Comments regarding Autumn Ridge Nursery (aka autumnridgenursery.com)

I read all the reviews and purchased a 'small' amount of trees and shrubs. I was hesitant because of the reviews. I received my order within a week and even got more trees (3) and shrubs(1) than I ordered. A couple looked a little haggard but appear to have good roots on them. I have planted them and hope they grow! So far... so good.

I have been purchasing mail order nursery items since l963.
Recently I relocated and came to a "non" landscaped mobile home lot, which I love, and have the option/privilege to scape as I wish.
From Autumn Ridge Nursery I ordered a Golden Chain Tree (nearly always have had one) and a Double Mock Orange bush to hide a small electric box. My order arrived today and included two extra mock oranges and two red Crepe Myrtles FREE. I can certainly use them. Had I not room for them they could have been planted at "my" wood's edge or given away. After planting, mulching, and providing each with some food I am confident my plants will take off.

While I would not insinuate that many negative comments are due to poor planting knowledge or failure to follow directions, I have learned from past experience that many folks just take short cuts. An example: Several years ago a neighbor lady was advertising her "landscaping" business having planted her own yard. There were far too many evergreens too close together. There was no sun under the existing huge maples which dwarfed the house. She, too, planted a row of arbor vitae evergreens along the road (under the maples). What I found most amazing was that she didn't dig the holes deep enough, but attempted to compensate by mounding each tree that obviously hadn't been in the ground deep enough. Result: trees lean and later do not do well...or die.

I'm a 68 year old lady and still dig holes deep enough with some room left over to add mulch when needed.

I am very pleased with my trees and plants from Autumn Ridge Nursery. Some might refer to them as "sticks," but at roots-edge there are sufficient feeder roots and they count for far more than the stick portion of any plant.

Just my take. I will definitely re-order from Autumn Ridge Nursery as they do offer great prices. In today's economy nursery items (especially at garden centers), are not real affordable, in particular for single folks. A bonus is that I do not have to load them in my car and drive them home.

Kay Derr, Danville, Pa

Posted on December 12, 2009, updated March 23, 2010
Posted on June 09, 2009, updated December 12, 2009
I purchased 6 Boysenberry plants from this company. They were a little slow in arriving but the plants finally came. I was worried about some of them because they looked more dead then dormant. I planted them with some reservation. However, 3 of them came out and are doing just fine. I contact the company about the ones that did not make it and also advised them that I have found similar plants for less money. They promise that they are the lowest price vendor on the internet. They offered to replace the plants that died and send them in the fall and also offered me a refund or credit for additional purchases regarding the lower priced items I found. They were very helpful and the plants did as well as many others I have ordered from discount mail order nursery's in the past.

I ordered from them last year and got sticks that were supposed to be trees. None lived. None even put out a leaf. Do yourself a favor and avoid them!

To take advantage of the low prices, I ordered twice from Autumn Ridge Nursery, seven years ago and six years ago. Here are the results:

Apples. I ordered four. The Arkansas Black never went into leaf. It was dead, not dormant. Autumn Ridge replaced it, but the replacement failed after a year. The three others are still growing, but none have produced fruit. After seven years, one tree is still no bigger than a one-year-old bench graft. By contrast, every apple I have ordered from other sources has fruited in two or three years.

Apricot. I ordered one, a Moorpark. When spring arrived, the tree turned out to be a peach. When it fruited, it was an Elberta. That was actually OK by me. I got a Moorpark from another source.

Cherry. I ordered a Rainier, but after many years we worked out that it was merely rootstock, no Rainier. I grafted a Bing on it and that is doing fine.

Peaches. I ordered a Hale Haven with my first order, but that one failed after a year along with the Arkansas Black. My second order was for a Reliance peach, which has grown well. It only fruited for the first time this year, and guess what! It is not a Reliance peach. It turns out to be a Hale Haven.

I don’t know about the three apples, which have not yet fruited, but every other tree that the nursery sent, either died or was the wrong tree. I can understand sending the wrong peach, but a peach instead of an apricot? I see a positive review (May 4th, 2009) from someone who ordered for the first time this year. You may feel positive now, but just wait and see. My experience says that you can’t be sure until you can see what you really got.

