Comments regarding Richard Owen Nursery / Exciting Gardens

I ordered three weeks ago, and received an order confirmation almost immediately. Now today I get notice that my credit card didn't go through. I have a huge limit, and a zero balance, so I know it's impossible. I was furious! Now after reading all these comments I am glad! I wish I had read them prior to ordering. I will not re-order and will tell my friend to throw her catalog in the trash.

Last fall I ordered around $50 worth of shrubs and plants from Richard Owen Nurseries in Bloomington Illinois...big mistake. The quality of their stock is so poor it isn't even worth putting in the ground. This spring 80% of the plants were dead, and the few survivors don't look all that great. The company's customer service department is also a joke. Don't waste your money with these people.

Never buy from these people. Any company by Richard Owen Nurseries is junk. See Direct Gardening also; they are partners.

In late spring of 2001, I ordered 50 row run privet hedges from Richard Owen/Exciting Garden Nurseries. It took 6 weeks for the plants to arrive, half of which were dead. I contacted the Company, explaining to them that I could not wait another 4-6 weeks for replacement plants as I would then be on vacation. I was assured the plants would be shipped ASAP. Well, it was another 5 weeks. I did get the plants in the ground, however, once again about 28-30 arrived dead. I decided to return the plants with the invoice in the original bag (their specifications) and ask for a credit to my account. I did this on 9/15/01. As of this date, 10/19/01, I have yet to get that credit posted to my account. Bottom line, this Company is definitely not customer oriented, very slow on delivery of either service or materials.

I wish I'd read all the above comments before I foolishly placed my order. They charged my credit card the full amount, and months went by; all I got were terse canned statements in response to my inquiries. Then THEY started getting nasty. When the package finally did arrive (it appeared to be some long twigs in a plastic garbage bag), I just wrote REFUSED on the label and put it back in the mail. I'm contacting my credit card company now to see if I have any recourse.

Every piece of this order came through as rotten junk. To date I have not received one penny of a refund. I am hopping mad.

I ordered some roses and crab apple trees also some other items from the catalog of Richard Owens, terrible outcome. What I got was a shame, I cannot get to them by phone or e-mail or writing them, they have gone with my flowers I ordered!! I wished I had read these comments before. They should be banned from the internet and from the mail.

I ordered 4 Rose of Sharon bushes and 2 butterfly bushes from Richard Owen Nursery. When they arrived with some bulbs they were dried out and looked terrible. I went ahead and planted them. The next spring they were still dried out terrible looking plants. I have learned my lesson; I won't order from a catalog again. Unfortunately I did not have a copy of the order slip and received no refund. I received a new brochure in the mail I filed it in file 13.

Do not use this company! Pictures and prices are attractive but quality and service is dismal. Having ordered quite a lot of stock from several suppliers at the same time, I found survival of items from Richard Owen to be FAR worse than any others. Many plants arrived dead or near dead. A dried out stick is a dead piece of wood, not dormant. Received replacement items from other suppliers with no problems and before heard anything from Owen's. Have only received a few plants in replacement and they were dead. No communication from them and I have written the president of the company asking for refund. Little sense in wasting my time planting something that will not grow. AVOID THEM!

I placed an order in early Apr 2001 $103 worth I didn't receive two trees. Now it's June and three-fourths of the order did not come back to life but I discovered something from the shipping label. I also ordered from Richard Owen Nursery the Shipping label are exactly the same but different colors. The package ID numbers are the same. The type-written numbers at bottom are the same, and another number at the top left are the same How can two different nurseries have so many of the same numbers on the printed label?? Also there is no address to return for a refund. ??? Does any one have the mailing address for return. I will never do business with House of Wesley or Richard Owens.

After mailing a $310.00 order, I got on the web to see if I could find them and found this web site instead, I immediately called in sick and drove 110 miles to stop payment on my check, that cost me $20.00 and half a day's wages. Now 2 weeks later I get one package in the mail about the size of a large kitchen trash bag full of dead twigs and sticks, this represented approximately 100 2-3" Siberian elm, 6 fruit trees, 8 nut trees, 5 poplars that were supposed to be 4-5 ' high, etc. We went ahead and planted these sticks and will see if anything grows.

