Comments regarding Annie's Annuals and Perennials

Since Annie retired the customer service is not what it used to be. I have ordered plants over the years, and they always came well-packed - better than any other mail order, in my opinion. But, there is a problem with getting delivery dates. I wanted to order sweet peas, but they only had one date available. Period. It was not going to work for me, so I didn't order them this year.

"On Jul 8, 2021 3:53 PM, Annie\'s Annuals and Perennials responded with:

Hi there. I am the new owner of Annie’s Annuals, Sarah. Buying Annie’s was the culmination of a lifelong dream, and I very much want to be a responsible steward for all that Annie and the team here have created. I realize I have big shoes to fill! I am sorry you had a frustrating experience with ordering Sweet Peas from us back in March/April. I would love to understand a bit more about what happened so I can learn and improve. We haven’t changed our shipping policies (or our mail order team), but we did cut our lead-times for plant deliveries down to 1 week from the 4-5 weeks we had in 2020 (the pandemic kind of wreaked havoc with schedules). In our efforts to get plants out the door more quickly, the shipping windows may have gotten shorter. It really helps to have your feedback for our planning purposes for next season. I think perhaps going to 2 weeks lead-time will give us more flexibility in ship dates. Thank you for caring enough about Annie’s to take the time to let us know how we can improve. Seriously! I consider longstanding customers like you to be my best teachers and guides on this exciting new chapter at Annie’s. We would love to entice you back with a gift card for more plants if you care to give us another chance. Please give us a call or drop us a note (contact@anniesannuals.com). Thank you again.
-Sarah"

After receiving an email advertising freesia bulbs I ordered one pack of white freesias. After a while they arrived, packed in a small vented bag in a medium sized card board box. The bulbs were poorly padded but in good shape. The box contained a receipt copy but no instructions.
Annie's charges aren't cheap, esp. for customers outside of California. I understand that shipping is expensive, but I do expect a little care in packaging. A care instruction sheet would have been nice, too.
I will update with information on performance later.

"On Mar 11, 2020 2:03 PM, Annie\'s Annuals and Perennials responded with:

Dear Spindlespider,
Thank you for your order and the suggestion to provide more information with our bulbs. Basic planting instructions are on the bag, but we'll endeavor to create more detailed instructions in our future bulb shipments. We do cushion the bulbs with compostable wood excelsior inside the bag and the bag itself is nestled in soy-based packing peanuts within the shipping box - but we'll keep an eye to quality control in the packing process to make sure everything continues to arrive undamaged and ready to plant.

Thanks again for your feedback! Please call our Mail Order Department at (888) 266-4370 option 1, M-F 8 – 4 if we can be of any further help!

"

I liked the plant, but the shipping was craaaaazyyyyy. Way too expensive!

Posted on February 23, 2007, updated May 16, 2015
I have mixed feelings about Annie's Annuals. The biggest issue is that many plants they list are California natives and very poor doers elsewhere, but particularly on the east coast, with its slushy wet winters. Very little of the South African material will overwinter in my Zone 6b climate, as a cool wet Spring will "melt" everything. Annie and her staff appear clueless as to what does well in other areas. Not their fault necessarily, but those living in Eastern states need to take their advice with a grain of salt. The California Mediterranean climate is rather unique to the United States after all, and many of these plants are not used to the "muggs" ...steamy, humid days with highs in the 90's-100's, and will quickly rot away in such conditions. Lupinus albifrons is typical of that kind of plant. It's fine in a dry climate such as Denver, but a cold wet Eastern winter will quickly do it in. And valuable information like this is NOT available anywhere in the catalog. Annie's Annuals is in a prime growing area for most of the plants they list. Away from this location, they are often fussy and intractable.

I also question the value of many of the plants Annie lists. The variegated Money Plant has never been variegated for me, and pretty much resembles the normal plant. It is supposed to get variegated when it gets bigger, but mine is now quite big and absolutely no variegation. The many poppies listed are transient garden plants and poor garden subjects, due to an extremely brief blooming period, and coarse unattractive foliage.