On 5/20/09 I ordered 2 Red Butterfly Bushes, 4 Scarlet Honeysuckle and 4 Rugosa Rose Hedges. I asked for the 72 hr. shipping but did not receive it. The plants arrived in a dried out state with the leaves mostly off. I planted them immediately and to date all have died except those labeled butterfly bushes. The leaves are definitely not those of the butterfly bush and I have no idea what type of plant this is. Very disappointed in the quality. Had a lot of trouble getting service by email or phone. Finally contested with my credit card carrier and disputed the charges. NEVER USE THIS COMPANY!!!!!!!

Last Spring I ordered 2 types of Coneflower, and a Dwarf Bonanza Peach Tree from this nursery. Two weeks later I received 2 small bags of hot, rotted roots and a dead stick all with a bad odor. As a bonus I was to receive a free Red Wiegela, which I didn't. I called to complain and was told to send everything back and I would get a replacement. I did get the Red Wiegela (I hope that is what it is!) 1 leaf on a couple of roots which died, another dead coneflower, and some sort of small bush that is not a Bonanza Peach Tree!!(It doesn't have the proper leaves and it isn't shaped as it should be.) I can't afford to keep sending back their dead plants, and they didn't want to hear my complaints because they said I had the plants for 3 weeks. I was hoping to livin' up the two coneflowers and wait to see if so called Peach Tree was going to live. I am ashamed to say I am a fellow Tennessean. I would never buy from them again, and would discourage anyone else from doing so as well. I am out of $26.00 because of this. They will not deal with their mistakes in a professional manner and what they sell is diseased and rotted. At least to me it was.

I ordered 25 rose bushes from them in april, they did charge my cc immidiately, but sent me dead roots 1.5 month later.. manager is nasty, but after all those battles I got my money back, calling my cc....never will do buisiness with them again

I ordered 4 Ingrid Bergman tea roses (which are red). The plants were small and flimsy and difficult to grow. I was happy and surprised when they finally started to grow, only to find out today the buds that are starting are WHITE!
I wish I would have seen this site BEFORE I ordered.

I ordered two yellow sunsprite tree roses for my father's birthday in May 2008. What arrived was two dead hybrid tea roses but labelled tree roses. Even though my father was embarrassed, he called me and Autumn Ridge Nursery. They sent him a letter confirming that they would replace the roses with the proper ones when the new season started -- which they did. However, once again, the tree roses (real this time) were dead. My father (now 80) contacted Autumn Ridge and me and we confirmed that I would be credited the amount. This happened on FOUR separate occasions. Today, I man who claims he has a BS, an MBA, and a JD, berated, bellittled, and bullied me when I requested a refund. I have NEVER been so offended by a customer service person in my life! He asked me what my degrees were (for the record, they are BA, MA, and PhD) and then laughed at me for being a "complaining school teacher." I told him I was a university professor. He said, "So, I make more money than you do." I said, "That's not the point." He said, "I've got better things to do than listen to you." His rudeness, irasciblity, and crass demeanor are totally inexcusable. I will never deal with Autumn Ridge again. "Once burned -- never again!"

I purchased Royal Empress Trees, Red Maple Trees, Pecan trees and Hummingbird Vine from autumn ridge nursery April 19, 2009. Over $100 order. I received the plants within a week, but all of the red maple trees were dried up twigs. The trees that were marked as the Royal empress trees were alive but they were not royal empress trees. They were some type of fern. I even sent them pictures of what they sent me with pictures of Royal Empress trees from the internet. I sent several emails to them to try to fix it. They sent me one email back. "We have not had complaints about the Empress Trees and we have shipped quite many of these this spring." They ignored all of my attempts to contact after them after. This is definately a scam site!!