I received a catalog and the pics all looked so good. I am really into house plants and they had some listed that I do not have. So on 4/06/2001 I placed an order over the net for $38.39. On 4/30 I received 4 Torch Lilies and a 50 pc. bulb garden. They were dampened but not overly wet with just a hint of a musty smell. I wasn't really too disappointed. Although the bulbs were all a little on the small side. So I thought the rest of my order (the house plants) would be arriving in a few days. I waited and they didn't arrive, and no letter regarding a delay. So May 1 I telephoned them regarding my order. The CSR was courteous and stated that they were out of one of the plants and would ship as soon as it arrived. OK I was satisfied with that. So I waited. Nothing. May 11 I phoned again. A different CSR said that the info she had showed that the plant had just arrived and they would ship in the next day or two, and I'd receive my order in about two weeks. I waited. Again, nothing. May 30 I telephoned again. By now I'm beginning to get angry. I'm having the expense of long distance phone calls added to what should have been a simple mail-order purchase. I got a different CSR and she barely spoke. She just stated that she didn't really know the problem. Other than they were still waiting to receive one of the plants before they could ship. She said they hold the entire order if they are out of an item. I told her I wasn't yelling at her. I realized that she is just customer service. But I said, "Your company got their money (charged to my credit card). Here it is nearly 2 months later and I don't have my merchandise. You either have what I ordered or you don't. Why not send what you have and a refund check for what you don't have?" I told her that I was none too pleased with the situation. Also that I have done mail-order business for years with alot of companies and have never had to wait like this for an order. I then told her that those flowers had better be in very good condition and well worth the wait when I receive them (if I receive them!) or they would be mailed back for a FULL REFUND. I told her I was giving them 10 more days and if I have not received my order by then that I was going to have to take necessary steps to correct the situation.

Ever since I placed an order with Richard Owen Nursery on February 26, 2001, it has been a customer service nightmare. It is now May 23, 2001, and to this date I have neither received any merchandise nor a refund check. Their customer service department is a joke because they just keep repeating the same thing like a bunch of parrots "it's in the process of being shipped" or "it's in the process of being processed".After speaking with a supposed customer service supervisor/manager, my level of satisfaction left a lot to be desired. Apparently, the next in the chain of command is the actual owner whom I requested to speak with but was "unavailable at the moment".As of this date, the first part of my undelivered order is pending a refund review by the owner (permission for the refund is now supposedly in the hands of the owner of Richard Owens Nursery - so I'm waiting for a "thumbsup" or "thumbs down" and supposedly the second part of my order shipped May 9, 2001. I know snail mail isn't all that hot, but does it take more than two weeks for something to ship from Illinois to New Jersey?At this point, no matter what I receive in the mail from the Richard Owen Nursery (be it the actual merchandise or a refund check) will be a complete miracle and the biggest surprise I can expect this coming summer.

I placed a $70 order with Richard Owen Nursery 4/12/01 and receive my dead plants 5/22/01. I am sending everything back with the packing slip for a refund. I'm very disappointed.

I ordered $145.00 worth of plants from Richard Owen Nursery. The plants were dead, moldy, dried up or broken. Do not order anything from this company. Getting your money back is impossible. I will not go into any more detail as my situation is the same as the other comments listed.

I am just recovering from my first big mail order experience with Richard Owens Nursery--the wisteria they sent were truly a joke--though not funny at all. I wrote to them and they sent a form letter that had nothing at all to do with my complaint.

I too made a large order from Richard Owen. I ordered a number of bulbs and strawberries in May, as well as two cherry bushes and two trumpet vines. I thought I'd get the strawberries, vines and trees quickly - to plant in June and the bulbs in early fall - as their catalog implies. Well, everything arrived in a wet, sopping mess in one of the famous green plastic bags with no protection or padding. The plants and roots were all moldy and stinking to high heaven. I cleaned what I could and planted; of course, nothing is growing. Since I have only until June 30 to request a refund (actually I think it is a replacement, but I'd rather a refund), I am sending my packing slips today.

I can't help but wonder what keeps a Company like "Owen Nursery" in business. With all the complaints listed, I'd like to add my own. I ordered 2-mosquito plants which arrived as dead twigs about 2 1/2 long and as hard as a log. There was no dirt left around these things as the cheap plastic bag they were in broke. The 28 "willows" ordered were half alive (or dead) and didn't survive the plantings. When requesting a refund I got a "replacement certificate" instead just to be able to but more dead things from them.

I worked there several years ago. They are an absolutely terrible company. They order huge quantities of bare-root stock plants in the spring. When the plants arrive, they are kept stacked in a huge cooler room stacked in huge piles until they're brought into the package staging area. They sit in the packing area in wooden wire-bottomed boxes with no climate control and bare-roots for weeks and weeks until an order comes in for them, only being sprayed occasionally with water to keep them "semi-alive". It's no wonder that most of your plants arrive dead, because probably about 90% are dead before they ship. On top of this, Owen's pays its employees very, very poorly for very difficult work. Their return department is also a joke. My best suggestion is to go to a plant nursery and buy your items, or buy seed from someone (anyone) else if you must buy from a catalog.