Whoever writes the plant descriptions must have been injected with "I love the world" serum an hour before. Every plant is absolutely perfect, with stunning form, a long blooming period, excellent color, freedom from insects, blah blah blah. However, anyone that has gardened for awhile knows that any species has its particular foibles or limitations. I'd respect Annie's a whole lot more if they presented an honest, balanced picture of a particular species. Such statements as "difficult to grow away from habitat", "spindly and falls over unless staked", "blooms for a few days out of the year", "prone to aphid attacks" are needed in many cases. Annie's Annuals is still in a world where sugarplum fairies and Peter Pan fly around. I have no idea if that really is Annie on the cover, but she looks like something out of The Sound of Music. I half expected her to start singing "The hills are alive..." In any case, if you are diabetic, I don't recommend this catalog...you could succumb to terminal sweetness. I would prefer a more realistic approach to plant description, particularly as some of the species are little known as to hardiness, growability, etc.

One of the plants I ordered last year from a very remote genus came up and bloomed. Unfortunately, the plant was actually a common weed! The very nice woman on the phone admitted it was a common weed and sent me another member of the same genus. That plant was not a weed, but shrivelled and died in the next heat wave. Another plant apparently not prepared for the rigors of the East. (I unfortuantely cannot remember the genus!)

I think the plants are overpriced for what you get, and the packaging is unnecessarily heavy and bulky. I personally would take the plants out of their pots, scrape some of the soil off, and wrap the rest in aluminum foil, a la Siskiyou Nursery. The pots make the shipping box ridiculously oversized, and the resulting postage could be lessened considerably without them. Annie's apparenty pays people good money to pack plants, but I have received specimens in much better condition using more traditional methods that are not so labor intensive.

In short, if you live elsewhere than central California, please be aware that most of Annie's plants (even the true perennials) may be transient denizens in your garden. No amount of excellent care can overcome a plant being in a foreign habitat, and many western natives are extremely poor doers in the east, even for expert gardeners!

Posted on May 8, 2013, updated May 10, 2013
Posted on September 12, 2011, updated May 8, 2013
I had the pleasure of visiting Annie's earlier this year and was really impressed by their "nursery", which is actually just plants being propagated out in the open air of a big remote lot in Richmond, CA! It was remarkable and shockingly beautiful. The prices are a little nuts, as is the shipping, which kept me from placing an order when I returned home to Iowa this Spring. But I succumbed this Fall and ordered 16 plants! They were packaged well, albeit peculiarly -- the root ball of each plant is removed from the pot, wrapped in wet paper and placed in a sandwich baggie. Then placed back in the pot. The pots are securely placed in cardboard frames made especially for securing these pots, 4 pots to a frame. Two frames per shipping box, filled to the brim with PACKING PEANUTS. I loathe packing peanuts, but I have to admit that all but one plant arrived in pristine condition. The one plant that did not arrive well was the one I most wanted: The purple angelica!! It unfortunately arrived with 2 of three stems broken and not looking at all happy to have been in a box at all. I've tried to trim it up, repot it with fresh soil, and placed it in some bright shade. I have my fingers crossed that it will recover. But I digress! For the most part I am very happy with the purchase, the packaging and the fast shipping. Annie's really does have a great selection and the plants are very healthy and they seem to be great people so I will most probably order again and recommend them to friends (at least the ones with deep pockets!).

Annie's sells 4" pots. They do a great job packaging and shipping plants. I have also bought from their nursery since I'm local.
However my experience with them is that my failure rate is 2x that of buying 1-gallon plants and the growth habits of the 4" plants is highly variable. Some of my Annie's plants have grown only a little, some have grown as expected. Considering that their plants are only just slightly less expensive than other local nurseries that sell 1-gal specimens, I've stopped buying from them since I get more consistent and favorable results with the 1-gallon plants.

