Comments regarding Jackson & Perkins

Photograph any failed plants and keep the pictures!!

I have ordered at least 15 roses from J&P. For the most part, the bare root roses have been pretty decent. I did have two that failed on me. I sent them a message and they replied to please take pictures and send them back for a refund, which I did. Did not hear back for several weeks. I forwarded the message to the same email address, so the pictures would stay attached, but again, did not hear back. Again, third time contacting them, with no reply. at this point it was about 6 weeks after I sent the first email.

I went online and started a "Chat" session, explained my issue and was given a complete refund. the roses I bought were end of the year bare root roses for only 8-10$ so I am not mad about the two out of 15 failing, but it was bizarre to have me go take pictures and then never reply to me.

"On Aug 5, 2019 1:04 PM, Jackson & Perkins responded with:

I am so sorry to learn that your two roses failed to survive. Please accept our apology, during the peak of Spring season our emails do get many days behind due to the sheer volume we receive on a daily bases and we apologize that you failed to get a response to your emails sent. I would like to look into this, please email me your name, address, and order number so that I may look into this situation. Please mention this post in your email.

Angela D
Jackson and Perkins Sale Associate
adavenport@parkseed.com"

Years ago when the company was based in Oregon, we landscaped our yard at an old house in the South with seventeen J&P roses, including climbers, hedges and miniatures. We bought other plants from the company and other nurseries. all with success. I am concerned that some have become less reliable. In fact, I am certain that the plants were so wonderful that it led to others wanting the property and distant relatives and their friends made plans to move us out and themselves in, although we had financially saved the property from loss. Beware beautiful gardening! NOT SUCH LOL!

Anyway, I cannot say the same for the current situation with this company, except that I have had good interaction with customer service. I did report fruit trees and roses sent upon arrival that had dead canes with no green wood beneath, to give them a chance indoors during winter. We shall see soon if these survive. Replacements were promised. I have shared with them that having shipped plants in this condition should not have been done by the nursery staff in the first place, as if to assume customers do not know plants. Yes, I have a formal horticulture background. Once viable, I will share these with a youth club.

I would rate J&P fine otherwise.

"On Mar 8, 2018 10:01 AM, Jackson & Perkins responded with:

Please accept our apology, I am so sorry to learn the condition of your plants upon delivery. We at Jackson and Perkins want to offer our customers only the best in plants and service. If you have any issues, please do not hesitate to contact our customer service team.

Angela D
Jackson and Perkins Sale Associate
adavenport@parkseed.com "

I ordered 2 rose plants from them...only because I could not find them locally. The plants I received were healthy but very, very small! I had ordered from them in past years and wow things have changed! Used to be they sent out large bare root roses, now you get a tiny plant in a pot. And for the price...ouch! Sorry JP, I doubt I will spend any more money ordering tiny plants from you!
PS I would like to know what happened, JP you used to be the "Cadillac" of rose plant purchases, now you are more like a "Geo." That's too bad.... ) :

Posted on March 9, 2013, updated January 12, 2014
Posted on October 21, 2012, updated March 9, 2013
After a lot of browsing and debate about which roses to order, I decided to go ahead and order 1 westerland climbing rose and 1 don juan climbing rose from JP. I placed my order on the 2nd of september, knowing that they would not ship until after the 17th which was the "proper planting time" for my zone. I appreciated that they sent an email saying my order had shipped. I received my plants on the 27th of september. I was impressed by the packaging, both roses were very secure and undamaged by the shipping process. The don juan was almost double the size of the westerland, but both had good roots and a decent amount of foliage on them. I followed the directions that were included to plant them and now a little more than 3 weeks later both roses are doing great! The westerland actually has more new growth than the don juan! Very pleased with my purchase and hope to order more in the future!!

Posted on April 8, 2012, updated May 11, 2012
Nice roses, packed well and arrived damp. When they grow and bloom I'll update my rating.

Used to order form them , Now they are extremely overpriced and because I used to order from them I receive tons of magazines filled with 50 dollar amaryllis , 100 dollar small rosemary christmas trees and and 40 dollar 6 in pot lavender seriously I dont think so money is way to hard to earn to throw it away like that .

I ordered 6 roses with free shipping, received them in a timely manner. However, one rose had no root system attached, and one had only 2 canes, they were all shipped with no medium, dry, in 90* heat. As you can imagine, I opened a light box, with really dry roses. I called their "Customer Care " line, was told that one replacement rose would ship, yep, only one. Oh, and they are out of the same rose, go figure. I'll plant them, including the not really a Grade A rose, throw the rootless wonder in the trash and hesitate to EVER order there again. Should have read this site first, but I have ordered there multiple times before. I'll update.

