the mail. I e-mailed back and told them I want to pick up my order so I am trying to call them again so I can go there ASAP.

Affordable paper seed packets. Good germination rates. Seed count is not high (perfect for those of us in the cities). Though the website doesn't have order tracking, the shipping price is very reasonable and the shipping time was appropriate. My ony complaint would be that the website is exactly the same as their paper catalog. I would rather have a comprehensive website with pictures of every or most seeds than a paper catalog (that's just wasteful). Overall, I will continue to buy vegetable and flower seeds from pinetree/superseeds. I will try bulbs next season.

Pinetree Garden Seeds (superseeds.com) took six weeks to deliver my order, I expected it to take two or three weeks as stated. They also shipped to the billing, not the shipping address causing further delay. If the seeds germinate and grow well, I will use Pinetree again as a source of vegetable seeds but allow more time for delivery. Also, the ordering process of the website is a hassle, every page needs a seperate order.

I was a little reluctant to order from Pinetree after viewing some of the comments, but my experience has been positive. I received my seeds (about $30 worth) in about 2 weeks from the time I ordered them. They were well packaged and there was more seed than I expected in all the packets. One thing I do like is their resealable packets. It's too bad more companies don't use them. Their prices are reasonable and they have many seeds I wasn't able to find elsewhere.

I have only ordered from Pinetree once. I placed a small order of seeds and a few Roots/Rhizomes. I use another company for my main order each year, but Pinetree had a few items I couldn't find through the companies I normally deal with. About half my order (the seeds) arrived nearly a month after I had ordered them - I'd forgotten that I'd even ordered anything from them. I called and emailed about the missing half of my order and got no response. The roots and Rhizomes arrived about two months after I had ordered them, and a month past the date I wanted to get them in the ground. They were all in terrible shape, the Hop Rhizomes I had ordered were basically half wrapped in cellophane and were shrivelled up. I planted them anyways, but nothing grew.

My order was for some hard to find items at a busy time of year, but there was no excuse for shipping basically dead plants over a month late.

I've had two years of great experience with this company. The seeds are a great price, they arrive promptly and though the amount in the seed packages is not high, they're also not low. The amount of seeds in the packages are fine for a family garden. The germination rate of the seeds plus the instructions are great. I actually have a begonia that is huge that I started from seed. I've also ordered other products in the catalog with no problems. The website is a little difficult to navigate as it is hard to fill in the order online and then get back to the page I was on to continue shopping. You can only do it by clicking through several pages. Nevertheless even I have gotten the hang of it. I'd recommend this company and will continue to order from them. Check out their prices!!

I've had nothing but good experiences with Pinetree. My first was a couple of years ago when I ordered some vanilla bean mulch for a Christmas gift -- I had comparison shopped for it online and Pinetree had by far the best price. It came quickly and my friend was delighted. This year I ordered seeds, and again, they came quickly (I did, however, order fairly early). They were out of one variety and said it would arrive later -- sure enough, it did. I also ordered garlic mole repellents, again after having comparison shopped -- Pinetree has the best price on them. After using them, they worked so well that I ordered more. They took slightly longer to arrive, but not an abnormally long time. The seeds have had excellent germination rates, and I like the quantities they send. I'm very pleased with my Pinetree experiences and will order from them again.

While Pine Tree Seeds has a great selection and reasonable prices, beware their delivery system and customer service. If you have spring fever and want an order filled quickly, don't turn to Pine Tree.

I placed an order with Pine Tree on Jan. 21, and after 2 calls and 1 e-mail (to which I received a rather rude response) they were finally able to tell me it shipped on Jan. 24. Pine Tree is in Maine and I'm in Central New York. It took 3 weeks for the package to show up. Someone might as well have walked it the whole way. I’m fairly certain that the package did ship when they said it did. Whatever shipping method they use, though, is sub par.

On top of shipping problems, this company’s customer service is awful. The staffers manning the phone and e-mail are poorly organized and lack the basic ability to track an order on site and via the mail. They’re also dour, tactless, and sarcastic. After calling once I found myself thinking, “Well, maybe I am wasting their time here. Perhaps it is unreasonable to insist on tracking a package charged to my credit card 2 ½ weeks ago.” Then I remembered that this was a *company* I was dealing with and as such they should have enough sense to hire customer service workers who are actually pleasant and personable. Pine Tree might want to take some pointers from companies that have good customer service, like Bluestone Perennials, Gardener’s Supply, and Park Seed.

4 weeks and still no seed order. My check cleared three weeks ago.I tried to call the company and couldn't even get through--a busy signal every time.I did hear back on my email to them and they said it had shipped out 3 weeks ago,and that the mail is slow. I don't find this credible as every mail order I've placed in the last two months has come right on schedule.It's my take that this company has an internal problem (or possibly indifference) to timely shipments.I spent a good hour and a half yesterday putting together a brand new order to Territorial Seeds.I called this order in and they promised to ship in one to two working days.Quite a difference in timing.By the looks of emails from others, I won't be ordering from this company again.Should my seed order every show up I'll have to figure out how to get my refund as well as send the order back.