In early March I ordered a large order because the shipping to the East Coast is very expensive, so you order all the plants for that shipping amount. When asked when I would like them delivered, the website only offered April ship dates. I called them, to explain that it gets warm in SC fast and could they not ship these sooner, as according to the website, they had them in stock. The answer was they could not, but would ship them on the ship date 3 weeks later. No problem, they had warned me online.

My ship date came, and my Annies box arrive, with a packing slip that said 1 of the 7 varieties I had ordered was 'backordered' and I wasn't charged for it. I was disappointed but, thought, okay, I can live without it though I found the lack of letting me know this ahead of time unprofessional. But then, when I looked in the box, I noticed not 1 but 3 of the varieties (of a total of 7) were not in the box. 2 of which I had been charged for. I called them immediately and got someone on the phone who never did quite apologize, but said at first they were having a 'shipping' problem, then said, well probably they are all sold out (backordered), and they were having that problem too (I guess of selling plants they had already sold to online customers). I asked her when she thought these backordered plants would be in and she indicated at least a month, if that were actually the case. She said she would call me back and let me know, and either cancel the rest of the order and refund me for those plants charged, or send them.

I never did get that call. Finally I called them, a week later. I spoke with someone else who was much more apologetic and sounded like she knew what was going on. She flat out told me that they had oversold stuff (somehow I still can't see how thats my problem), and that they would refund me, and I could try again next year, given that she understood that shipping here in May wasn't what I had bargained for. She offered a 20 dollar gift certificate, which I mentioned wouldn't even cover the shipping should I want to order again. She then did bump it up to 30 dollars to cover it.

So to sum up:
The good: plants came in good shape and those that came are growing fine. The second lady I spoke to was apologetic and took control of the situation.

The bad: did not ship plants as promise, charged for plants that weren't in the box (in their place they sent two empty plant containers!), I had to call them twice to rectify the situation, and for this year I will not get the plants I ordered a month before, because basically they sold my plants to someone in the nursery and hoped I wouldn't mind them being 'backordered'. They didn't offer to ship a similar varietal (though online it was 'in stock'.) They did not tell me ahead of time and give me the choice to cancel the entire order, which would have been the case as 2 of the 3 varieties not included were the impetus behind the entire order.

The ugly: in the end, I will not get the plants I ordered this year, and while shipping will be free come next year, when it is all said and done, this is the definition of a horrible mail order experience, and I will be ordering again at full price as I've already paid shipping once and they failed to send the plants I paid to ship.

So, this would totally be a negative review, and maybe should be, if not for the second lady on the phone at least trying to take responsibility for a very poor showing on Annie's part, and doing the only thing she could and offering a gift certificate that will cover the shipping. That gift certificate arrived within days. And, as I mentioned, the plants I did get were packed well and are healthy and doing well.

I have waited a few weeks to write this review because I hate to fly off the handle when mad, particularly with a nursery that has such as good reputation. I will give them another opportunity next year and I can only hope that they manage to set aside plants when ordered to cover actual sales. Massive backorders of items clearly in stock at order time is not acceptable, particularly when they were ordered nearly a month before. They told me to make sure I ordered early. I am telling them, that if they say they they have a plant in stock, make sure its still earmarked for the person you sold it to first, early or late! It seems this could be growing pains, and I hope thats exactly all it is.

"On Apr 23, 2012 10:18 PM, Annie's Annuals and Perennials responded with:

Dear jessbellamy:

Thank you for your honest post. Frankly, we are horrified with what has happened with your order. Everything that could have gone wrong, we did wrong with this order. First of all, it’s unacceptable to have to wait three weeks for delivery. This has never been the case with our company before and we are hard at work to fix it. Secondly, we should have let you know when the items you ordered were not available at time of shipment and given you the choice to substitute plants or cancel your order. We should have shown more concern for you as a customer and clearly, we should have called you back when we said we would. We pride ourselves on our customer service and deeply regret that a perfect storm of circumstances has caused you to have a less than excellent experience with our company.

