Comments regarding Kelly Nurseries

I Know Kelly's Nurseries is part of Plantron but I've really been pleased with their service. I ordered Canadian Hemlock and they all died, I ordered (Kelly replaced them right away} 20 more and they died. I then e-mailed them and was told they were very hard to start so I ordered 20 other species and they all survived. Everything I have ordered from Kelly has grown or they replaced right away.

I had read all the negative feedback and was wondering if I should have ordered from them. I received my order today and it was exactly what I ordered and everything was fine. There is no reason that my plants should not do well.

I did business with Kelly's Nursery and got dead plants, and no satisfaction from the company. I was told to send back the dead plants write down the catalog number and the amount of the plant. I did do all that I did receive a refund check but that is next to worthless since they will not honor there own check. I wrote them a nasty letter but never got an answer. I do business with a lot of mail order nurseries and never had the problems I am having with this nursery. They took my money and will not refund it back I will look twice at nurseries before I order from them and stick to the ones I know are good business people.

I have just gotten a computer and found this site Wish I had seen it last year. We purchased $145.00 worth of plants. A group of mountain laurel arrived dead, was returned and a refund was finally received after several calls to both the Illinois and Minnesota offices. I told them to cancel the remainder of the order. They said I would have to put it in writing, which I did. This was almost a year ago and I have received no refund and have been unable to get through by phone. I am going to write them again and the BBB in Bloomington. If no refund is forthcoming I am going to contact the person at the local TV station who helps consumers resolve problems. If everyone will do this maybe enough bad publicity will keep a lot of fellow gardeners from losing their money.

My order was terrible-plants never even tried to grow!

I have bought from various Plantron affiliates and have been uniformly disappointed. It saddens me to see that Kelly Bros has joined them, since I expect this to mean that their quality will plummet. My bad experiences with Plantron affiliates include: catalogues do not accurately list climate zones; quality of merchandise is poor--50% of honeysuckle seedlings I bought failed to put out leaves and I have bought these from two Plantron companies; other orders have had a similar rate of failure.

I ordered $300 of Siberian Elms from Kelly's. They were dry as a bone when I received them. We planted them. A few of them came up. I called the company. The company said I had to write a letter for a certificate for more merchandise ONLY.... no refunds. You can use the certificate one time only, and it has to be for the total amount. So I wrote the letter, and they sent it back, and they told me I didn't write the letter properly, although I did mention how much I spent, exactly what I purchased, who to send it to, all the details of name, address, phone number, etc. And I had to call them again. And talk to the Kelly's associate, who told me specific words to say in the second letter I was to write. So I wrote it, and addressed it specifically as I was instructed by the Kelly's associate... and finally after several months I received the voucher so I could purchase more merchandise. This was an extremely bad experience and I will NEVER purchase anything from this discombobulated company again.

Last year I ordered two Harry Lauder Walking sticks from this company. And to make a long story short, both died. I asked for replacements and after much ado received them. Both of them also died. The plants were dry and brittle when they arrived. I soaked them in water before planting and since the reshipment was late, I planted one in a pot and kept it indoors for the winter. Nothing ever sprouted. Pieces of the stems were laying in the bag when I opened it. I keep a file of plant catalogues and Kelly's is recycled as soon as it arrives. I don't keep something that I will never order from. Please don't waste your time with this company. By the way, I am a Master Gardener and thus I know how to care for plant material. I have been gardening for at least 40 years now. It's sad that some companies just are not reputable.

I ordered several plants from Kelly Nursery in late April. I was told it would be six weeks to process the order. I thought at the time this was a long time to fill an order. The order arrived in June. All the plants were either black slimy, completely dead, or of the worst quality I have ever seen. Total order was $43.90. I feel that this money was just stolen. No real nursery would send that quality of plants.

This Spring (2001) I ordered 10 asparagus seedlings, two filbert trees and two Paw Paw trees. The asparagus is ok, but the "trees" arrived as dead switches with no fine roots at all, just nubby stubs. They were planted with care, watered faithfully amid a wide range of thriving vegetables, fruits and nut trees. As of today their "trees" are dead, dry switches. I cannot raise them on line and sent the original shipping label back as they demanded by snail mail. I wish I had read this thread before I ever ordered any thing from them! Next stop? Better Business Bureau if not satisfied.

I purchased 200 strawberry plants last spring; they arrived moldy. I planted them hoping for a miracle. When it did not happen I sent in the shipping label and requested another 200 plants. The entire summer went by before I received the next shipment; needless to say they were also moldy. ALL BUYERS BEWARE! DO NOT BUY! Nothing Kelly sends is any good.

Have tried for weeks to get a response to questions about my order - why it was never received, why my check was cashed, why the phone is always busy or no one ever answers. No answers to any of these questions. I don't intend to order from them ever again.

I placed an order for 40 Canadian Hemlock trees from Kelly Nurseries. When I did not receive my order I tried contacting them at the number on my order confirmation. The line has been busy for days. I was looking for their web site when I ran into this site. After reading your stories I am horrified. I hope I didn't get scammed.

I, too, am a sucker who placed an order with Kelly Nurseries. After waiting months for an item I was told was on back order, then finally having received it, I couldn't believe my eyes. What was supposed to be a tree was a small, green thing about 2 and 1/2 inches long. And that's not all. The end of it was rotten! It was totally unrecognizable! No leaves, no nothing! Just a short, rotted stem! It could be a weed for all I know! They should be ashamed!! I can't believe they treat their customers this way. How do they remain in business? I have learned never to place another order with this company.