Autumn Ridge company offers competitive prices on plants, but delivers dead plants, and will not replace them. Order took two weeks to arrive. Half the plants arrived dead. They told me over the phone to ship the two dead geranium roots back (had been rotting to a point that they stink inside the packaging), and told me to pay the COD service fees from the post office to receive postage reimbursement later from the company. At the post office, I was warned by the postal clerk that customers who pay the COD fees usually never see anything come back to them (the company that receives the $8 COD fee keeps them). I paid it and shipped the plants back to Autumn Ridge, hoping Autumn Ridge will keep their word of plant replacement. Now, five months later, I have not heard a word or received any replacements. Companies like this should be banned by the BBB, delisted from the internet and pressured to stop operating from other online companies. Companies like Autumn Ridge give a bad reputation to online ordering, and teaches customers never to trust online companies. I will never order garden plants online again. It's strictly local nurseries for me from now on!

I ordered some holly from this company. They were slow to arrive, then came dead, anyway. I asked for replacement plants, which also arrived dead. Also, the replacement plants weren't holly, but I don't know what they were, besides dead. Obviously, I will not be ordering from them anymore and don't advise anyone else to, either.

I placed a small order a couple of months ago and received it in about a week but the plants were dead. They said they would replace them but so far I have not received anything. I would not recommend buying from this place.

In April, I placed two orders. One was shipped to a location a couple of hours away from McMiniville. The order was enroute for a week. Only one item lived. The second order included about fifteen items. It was shipped to Alabama. It was enroute for over a week. Items were mislabeled; two items were not what was ordered; Of the items, 4 lived. I was told that I can replace the dead items at half-price plus shipping or return the dead items at my expense. In either case, the replacements will not ship until November. They do not do refunds. Personnel, including the owner, were unprofessional, unconcerned, uncaring and rude. The orders were over $100 which is a lot for an elderly woman on a fixed income. Take my advice and think twice before ordering from this company unless you don't mind going through what I have gone through.

This past February or March, I ordered some coneflower roots from this nursery, and everyone of them was permanently dormant......dead ! Maybe this is why they can sell so cheap, because everything is either on it's last signs of life ot already dead.
Live and learn.

I ordered two tree roses from this company for $25 each. The delivery was supposed to be express - it came by US mail two months after I ordered.

When I received them, they were in a cardboard tube with no signs of life whatsoever. My husband who has a green thumb planted them - they looked like two sticks in the ground.

Four weeks later, they are still sticks so I took them out and broke in half - they were totally dead.

I wish I would have seen this site before I ordered. I am not even going to try to get the money back. Chalk it up to a bad experience.

My son sent me 2 weigela bushes and a hybrid rose bush for mother's day 2008. They all arrived dead....that was the bad part! I contacted Autumn Ridge, and they couldn't have been nicer! They agreed to substitute my order with my request, and reshipped it in May 2009! They promptly responded to all my emails too.

Ok, I ordered eight grapes of different varieties on May 3rd. My credit card was billed immediately and I received and email to that effect.

Over the next ten days I attempted to contact the company to cancel my order after discovering the negative comments on this forum.

Emails bounced and their phone was either busy or unanswered. I attempted to contact the BBB in their area of Tennessee but those calls were not returned either. I suspect that the BBB has lost as much face dealing with this bunch as they can afford to lose.

On the 18th of May my order of "twigs" arrived. The packaging was acceptable but the plants were in bad shape. All but two had buds that were an off white and resembled a plant that had been buried in a pile of wet debris. I suspect that the plants had been harvested far in advance of their being shipped and literally remained at the bottom of a pile.

In an attemp to salvage what I could I immediately potted the twigs in pots and potting soil. I used a Superthrive drench (the only use I've ever found for this product) to minimize the root shock. Amazingly the roots appeared to be in good shape. Two days after potting the vines the buds turned brown and fell off. I have no doubt that had I tried to plant these vines before reviving them they would all be dead now.

When all attempts at contact failed I filed a complaint with the Tennesee State Attorney's office. Everything I see about this company reeks of fraud. The addition of the new name (Summerstone) on top of the nearly used up name Autumnridge is an old ploy of companys that are being hounded by the BBB and fraud investigations.