I’d like to refund your purchase and in a show of good faith, provide a gift certificate for free shipping on your next order. A customer service rep will be in touch with you today. We are deeply sorry for your disappointing experience and will do whatever we can to restore your faith in us!

Sincerely,
Annie Hayes
Annie’s Annuals and Perennials
"

I have mixed feelings about this nursery. On the one hand, the abundance of plant varieties is outstanding. The website is fun to navigate and I have done mail order with them once. The plants arrived beautifully packaged and I had no issues with that. Shipping is expensive, that has been covered in great detail with other posters.
On the more "eh" side is that you really have to plow through the plant label hyperbole to get to the nitty gritty of growing conditions. And I do believe that inspite of many assurances that X or Y plant will do well in clay/shade/rocky soil or whatever your bane may be, there are simply too many microclimates (in the Bay Area, at least) to be assured that this is true. IOW, check online sources for growing or Sunset before buying. Less fluff, more hard facts is what I need. I have bought directly at the nursery and you should know that there are no discounts for buying from the source. The benefit of going there is that there are tons of plants. Everything is there. Not everything is of a size that is viable in YOUR garden, and there are alot of signs in the aisles that indicate what a "cash-worthy" plant should look like, so that is helpful. But, in the end it seems like a really huge indulgence to go there and drop seven bucks for a single papaver variety. What? How much? Many are labeled "rare" and priced accordingly and I have seen the same plant in the same good condition elsewhere for less money. It pays to shop around. The allure of the nursery has alot to do with the primary colors on all the structures and the sort of perma-party atmosphere. It's clever marketing and it does look lovely. I would rather see discounts on plants bought there though.
The last thing I wanted to say is that the nursery is not in a terrific part of the Bay Area. Face it, it's a ghetto. Get good directions in and out of the place. It's easy to take a wrong turn and find yourself driving into areas where there are lots of young men hanging out on the corners. Unless you are looking to pick up some crack with your delphiniums, you don't want to go down those streets.

i chose to try & purchase 1 delphinium elatum and when i got to the page where the shipping charge appears I nearly fell off my chair. the plant was $9.00 the shipping was to be $28.00 which is over 3 times the cost of the plant-are they kidding me. talk about over the top.I don't care if they package the plant in gold plated boxes-that is ridiculous. I immediately deleted all my information and went back to my old standby Bluestone Perennials. I only gave a rating based on the shipping charges as I will never purchase from them because of the exorbitant shipping charge for 1 plant.

This is the first time I have ordered annuals via mail order. I ordered from Annie's based on the reviews here. I was disappointed and the neutral rating is because there were both positives and negatives. It was a mixed bag. Most of the annuals I got from Annie's are not doing well. I am an experienced gardener and all were planted and cared for appropriately-- except the two that were DOA. Their sweet peas are leggier and bloom more sparsely than the same ones ordered elsewhere that are planted among them. The Nicotiana and Sunflower Autumn Beauty are the only plants I ordered from them that are doing as expected. For the money, it is not worth it. They also do not have many of the varieties they carry in stock at the same time so it is difficult to place just one order and get even most of what you want, which results in much costlier shipping for separate orders.

"On Aug 1, 2011 9:14 PM, Annie's Annuals and Perennials responded with:

We pride ourselves on our customer service and we answer all emails and phone calls personally. We are certain that this experienced gardener planted and cared for the plants well, however we are very dismayed to hear that two of the plants were dead on arrival. Just a quick phone call or email and we would have sent replacements immediately. If there are other issues, we would like to hear about them as well - we can help! Due to the complexity of growing so many different plants from seed - and each individual plant's requirements and demands - it's not possible for every plant in our catalog to be available at the same time. We have the most varieties available simultaneously at the beginning of spring, which we know is not always a good time for those customers under snow on the east coast. Please do drop us a line at your convenience so we may take care of the issues you had."

the plants arrived but after over month one of them did not make it. I emailed re: their replacement policy. They felt it was d/t to my error, and refused to replace the plant, considering that I spent over a hundred dollars with them. I felt that the cost of one plant would've been a gesture of good business. My local nurseries have no problem with replacing items with in the year that have died. (doesn't happen too often) Considering that I spend thousands of dollars a year on gardening. They know that I'm coming back.