I purchased on July 2000, about 8-9 Bearded Iris's from Richard Owen Nursery. This is one company I will NEVER order from or recommend to anyone EVER. Not only did I receive my order in a plastic bag, stuffed in my mailbox, the product was wet and rotten. I called the next day and told customer service, but was not told I could get a replacement etc. Your reputable Nurseries send their products in boxes, wrapped merchandise, with the shipping label enclosed. They also guarantee up to a year. I now findRichard Owen Nursery guarantees for only 14 days. (How convenient so they don't have to refund your money). With as many negative letters I have just read about this company, I still can't believe they are still in business.Since I threw out the shipping label, which was the label on the plastic bag, I was told I was out of luck. To replace the order I needed to send a copy of my canceled check. I asked why, since you cashed the check, supplied my order and have it listed in your computer. Customerservice states that the rules. Again only honest, reputable companies I have dealt with have replaced items over the phone. I have done a lot of ordering of plants through the mail for the past several years, and RICHARD OWEN NURSERY, is beyond STINK!

I ordered 3000 Periwinkle plants from Richard Owen for nearly $200. They arrived covered in white mold. My wife and I painstakingly cleaned off the mold and planted them during two back breaking days. Not a single one survived or showed a glimmer of life from the first day. I have been given the total run around by their customer service department who conveniently does not make their number available, and it is always busy. Two phone calls, and two letters and I am left with a worthless Replacement Certificate less shipping costs. DON'T EVER BUY ANYTHING FROM RICHARD OWEN!

I order this spring for the first time from a catalog. 6 Robin Hood RED hedge roses. They came as bare sticks no large than my hand including the roots. They did take, and are now 18 inches high, and blooming PINK. I also ordered 6 weeping weigelas, some mother of thyme and 100 periwinkle vines. The weigelas were bare sticks but now have some leaves on them. I cannot imagine how long it will take to look like the picture. Each plant is only one tall stick. The mother of thyme and periwinkle vines were in pretty poor condition. They thyme was rotting and never did survive. I managed to salvage about 10 of the periwinkle vines. The packaging was awful - it was all different bags inside a larger plastic bag and offshoots on the plants were broken in shipping.

I ordered daylilies and iris roots from this nursery and was very disappointed with the quality of their plants and the way they were packaged. Each one was packed with wet shredded paper in individual plastic bags and in a large plastic bag as the shipping vessel. Most people know that neither daylily or iris like wet packing, hence all the plants either molded or rotten. I will never order anything from them again and deffinately would not recomend them to anyone.

I have ordered plants from this company, and I am VERY disappointed with the results. The plants arrive rotten, do not grow upon planting, and the company makes it difficult to get replacements/refunds. I DO NOT recommend this company.

Although the roses I ordered from Richard Owen Nursery are doing well, they arrived bare root, with many broken canes. Also, although some were shown to be a deep red in the catalog, when they finally bloomed they were hot pink. I don't think I'll be ordering from them again.

After many, many busy signals I have the bad experience as follows: May 17, I phoned (credit card) an order for three yellow roses. A week later my card was charged the full amount. I phoned them June 5th for status of my order. He said it was shipped June 3. Today is June 9th and still no product. I wish I had found this site BEFORE placing an order. I plan to return it and visit a local rose nursery and pay their higher price, like I should have done in the first place. Thanks for your comments.

In the Spring of '99, I ordered A Geum collection, A Viburnum tree and A red Delphinium which was quite expensive for a plant. However, it seemed rare so I thought I would like it for my garden. From Richard Owen's Nursery I ended up with a bag of rotted Geums, a Viburnum "twig", and a stick that was supposed to be my red, (dead) Delphinium. I planted it anyways and nothing sprouted. I sent the shipping label back to this nursery, with a request for another plant. I received the shipping label back and so far no satisfaction from this lousy company, a year later. To say the least I will never order from them again!

I ordered plants along with a neighbor in April 2000. The check was cashed and 3 weeks later still no plants. When I called they advised methey would be mailed the week of May 8. Three weeks later they arrived in a plastic bag. We ordered 2 types of plants, blue festuca, an ornamental grass and creepind red sedum. The 24 creeping red sedum were nothing pieces of roots in 2 plastic bags and all appeared to be dead. There is no way you could tell what they used to be. The blue festuca ornamental grass looks like something I would have dug up out of my lawn, and it is not blue at all. It however did arrive in plantable condition.I have tried calling all day and have gotten only a busy signal. After reading the other horror stories about this company, I have a feeling my money was wasted. I have dead plants and what looks like some grass weeds.I am very disappointed, and will never order from them again. I am still trying to get ahold of them by phone, but no luck.