Well, I ordered seeds on March 5 from several companies, and the ones from Pinetree are the only ones that haven't arrived. Since they include the pea and spinach seeds, which should have been in the ground a couple of weeks ago, I'm a bit worried. I decided to email to see what's up, and their website doesn't seem to be working. I got the phone number here at Dave's, and the line's been busy continuously. Grrrrrrrr! I've ordered from Pinetree for years and love their selection and the resultant veggies. This is very frustrating!

Au

Ordered Feb. 22, 2006 on Internet, my credit card was charged the very next day, Today is March 15, and three weeks have passed and still no order. To be fair to them, they do advertise in their catalog, that when orders are placed this late in the season, it will take 2-3 weeks. I called them (at my expense) yesterday and they state they sent it Feb. 27th and will replace the order, but will not send first class mail. I have ordered from this company other years and last year (in the spring) had the same problem. And then when the order finally came, they sent it twice.! However when ordering off season, items come in a timely manner. . I think its interesting that they sent me a catalog in January and the same one, but with a different cover this week. How can they keep sending catalogs, but not get their orders out faster?

The prices are very fair and they have a good selection of seeds. However, it took a long time to get my orders: 15 days for one and 18 for another. I know Texas is a long way from Maine, but I've ordered from other long distance companies this spring and gotten my orders in a fraction of the time.

I choose Pinetree for the bulk of my vegetable seeds because their prices were fair and they had the varieties I wanted all in one place. Their website leaves a bit to be desired as it's easy to miss getting an item in your cart with their current system. I recieved my seeds about 10 days after I ordered them. It's still to early to plant, so I don't know about the germination rate, but the seeds are well packaged and clean.

I mailed my order to Pinetree yesterday! I ordered from 3 other companies too, but the largest order went to Pinetree. I have ordered from Pinetree every year for many years and have been pleased with the quality and selection of their products. I like the smaller sized packets because you can buy a variety of things without spending so much money for seeds that will be thrown away because they haven't been used up in a year or two. Unless you have a farm, there is no need for huge packets of seed. It's better to use fresh seed anyway. I love their book department, often selecting books as gifts. There are some great values on discontinued volumes. I've gotten some great tools there, too. I love their catalog--it has photos of their staff using products, and even the farm cat! I read it thru right away and mark all the books and other things I can't live without. Later, when reality sets in, I fine-tune my order.

Althought I hate to do it, I spend the extra $4.50 for 24-hour order processing, otherwise it takes an extremely long time to get your order. That dept. could use some work. Other companies can get your order out right away, so I don't understand why Pinetree can't. It should not cost an extra $4.50 to get your order in a timely manner. Fix that, and you'll have two thumbs up from me!

Unbelievably bad customer service. I placed an order on the 8th of February and was told that same day via email that my order, invoice number 33461, had been shipped and processed.

On the 20th of February, I started to wonder why it hadn't arrived yet and emailed. I was told it had shipped on the 13th.

On the 24th, it still hadn't arrived, so I called customer service. They assured me it had been shipped. I asked for a tracking number, and they called me back with it, advising me the package was at my local USPS facility.

I put the tracking number into the USPS online tracker and received this message:

Label/Receipt Number: 9102 0779 7486 8164 7139 56
Status: Electronic Shipping Info Received

The U.S. Postal Service was electronically notified by the shipper or shipping partner on February 21, 2006 to expect your package for mailing. This does not indicate receipt by the USPS or the actual mailing date. Delivery status information will be provided if / when available. Information, if available, is updated every evening. Please check again later.

I called them back and told her the package hadn't been shipped at all, and that only on the 21st had the label even been printed. She said that this was the message the postal service gave when the item was in the customer's local facility. I was pretty sure she was incorrect, that this message was an indication the label had been printed but that the package itself had not been shipped. But trying to be polite and assuming I probably knew less about the process than she did, I told her I'd call the USPS and ask them and get back to her.

I called the USPS. They assured me that I was correct. The package was not in their system yet.

I called customer service number back and explained. This guy told me I was wrong -- that Trish knew the system. I told him I wasn't wrong, that the USPS had told me the package hadn't even shipped yet, much less had been shipped eleven days earlier. I said it was really unacceptable to tell me that it had shipped the 13th when it still hadn't shipped on the 24th. He disagreed with me. He said, "Oh, no it's not unacceptable." I told him it was now too late to start the seeds I'd wanted to start, and he said in a sarcastic tone of voice, "Oh, isn't that too bad."

I was really shocked. I've placed four other orders from online gardeners supply companies this year, all on the 8th or 9th of February, and all of them are sitting here already. Unfortuntely, the order for Pinetree contained the seed trays. I'll go out to a local garden center and try to get my seeds started now, but I was really hoping to have them started by now.

I really can't imagine what would make me order from them again.

One of my standard ordering houses. Wide selection and very dependable products.