Incredible selection and I'm sure top quality plants however shipping to the East coast makes it cost prohibitive for that "must have" plant or two. I would love to give Annie's a shot at winning me over but just can't justify the exorbitant shipping charges. It is the rare occasion that I can't find the same plant somewhere else with more reasonable shipping & handling charges. That being said, I would suggest that those on the East coast, more specfically gardeners in New England & the Mid Atlantic order from Select Seeds in Connecticut. Their selection and quality are top notch, packaging is stellar and shipping is a fraction of what Annie's charges to our area.

First let me say that the website and plant selection are awesome ! However I feel close to $30 for shipping is just a bit too high. I know in some cases Fedex is a good choice but with most seed or bulbs USPS Priority Mail would suffice. I was going to order some things frm the website but I can't justify close to $30 for shipping 1 bulb and some seeds. Maybe give us a choice on the shipping especially in the economy we are in right now. Just a suggestion.

Great plants, lovely Nursery, lots of hard work...falls down with not very friendly staff...especially if your a professional...this spring I took my clients shopping (fifth year in a row) I had to fill out yet another form! that's three in as many years...each with a slightly tighter ruling. After gardening in the Bay Area for 24 years this is not the norm. Not sure if I will be taking clients there again?
When ones spending $300.00 plus in a single spree one would like to be treated like a fellow business person rather than a person on the verge of a criminal act on the scavenge for a meagre discount...
And yes they do quite often take labels out of your plants...this has happened to me several times...as I have to sort them out between clients later it is quite irritating
On the bright side, the 'old Longs Drugs" on Pleasant Valley, Oakland sells them for less & guess what...they are friendly to all..even! if you are a fellow gardner

I have recently found that the shipping costs have gone up dramaticly. It states that the more you order the less shipping you pay, Well sort of. Depending where you live. My first purchase of 1-8 plants shipping is $28.95 or an added cost of 3.62 per plant for shipping and handling. 9 plants and more is $25.00 PLUS 20% of the order for over 9 plants, I wanted to order 16 plants, my shipping costs came out to $3.32 shipping and handling per plant!!! Yes that is .30 savings per plant a savings of $4.80 when you consider 4 inch potted plants and your purchase goes from$140 to $193 thats a big jump. Thats over $50.00 in shipping for 2 medium size boxes. I have seen this as an issue brought up before with this company and now I see why. Yes I like the plants and have ordered from them, but I just can't do it any more.

After getting the Summer '08 catalog, I spent a good while picking out my top eight choices (to fit in the first tier of shipping prices--a hefty 14 bucks). Although a few of my choices included the statement, "Available in March," the others said nothing about availability. To make a long story short, it's March 15th, and only one of the eight I picked out is available. I couldn't believe it as I sat down to order and one after another came up unavailable for purchase.
The catalog describes itself as "plant porn," which is pretty accurate. It's a big tease.

I have ordered twice with them and want more! Love the way they describe the plants and I love to know those plants will all thrive here in CA.

I love the website--and the fact that Annie's carries (some of the time) plants that are difficult to find elsewhere. I recently ordered (from them, online) a salvia saggitata that is thriving in a sunny window until I can transplant it outside when the weather is warm enough. It's a healthy plant; I hope I can keep it that way.

HOWEVER, the reason this response is a "neutral" rather than a "positive" is that when I ordered the saggitata, I also ordered a salvia semiatrata that had been listed as "available" but did NOT receive it in my shipment. It apparently was no longer available, but I was not told this until my shipment had arrived. (In fact, Annie's had sent me an email notifying me of the availability of both plants, and there was no indication when I ordered the plants that one of them was no longer available.) Considering the high shipping costs, I would not have ordered the sagittata, had I known the semiatrata wouldn't be included for that shipping cost.