Horrible place. Do not do business here. I have ordered my plants in April and it is now the close to the end of May. I live in Alabama, it is too hot to plant out here now. I have called R. Owens Nurseries several times. Always a busy signal. I finally got through twice. Was told my order been processed. Called again today and they said they don't even know what happened to my order but will check it out! They have already cashed my check. We are planning to call again to cancel the order since I have heard the plants they send are practically dead anyway.

I wish I would have seen these comments before I ordered my hedges from Richard Owen nursery. I waited 4 months to get my order and when I finally received the hedges, they were dead and they were covered from top to bottom with mold and spiders. I couldn't even take them out of the bag with my hands; I had to dump them out on the ground! Also, I am having a huge problem sending them back and getting a refund on them. If anyone is out there and thinking of buying from them DON'T!

They will never get an order from me or anyone I know again. My product was received in an open floppy plastic sheath. I was missing several items out of the package. Several of the items were dead, and when I returned the shipping label as per request, I received a hand-written note saying that they didn't understand what the problem was. I explained the problem, again, and returned the whole shebang. I then received another handwritten note signifying I needed to return the shipping label, which I had done twice already. Meanwhile, my money is tied up in dead product, nonexistent product, and stamps. As of October 14th, I still haven't gotten satisfaction. The ground is now partially frozen, too late to plant.

I'm a Master Gardener, so I know a bit about nursery stock etc. My stock was received mildewed! I immediately sent the mailing labels and a note regarding my order. Thus far, I have received several notes back on scrap paper indicating I had not accomplished some process to receive my money back. Furthermore, their telephone has a perpetual busy signal.

On April 11, 1999 I placed a $73.78 order with Richard Owen nursery, on the same date I placed an equal order with Gurney's. Today's date is May 3,1999 and I still have not received anything from Richard Owen Nursery. I did receive the canceled check a week ago so I know they got my money. Gurney's order arrived two weeks ago and arrived in excellent condition and is growing fine. I called Richard Owen Nursery today to check on my order and was told it was in the shipping dept. and they had no idea when it would ship. I requested a ship date and they hung up on me. I will never buy from them again.

Although I doubt most seasoned gardeners would deal with the company anyway, Owen Nursery in the midwest does not stand behind its products. The plants are small, and many die the first month of planting. Getting satisfaction for lost purchases, through no fault of your own, is impossible.

I ordered from Richard Owen Nursery in the spring of 1998 and I am sorry I did. The hundred dollars worth of trees I ordered arrived Summer of 1998 as tiny dead sticks. I wrote to Owens Nursery, to ask for replacements, and sent the packing slips. Their reply was to send the packing slips "again".

I'm still waiting for my order from Richard Owen, feeling very foolish that I didn't think to look up their reputation on the internet first. It's been 3 weeks and when I called Richard Owen Nursery, the abrupt customer service person said that they were still processing my order, and that I wouldn't receive it until the middle of April.

I wish I had checked on them first. I did save the packing slips so I need to send them in for refunds. The worst was a Burning Bush "shrub" for which I paid $3, and it was nothing but a 6 inch dead stick which did nothing despite my care. Another problem was that I specifically asked them to deliver the plants as late as possible in October, and I received them the beginning of October when temperatures were in the 100's. Not a good time to transplant even healthy plants!

Last year I placed small orders with a number of unknown sources just to see how they would respond (that was before I had discovered this excellent list). Richard Owens and Richard Owen are the same outfit (only slightly different catalogs), and the comments apply equally to both. As far as I'm concerned they come just this side of fraud. Absolutely everything I ordered from them arrived crushed, dead and in some cases actually rotting. When I opened one of the packages the stench was nauseating. I didn't even bother to contact them because anyone who would send such abysmal merchandise in such miserable packing is not likely to pay much attention to customer complaints. They're obviously just in the business for one-time customers. I can't imagine anyone ordering from them twice. Hopefully messages like this will help save people from ordering from them even once.

I received a partial shipment of my peonies in very poor condition; the plants came in an unprotected plastic bag, which scattered dirt when opened. When I wrote to Richard Owen about the missing item, I was told that original packing slip was needed to get a refund or replacement. Well, after I sent in the packing slip, I never heard from them again! Don't waste your time and money buying anything from Richard Owen Nursery.