Comments regarding Digging Dog Nursery

First: shipping is high because they use huge boxes and ship second day.
But as to the plants. A mixed bag. Out of 9 plants, 5 were okay for the price. The other then 4 were suceedingly small. The final plant, a geranium phaeum album was
a bad joke. Imagine placing two seeds on a wet towel. When the sprouts are 1” tall and the first fat leaves start to open—well that’s what they sent! 2 little sprouts! And one was broken. Oh, they seem like nice people and would probably take care of things. But this plant was an insult. And the other 3 were not worth it. I was in the nursery biz for 24 years, and I would be mortified. Whatever their reply is, I am writing this as a neutral- to share the plant experience.

Posted on May 17, 2011, updated May 30, 2011
I was very happy to find golden-leafed current in their catalogue and based of most member's experiences I placed an order for a couple of vines and three currants. Upon arrival I noticed that the currants were tiny 4 inch bushes in 2 1/4- 3 1/4 liners instead of larger bushes in 4x6 pots as advertised on their website. Had I been informed my choice was not available in the regular size I would not have ordered with them, as indeed the shipping price is quite steep. Also, planting them at this size means that it will take 15 or more years to have 2 feet tall bushes which was not the intention. I notified them of my disappointment on their website but have not heard back.
This order was a waste of my money.

"On May 20, 2011 3:20 PM, Digging Dog Nursery responded with:

Dear Caroline,
We are so sorry to hear you are unhappy with your order from us. Some of our
shrubs are so popular and extremely hard to find, like the Ribes
Brocklebankii, that we have begun shipping them in smaller pots to meet the
demand.

We understand why you would be unhappy receiving liners instead of shrubs in
the 4x6 pots that you were expecting to receive. Because the 3 Ribes
'Brocklebankii' were liners, we should have discounted the price and we were
remiss in not doing so. We will be happy to refund you the entire cost of
these three plants due to our oversight in pricing.

We also want you to keep in mind that these 3 plants, though liner size, are
well-rooted and well-branched. Our supplier, Briggs, assured us they should
easily reach 3 feet in size within 3 years.

You also mentioned that our shipping prices are quite
steep. Since we do lesser volume than corporations, we don't get the
discounts on shipping prices that they do. While we charged you $27.38 for
shipping these plants via UPS 3-Day airmail, UPS billed us $34.47.

To say that your order was a waste of money felt somewhat unfair to us. To
be honest, the three well-established vines --the 2-year old Fallopia Lemon
Lace and the Vitis coignetiae--were of superb quality.

Considering that you received your order on Friday, May 13, and sent us an
email on Saturday, May 14, expressing your disappointment, we didn't have
much time to respond to your complaint. Since we are a small business, there
is nobody checking our email on the weekend. We certainly would have
appreciated a chance to make things right with you before you posted your
comment.

We sincerely appreciate your business and strive to satisfy each of our
customers. We hope our plants will flourish in your garden.

We will be sending you a refund check in the amount of $24.00 for the Ribes
Brocklebankii.
"

My plants arrived in good condition. Some of the plants were a little smaller than expected, especially the dierama.

I emailed Digging Dog Nursery 9 days ago and then sent a second email. However, I can't seem to get a response. I would love to buy plants from them if I could ever get in touch with them.

If they don't wish to deal with customer questions by email, then perhaps they could post a disclaimer saying this or a note indicating they will respond to emails within a month or two.