I may order from them again--but not without first calling to insure that all the plants I'm ordering really are available.

The plants I ordered were listed online as available, and I expected their arrival a few days ago. However, I received a customer service answering machine message, saying that they were NOT available. Called back to discuss. Told the person who'd left the message that she'd called and I was returning the call. She responded, "I DID?" When I asked if a particular plant could be substituted, she answered, "Maybe they're available." Had to ask for her to check.

Long story short: No apology for having listed the plants as available when they were not, or for the delay in shipping. We'll see how the plants are when they arrive sometime next week. Hopefully, they'll wildly outperform the customer service and live up to the good reviews on this site :o)

I feel the need to respond to Annie's (owner) post and explanation of her shipping charges and other comments.

This is on her website: "If you have never before ordered plants by mail order, you may dismayed to find there is a handling charge. That is understandable. Please try to visualize how time consuming it is to process orders, respond to mail order questions and to find, gather, clean and pack plants correctly. We really appreciate the people who do it for us and of course they need to be paid. We charge a $2.00 handling fee per plant."

My response: That's just the cost of doing business. $2.00 per plant is totally out of line. I order plants from different mail order companies all the time and have never paid this much, if anything. Having sold literally hundreds of coffee plants and brugmansias on eBay myself, I never added a "handling fee" and I packed them myself. I still have 100% positive feedback and I never had even one plant arrive dead or dying. I gave a 100% money back guarantee or replacement for 30 days with no questions asked. I was asked to replaced 2 coffee plants and one brugmansia in 4 years, which I gladly did.

Stated on her website: "We guarantee our plants to be true to name and will replace or refund, at our option, any which prove to be misnamed. In no case shall we be liable for more than the purchase price of the plants. Though we can't guarantee the viability of our plants after they leave us, we'll do our utmost to ensure your satisfaction."

My response: You don't guarantee your plants once they leave your nursery. That means that if I receive a dead plant, you won't replace it and I'm stuck? Sounds like it. If the plant doesn't grow, you won't replace it? I think you should seriously read the guarantees from other companies on the internet. A reputable company, Park's for example, will either refund your money or replace the plant and will not charge you for reshipping. While on eBay, I gave a 100% money back guarantee or replacement for 30 days with no questions asked. I was asked to replaced 2 coffee plants and one brugmansia in 4 years, which I gladly did.

Her website states: When you place an order on our secure website, you�ll receive a confirmation email and tracking number. Your plants will be shipped within 7 days of your order date. We ship on Mondays and Tuesdays only. We ship plants UPS ground if you live in California. We ship UPS 2nd Day Air only for orders outside of California. Our pages automatically calculate the shipping charges.

My response: Possibly you should change your shipping methods to better serve your customers. USPS Priority Mail is just as fast if not faster, and much cheaper. They even provide absolutely free of charge and delivered to your business, boxes of all sizes, shipping labels, tape, and free Delivery Confirmation if you print the label online. They will also pick up your packages for free. My experience with them was: Out of 643 packages mailed in 2004, 2 damaged, 1 lost, 4 delayed beyond their 3 day stated delivery times. Excellent!

And finally, your prices for a 4" pot are high. Simply stated, on common varieties, I can go to Lowe's, Home Depot, or Armstrong and get them for about 1/3rd your price before your "handling charge." Just a quick example: I see you have a Yellow Bleeding Hearts vine for $8 in a 4" pot. I bought one at Lowe's in a gallon container for $3.95. Asarina white you have listed at $6 in a 4" pot. Lowe's had a 3 foot one with many plants on a bamboo teepee in a one gallon container for $2.95. It has reseeded itself and produces thousands of easily germinating seeds. Should I go on? I'm not even adding on the additional $2 per plant, which would make a substantial difference. I guess Lowe's, Home Depot, Armstrong and the other places don't pay their employees and they work for free.