I had a terrible experience with Kelly's last year - I ordered a clematis, some hostas, periwinkle and lavender. Because I placed an order over a certain price, I was promised some sort of free bonus gift. Well, when the plants arrived, only the periwinkle and a couple of hostas appeared to be even remotely viable. Since the planting information indicated that this was normal, I dutifully planted everything (except the free gift, which will remain a mystery because it was unlabelled and rotting and I couldn't remember what it was supposed to be). By the end of the summer, about 3/4s of the periwinkle was alive, and all the hostas came up. But neither the lavender nor the clematis ever came up. I didn't even bother following up with the company because I had waited so long to see if anything would happen with the plants and because I hadn't spent that much. However, I will NEVER EVER order from Kelly's again!

I ordered several items from Kelly Nurseries and am very disappointed. I ordered the blue moon roses. 3 for 15.95. Two lived and the other died or was never alive when I got it. The rose just bloomed yesterday, and it is not blue. It is pink. All the other plants I ordered were rotten when I got them and none lived. This is false advertising.

I orderd 12 Redleaf barberry, I haven't even planted them because the leaves are green! They were tagged red leaf barberry but were in bags that said Barberry! I will never order from them again! I'm asking for a refund!

This place is the WORST in my experience of ordering plants over a 25 year period!! They offered a rare Japanese peony, which cost a rare price, and I received some common plant that I could have dug up along any country roadside. This was after receiving dead bare root rot and given the run-around for two years.

Last Spring I ordered a Harry Lauder's Walking Stick. It didn't grow. However a sprout came out at the bottom just below what looked like a graft. I do not know what the root stalk was. I sent a leaf off the sprout to Kelly and at this time I have not heard a thing from them. About 50% of the Freesias that I ordered at the same time did grow. I'm still hoping for a refund for $16.95 or a replacement for the Harry Lauder's Walking Stick.

This past spring I received Kelly's catalog and from it bought 30 of their super hybrid willow trees. I expected the trees to arrive in late March or early April, the best time to plant in Upstate New York. The trees arrived in late June, the roots seemed to be very dry so after soaking them in a bucket of water over night I planted them the very next day. About two weeks later I called my mother to see how the trees were doing. Very sadly she told me that all the trees but two seemed to be dead. A week later I made an inspection. She was right; they were all dead except two. In the catalog they show these trees growing to ten or twelve feet the first year. The erosion at the site where I planted them warrants such growth. I wrote to Kelly's about the end of August and explained that the trees had all died. I sent in the shipping label and waited. A month went by and nothing, not even a note. At the end of Sept. I wrote again and explained the whole thing, reminded them of their catalog guarantee. Here it is October and I have received nothing except a bunch of dead trees. Let the buyer beware, my hard earned money will never be spent at Kelly nurseries again. I wish I had read these notes before I ordered. No wonder they don't publish a phone number or have a web site.

I ordered a Harry Lauder's Walking Stick tree, and a blue rose form Kelly Nurseries. The Harry Lauder's Walking Stick tree died and the rose I received was pink when it boomed. I was real disappointed. I thought I would get the rare rose that I had ordered.

I will NEVER order from these folks again. I paid a lot for " 2-yr old" pyracanthra "shrubs", which appeared to be stem-cuttings. My bulbs were rotten, perennials completely smashed up, and phlox (their substitution for lily-of-the-valley I ordered but did not receive) was coated with slime. It wasn't until I inspected the order that I realized they had no phone number listed in the catalogue! I wrote to request a refund for the spoiled items, and accepted the rest of the order with what I thought was good grace. I got a refund for substantially less than I requested & vowed to avoid this company in the future.

I ordered from them and specifically told them the order MUST come first week of April or don't bother to send it! The order showed up the third week of April, I refused it. I called them telling them I was going to refuse it and they stated I also had to write a letter requesting the refund/credit be processed. I did this in late April and here it is July 14, 1998 and they admit receiving returned goods/merchandise but I haven't gotten my credit.

If you wish to change an order, you have to write to them, which is completely unheard of throughout the industry. When I realized that I had ordered from a Plantron company, because of my unsuccessful orders from Richard Owen, I was informed that I could only cancel an order by mail. When I was told I had to write to cancel an order, I sent a certified letter to them. They replied to me and informed me that I would receive half of my money back because an order had already been "shipped", although unto this day I have not received a thing from them. The order was canceled a month ago, so why would the items be in transit? I would caution anyone against ordering from them; they seem to engage in rather dubious business practices. Finally, their catalogues contain cheesy, retouched photographs and artwork.

Last spring I ordered some mountain laurels from them. I didn't hear the familiar click, click, click of computer keys in the background.They weren't computerized! You've got to wonder how a company without computers can keep track of things these days. (Apparently, only withgreat difficulty.)The mountain laurels arrived okay and are still alive. They are a pale green color, not a dark green like my other locally-purchased kalmia. I don't know why.

Two thumbs DOWN on these folks! Last spring I ordered assorted plants, many of which arrived with sodden soil, no roots, or rotted tops. One "shrub" was just a broken stem with a label attached. Don't bother writing a friendly letter about your experiences; you must tell them every item you want replaced by catalog number and quantity (even though the original order must be included). Saying that "all the xyz pyrethrum failed to come up" will do no good. And THEN they start to delay! First they said I hadn't waited long enough (I'd waited 6 weeks before writing). Then they decided I wasn't specific enough (since when is "all" or "every one" difficult to understand)? After that, they claimed that fall was not a good time to plant perennials, and I would have to wait until (this year) for replacements. This year, the quality was just as poor.This time, I'm demanding a straightforward refund, and I personally will never order anything from them again!