It's been my experience that you need to use any seed from Pinetree the same year you buy it; don't try to save it for next year as it probably won"t germinate. I have pansy, browalia,tuberous begonia all languishing in trays alongside fresh seed that is doing fine. Use it or lose it.

Ordered from Pinetree in early Jan.--seeds and glad bulbs as in previous years. Order was received in a week, and glads to ship later. The glads from past years were very nice size
( I only order early varieties for my zone 4-5) and they are still good size after digging and storing for 2 years. The germination has been very good with the seeds, and I really enjoy their catalog & find their website easy to use.

I have ordered from Pinetree for years. I have always been very impressed with selection, prices and service. This year is no exception.

I have ordered quite a few seeds from Pinetree, and to begin with I really liked them; fewer seeds = lower prices = more varieties ordered. Germination rates seem to not be as good now, which makes fewer seeds a bad thing. The one time I did tell them about bad seeds, they promptly replaced them.

I love the smaller quantities you can order. I like the packaging the seeds also arrived in. Looked like homemade flower packets. I ordered online last year and loved the variety they offer and received everything I ordered. For the smaller city gardener, packet size is great! I also ordered a gift certificate from them this holiday season and it arrived promptly to the family member (but unfortunately didn't say who it was from, which could have been my fault).

I I like the fact that their priced are about 1/3 less than most companies. Granted, you also get fewer seeds, but the lower prices have enabled me to buy seeds for varieties I have never tried. The website is difficult to navigate, I was reminded of this tonight when I placed my order. Nontheless, I have always had good germination rates and I feel I get a good value for my money.

I've been ordering for close to 10 years from Pinetree and have never had a bad experience. I nearly always order seeds (not plants). I love the small seed pack size. I can try two or three times as many items for the same amount of money. They are always very clear in the catalog as to the quantity of seeds you will get, so there are no surprises with the small packs. I have not had germination problems. I often order online from them and have had no trouble with their website. They changed their shipping charges this year and made them simpler which should please people who found them confusing. I have also ordered books and soap making supplies from them and have been perfectly happy. I absolutely love their oriental gardening tool, which I call my "Super Weeder".

The seeds I have ordered from Pinetree have had very good germination rates, and have shipped promptly. I have ordered from them the past two years and plan on doing so again this year. In my opinion, a great company to deal with.

This is about the third or fourth time I have ordered in the past 2-3 years. The catalog and the selection is great as there are many items that cannot usually be found anywhere else.
Germination results have been okay, but on some items like their pansies, and Dia Green broccoli, germination has not been so great this fall and I grow several hundred plants in a year during the four seasons. Other than that I have not had any problems with the flower and veggie seeds.
Overall, the varieties, price, helpful customer service, and the opprtunity to sample growing many different kinds of plants keeps me coming back. I will order again

Have ordered from this company year after year. They are awesome. Love the unusual perernnials they have.

I ordered quite a bit of seed from them for the first time this year and all in all they are coming up and blooming nicely. I do think their website needs definitely improvement and I did email them explaining that I had wished the seed packets came with the time of year it bloomed and where to plant. I got no response at all. The website is not very user friendly. Some packets had a lot of seeds for the money and some not many at all. So I will probably use them again for some seeds, but wish they had a little more consistency.

when my asparagus roots looked a little tattered and moldy and didn't come up, they immediately (in the time it took to send one email) replaced them with great-looking plants coming up already. easy and painless. i'm a longtime customer and will buy from them again.

s

I have ordered from this company for the last few years and never have reason to complain. The catalog is easy to read, the seeds are always fresh, and the shipping is fastand very affordable. I always recomend Pinetree first when someone asks about my garden.

This was my first season ordering from Pinetree Garden Seeds and I was VERY pleased with my seed and bulb purchase. I ordered the following seeds in January: Geranium pratense, Geranium 'Vision', johnny jump up violas, 'Lemon Swirl' violas, and wild eastern columbine. The germination % was close to 100% on all but G. pratense which was about 50%. All of the seedlings are now thriving in the garden. I also ordered 50 rain lily bulbs and 2 Begonia 'Bertini which looked great/healthy upon arrival. The Begonia are already flowering. Unfortunately, I also ordered 10 Autumn Brilliance fern which I was dissapointed with. Four of the 10 fern never leafed out and the other six were very small (-a couple just barely hanging in there). I contacted the company by email asking for a replacement for 4 autumn fern but got no response after 4 working days. Just when I had emailed a second time to inquire about the fern, a letter from Pinetree arrived in the mail with a refund for the 4 fern plus extra $$ for the small fern I was unhappy with. Overall, I was satisified with the prompt response by mail (-but was a little concerned when my email wasn't answered). I will order again from this company (mainly seeds and bulbs) because the bulk of my order was good. In particular, I thought the germination % was fantastic compared to 3 other companies I also ordered from this year.

I have ordered from Pinetree for several years now. I have never been disappointed with their seeds or glad bulbs. Their seed packets are small and inexpensive -- perfect for a small garden like mine.