I'm not picking on you, well OK, I am, but it's because I was irritated by your remarks and your lack of a reasonable guarantee. With your current rating, maybe you should reconsider selling online. Sorry Annie, but that's my take on it. Or you can stay in the mail order business and I'll work for you if you give me $2 per plant to pack them up. I figure I'd be making at least $500 per day AND I'll even provide the packing materials.

A few months back I heard about Annie's and visited the website, and she does have a wonderful selection of plants, including many South African plants I've seen nowhere else and had to have. Anyway, I ended up with about $75 worth in my basket, but with the shipping and the extra $2 per plant it was over $130!!!!

I have shipped many large plants to many people and I know that it doesn't cost anywhere near that much to send a box of plants in 4 inch pots, even if they were sopping wet. Why not just raise the individual prices instead of deceiving people this way?

"This letter is in response to Indigoz, and other Garden watchdoggers who have have a difficult time understanding the price of shipping our plants. Shipping (by UPS) costs are calculated at exactly the cost UPS charges us to ship the plants. Outside of California, we choose to only ship by 2nd day air, which may be more expensive, but the plants arrive in excellent shape, which makes everybody happy. Our handling charge is $2.00 per plant. We add this charge separately as handling charges are not taxed. If we just increased the price of the plant, there would be extra tax within California where most of our current mail order customers live.

Indigoz, in ordering your plants – I’m guessing you did not consider what the handling charge is for. As our wonderful shipping department are not volunteers, they look forward to being paid for their labor. I’m not trying to be funny.

Please do try to imagine the time and labor it takes to get our plants to your door:

· As each order comes in, it must be processed by our office staff. This includes invoice processing, checking for availability if someone has just bought all of a certain variety prior to the current order and checking with the Agricultural department for current restrictions for each state. Next comes many back and forth e-mails answering questions that gardeners have asked regarding plants they have ordered and redoing invoices for folks who want to change the plants they’ve ordered, change delivery date, or add onto their order at the last minute. This must be done quickly and efficiently as we ship our incoming orders out right away. Agriculture also requires us to send detailed record-keeping for our shipments on a monthly basis.

· Now we come to the nursery, where our mailorder employees must quickly find each plant in our nursery which is 2½ acres in size, and at any time there are probably 500-1,000 varieties out there. After gathering each order, they must carefully clean and pack each plant in moisture holding material. They then insert each plant carefully into a specially designed insert which holds each plant securely in place during shipping. Don’t forget that our boxes, packaging materials and inserts are not free. Invoices are then double checked against plants to make sure everything is correct . After that, packers meet with agricultural inspectors going over each order.

· Several days later, we answer more e-mails from our mailorder customers with questions regarding planting requirements etc.

We often receive e-mails from happy customers telling us that our packaging is the best they’ve ever seen and our plant arrive in perfect condition.


I’d also like you to know, we try hard to keep our beloved workers employed all year (unusual in the nursery industry), pay far more than minimum wage, offer health insurance, bonuses, and paid vacations. Most employees have been with us a long time and we hope to keep them forever . . . I hope all this helps to answer the questions regarding handling charges.

Sincerely, Annie Hayes

Annie’s Annuals
"

My experience was similar. I spent a lot of time on the website over the last few months. The plants look beautiful online, and they have an excellent selection. I decided to order ten plants at an avg cost of $4.50. I was shocked at checkout to see that my total was $100. I would love to be able to visit the nursery, but as far as buying online, the shipping and handling seems excessive.

I spent time this winter exploring Annie's website and makings lists of what I would like to order. It is a great website and a very interesting collection of plants. I was very much taken aback when I realized that I had to add $2 to the price of each plant that I ordered for handling. The prices on the website for specialty annuals seem comparable to what I can get locally, and I was willing to factor in shipping costs as well, but in my years of extensive mail order purchases, I have never seen such high handling costs. This may be a factor that other shoppers will want to be alerted to. I wish I could visit her retail establishment.