A few days after my plants arrived I recieved a call from a female at Summerstone asking me to call and discuss my order. I suspect that the complaint I filed at the State Attorney's office had reached them. I have intentionally not retruned the call waiting to see how many of the plants I could save.

As of the date of this writing (6/1) six of the eight vines have revived and two are DOA. I count myself fortunate that the loss was not greater and it would have been had I not opted to nurse the vines in pots. (By the way, I used an organic 3-4-7 fertilizer, Aragonite, bonemeal and trace minerals as the witches brew to revive)

Tomorrow I intend to return the call to the nursery and withdraw my complaint at the State Attorney's office. Although I am totally dissatisfied with every aspect of this purchase I did receive the plants I ordered, dead or not.

CAVEAT EMPTOR. We are all being sucked in by the "too good to be true" pricing. In that respect we are getting what we deserve. As for me I will never do business with this company again and that's a shame. I and my wife are converting a 40 acre farm to an organic vineyard and berry farm (we need several thousand dollars worth of plant stock) . Had they made an honest attempt to provide even minimal customer service I would have a different attitude towards them but they didn't until their feet were held to the fire.

In summary, I got none of the "free" plants I qualified for, two of the plants I paid for are dead, customer service at Summerstone is a joke and satisfied customers of this nursery are either shills or extremely lucky.

Do the math. Avoid these scamsters like the plague! I hate giving a negative review because I've always been a guy who supports the underdog but in this case I suspect there's more to Summerstone and Autumnridges' piss poor quality of goods and service.

I ordered cherry and apricot trees from Autumn Ridge. The web site said that they would be 2" to 4' tall. They were about 25" and skinnier than a pencil. The apricot trees were dead but they replaced them with three more pathetic looking trees. One of those is dead and now one of the cherry trees is dying. I'm not calling them back. I'll eat the loss and chalk it up as experience.

I ordered 6 fruit trees, 11 grapes, 2 nut trees, and 4 tulip trees. I spent $142.50 with these clowns. I also wish that I found this site before I had ordered. Out of the dead rootless twigs that I recieved only 8 lived. It cost me $6.00 to return the dead crap back to them. They replaced it and it was in transit for 8 days @ 85-90 degrees. For less than a $1.00 they could have shipped priority mail and had it to me in 2 days. Instead I got a box full of dead junk!! I talked to them and they want me to return for fall replacement AGAIN. How many times do these guys expect me to pay $6.00 to ship their dead stock back to them.I will help spread the word to the world about these guys. I'm not even going to waste my time trying to plant this worthless stock, cause its all dead already! I will also be reporting them to the BBB and anyone else that I can report them to! DON'T TAKE A CHANCE WITH THEM. RUN THE OTHER WAY. STICK WITH GURNEYS AND JUNG!

I placed an order for $70 worth of roses on May 8, 2009.
I stumbled across this website about a week or so after placing the order and was really worried after reading.
I immediately emailed AutumnRidge requesting an update on my order. I received an email back within a couple days and the "your order has been shipped" email within the same days.

I did request the within 72 hour shipping so if you do the math, the time wasn't far off.

The roots I have received look ok to me. We knew when ordering that they were "bare root" so no surprises when that's what we got. I ordered 3 Olympiad, 3 Mr. Lincoln and 1 Sublime rose. I have 7 roses though only 3 have the name tag on them. 1 Mr. Lincoln,1 Olympiad and the Sublime are tagged. But that's not that big a deal to me...

These are bigger than what I expected- I was thinking they'd look like small sticks but these look like what we cut some of our bushes back to in the winter. The planters I bought to put them in aren't going to work-i'll have to get bigger ones. They do have some new growth on a couple already.

At the end of the order I had the 3 free plants- I have 3 plants, which are tagged with the correct items. These look to be in good shape too. They are the 2-3 ft and have long roots. There are a few tiny buds on the flowering pear tree.

Hopefully, they will all grow and i'll have what I wanted.
So all in all I'd have to say i'm pretty satisfied with my ordering experience here and would probably order again.

Hope this helps! I'll try to remember to give an update about the growth later.

Shelley

OH MY! After reading the post...unfortunately...after I ordered, I am worried. I am hopeing they come through and I am one of the lucky ones. Geez, I feel for all of you.
Keep your chins up and keep at it.

Never let any company ruin your gardening!!

Sophie

I placed a nominal order of fruit trees from this company and then found this site with all of the negative feedback. I was worried however, I received my order 4 days later and although almost everything is dormant, they are alive and well. (fingernail test on the bark) Where else can you get fruit trees for $9.00? I will order from them again.

I've ordered several dwarf trees (1 flowering pear, 4 Red Delicious apple, and 4 Yellow Delicious apple) from Autumn Ridge Nursery over the last few years. All but one are alive and growing - they have leaves already this year. No fruit yet, but I'm looking forward to when they do. The one that didn't live? Workers repairing our garage after it was hit by a car dumped their leftover mortar where this tree was growing. :(

I sure wish that I had known about this forum before I ordered from Autumn Ridge! I ordered a variety of nut and fruit trees in January and was extremely disappointed when they arrived. All were tiny, dried out twigs. The package was sent regular mail so it was in transit about 10 days. The plants were poorly wrapped in newspaper and they were dried out when the shipment finally arrived. The blue spruces were so dried they did not have a single needle! The pear trees had leafed out and were dried and crumbly. I called twice on a Saturday after they arrive but they did not answer the phone. After 2 e-mails they did send some replacement trees but they were also tiny and not in very good condition. None of the fruit trees were grafted onto rootstocks and were so tiny that they were not worth planting in my orchard.

I was ready to place an order and just thought I would check out the comments on Watchdog! WOW! I will not be ordering. It's truly amazing that there have been 2 positive feedbacks also, new members with Frank in their names??? Thanks everybody...I think you just saved me a few bucks!

So I see I am by far not the only one to get ripped off by this company. I wish I had know about here before-hand!
Most of the trees and bushes arrived as dead sticks and did not ever "wake" up. I still have three living trees (two apples trees, one crabapple) and one bush (Nanking Flowering Cherry). It makes me about sick because I REALLY wanted these plants and I dont have tons of money to spend.
The first time I ordered, it never got here, so they said they would send again. I did receive it the second time around, but again, mostly dead sticks.

I ordered 5 dwarf fruit trees and a blueberry bush. I received them four days after I placed the order. They were very well packaged and in good condition when I received them. The trees were budding and the blueberry bush had leaves on it. I soaked them for four hours immediately after opening the package. I put them in the ground the same day I received them. I am very pleased with their service and with the trees I received. I will be placing another order soon. Thank you Autumn Ridge!

I ordered 8 roses (a variety of colors). All were in very poor condition when they arrived. I planted them, following the provided instructions. Two died. The other six all turned out to be pink. I had ordered 2 yellow, 2 red, 2 pink and a couple of specialty types... I called customer service and was told to return the two dead roses (this happened before the other roses bloomed and I found out that the only color I had received was PINK), and they said they would send replacements the following spring. This was nearly a year ago and no replacements have arrived. WARN YOUR FRIENDS ABOUT THIS COMPANY!

I ordered 21 trees from them. They say they are 2'-3', more like 10". When I orderdered they charged my credit card, packed the order and had to wait 4 weeks until they shipped because of my region. 3/4 of the plants were dead on arrival and of the few that made it, they are nothing more than twigs not trees. I too cannot understand how they stay in business. Very very poor.

I bought some fruit tree from them. I got some dried sticks
which didn't look good at all.
I would not recommend this company to anyone.
terrible people to deal with

I have emailed, called, & not gotten returns from them when I had first placed my order a year ago. After several phone calls, & FINALLY talking to a gentlemen on the phone- They FINALLY shipped my order. That was last year at this time.
After it arrived, I called & said a lot of what was sent looked dead. They responded- "it's dormant" give it a year. Well I have given it a year- & our trees look like CRAP! None of the "freebies" survived. My 2 blueberry/blackberry bushes, have not come back at ALL in my garden. Infact- where I planted them- they have disintegrated into nothing! I am not paying shipping to send back the piece of crap trees, only to be given back more dead trees either. I spent $140 total last year on my order- & I have 2 cherry trees to show for it! What a crock!!!! You should be ashamed of yourselves! I think I will be writing to the BBB- & the other sites mentioned for complaints. A refund would be nice!
Melissa Doxtater-

Here's my items i purchased.
Fountain Grass 6 @ $ 3.75 $ 22.50
Yellow King Humbert Cannas 1 @ $ 6.95 $ 6.95
Red King Humbert Cannas 1 @ 6.95 $ 6.95
Atropurpurea Creeping Phlox 1 @ $ 3.75 $ 3.75
total bill came to 40 something dollars.
Here's what I got (5) pieces of fountain grass no longer than my hand, all cannas bulbs were about the size of dimes, creeping phlox was a piece about 5 inches long all dried up.
I was suppose to get 2 free trees, haven't seen them.
Don't waist your hard earned money. I think they must have gone into a neighbors yard and dug them up.
Bad service. I contacted them again about the free trees. They have not responed.

I read all the comments before placing an order with this company. I thought I give them a try anyway, because they had the item I wanted. The order was small so if it did not meet expectations, I was not out of a lot of money. The only complaint I have is their charging my card as soon as I placed the order, then e-mailing with a date order was sent and order arrives 10 days after they said they had shipped it. I placed a small order and received it looking pretty good with even an extra thrown in. My freebie was well rooted also. As for the shipping tube, I believe that is used to keep the mailing cost down. Would I order from them again, yes, but only small orders.

I ordered 11 rose bushes on March 3 and received them on March 7. I was amazed at the turnaround time. Some of the bushes were small but so was the price. They were healthy and well rooted. They were all labeled and I would definitely order from this company again. I truly am surprised at all the negative comments. I ordered before I saw them and was very apprehensive at first. Then my order came and I am completely satisfied.

Something has to be done about this operation, I ordered 8 different types of cherry trees in spring of 08, They all are the same and look like poplar trees..

Hard to believe these guys are still in business - they must not have a single return customer.

Ordered about 40 "trees" from them 2 seasons ago.

As of now, maybe 3-5 of the original "trees" are still alive.

Without exception, the "trees" were twigs. I mean - 10" long, no thicker than a #2 pencil twigs. Some smaller!

They took 6 days to ship to me. Horrid looking when I opened them. We were literally laughing out loud by the time we got the whole thing unpacked - a bunch of twigs, some sprouted and dead, wrapped haphazardly in newspaper.

I shouldn't have even wasted my time planting them. Unfortunately, the nurturer in me took over . . .

I call them the next day. I offer to be OK with them refunding 50% on my card, assuming that they did it promptly.

The woman says they can't do that, their policy is to offer me more dead twigs at 50% off the price.

I say, "look lady, I don't want any more dead twigs. Refund the 1/2 within a day, and I'll call it even. If not, I'll protest the charge on my card, and I've got pictures and evidence and I'm sure I won't be the 1st complaint and I can tell you I have challenged about 12 purchases in 20 years and I'm 12 for 12."

Lady says nothing she can do.

I protest, win (13 for 13!), and was only out my planting time. 2 growing seasons later one of the nectarines just broke 12".

Really quite bizarre. As I say, I can't understand how they're still in business - they must always be chasing new customers - no way to do business.

Avoid like the bird flu.

Oh poor me. I too didn't know about this web site in time to NOT order from this company. I got a tube packed with all my plants and the paper lables were off a lot of plants. I didn't get the plants I ordered in several cases, and some of my fruit trees (cherry, peach and plum) were all tulip populars. Many died the first year, they came in as little, little whips with all the root cut off down to the main root. To get any of these replaced was a pain, and 4 of the replacement plants also died. Do not order from this location. After my experience with them I didn't even want to get my 1/2 cost replacement plants, no telling what I would get. I still don't know what I actually did plant as none beared any fruit the first year.