As a former employee when the company was owned by Harry and David in Medford, Oregon, I was saddened to see the number of disappointed customers after the sale of the company.
Always a quality product when we shipped out of Medford, it seems that some of the customers aren't as happy any more.

i just wrote them an email tonight informing them that the last order i got last year looks like it is about to die. i ordered 19 roses to them last year but only received 18 so i contacted them and they are very nice informing me that they will send me the 19th piece but it will not be the same as my order as it is no longer available so i just agree instead of them refunding me. all the 18 roses are growing. 16 grows alright, 2 is having a black spot in most of its body and the last one is not doing well (that's the reason why i wrote them and hoping they can replace it and that's the other reason why i gave them "neutral" rating for now. will change it once i get an answer from them.

They are still selling Fortuniana Roses although it's a little hard to find on their website so I have provided a link:

//www.jacksonandperkins.com/gardening/AS/sitename/Fortuniana/NV/numRows/9

I ordered 12 different Fortuniana roses and I am awaiting shipment which should occur next week as per J&P customer service. (They send them at the proper planting time). I just received my Japanese Maple 'Shaina' from J&P yesterday and I will be providing reviews once I get everything planted and see how they are doing.

I am very sad reading these comments. Evidently the company is in a lot of trouble and is unable to perform as it used to. I went to the site today to look up some roses but there were hardly any listed! This is very sad. I have ordered many, many roses and other plants from Jackson & Perkins over the last eight years and they had always been wonderful. The plants came healthy and beautiful and grew very well and customer service was excellent. I certainly would have rated my experiences as positive - absolutely. Now I am checking "neutral" because I don't wish to encourage people to order from them at this time. Hopefully they will get back on their feet at some point. I'm truly sad about this turn of events.

I ordered two roses--"Voluptuous" and "Nancy Reagan"--on sale as part of the "Stunning Blooms for the Vase Collection," set of 2, for $23.95 on May 12. The roses arrived within two weeks. The roots seemed a little dry and the canes had white buds. I soaked the roses an planted them within a few days.

The white buds have burned off, but there are new shoots on both roses. "Nancy" appears struggling, but I'm not sure if that's due to the alternating hot/mild spring days we're having in Alexandria, VA this year or the fact that I'm a democrat. I will update this post as the season progresses.

FYI

Jackson and Perkins and sister company Park Seed Co. have filed for bankruptcy protection.

//www.indexjournal.com/articles/2010/04/12/hot_headlines/1a10405%20parkseed.txt

I ordered only hardware from J&P last year. I was told at ordering time that one of my items would be on backorder, and did I still want to order it knowing that? I did. The first part of my order arrived sooner than I'd expected, and the delayed item arrived within the given parameters. So far so good. The trouble I had was that within 2 weeks of setting it up outside, the finial on one of my pillars weathered noticeably enough for even my non-gardening spouse to comment! Since it's intended to be used outdoors, that surprised me, and I called to find out if there was some "hardier" replacement option, since it was set up in my front yard and I wasn't happy to see it looking shabby. But that was it. They volunteered to refund my entire purchase price for that item, which impressed me, as it was a fairly substantial amount; however, it was 7 months before the credit finally appeared on my statement! So in sum, I received outstanding customer service, on both ends of the transaction, a less than satisfactory product, and an absurdly long wait for my promised refund. I would order again, I think, but with care ...

At one time, years ago, JandP was classified as the Cadillac of rose nurseries, it was the best. Now, they have gone downhill somewhat so. My Mother was very much into Rose gardening and got all her roses from JandP and never had any problems with them. A few years ago, I built an arbor and bought a climbing rose from JandP, one that was suppose to bloom all summer. But it didn't and nor did it bloom at all the first year. Turns out, that there were two roses with the same name, one being a spring bloomer only and the other one a repeat bloomer, plus it was one that did not bloom till the second year. This info should have been on the tag, but wasn't. I did not buy the rose directly from JandP, but from a local nursery, who would not exchange it for the repeat bloomer. The rose itself, was a good grower, it grew like a weed, but just didn't bloom much. I have since dug it up and threw it away, and now have a rose that does bloom all summer.
This year, I bought 5 pink single petal knock-out-roses directly from JandP, got them in a good length of time and they are all blooming as I write this. So, I really can't say anything negative against them, but they could improve on the info they put on their tags.

I have been having a great deal of difficulty with J&P roses especially their hybrid teas.

Now, the two shrubs that I bought from them, Sally Holmes and Cherries and Cream, are doing splendidly.

But the Hybrid teas, Opening Night, John Paul II and Perfect Moment were major disappointments. Not much growth and very squat plants with very little life. If they get through the winter, maybe they will begin to thrive.

I bought a Gemini and Ronald Reagan from J&P and planted it in them in the fall. And they did very well.

I've bought from J&P for at least 10 years and the quality has been deteriorating. I do think they need to reevaluate some of their stock.

I am a member of Western Reserve Rose Society, Forest City Rose Society and the Cleveland Rose Society. I am leaving neutral feedback as the two shrubs that I bought from J&P are doing well.

Customer Service is abysmal!

The plants are pretty good.

I ordered the 150 lily package and have had a decent turn out. Problem is I contacted J&P as per the guarantee and have not heard bunk back. I too am waiting on a shipment of roses from them. I was told they shipped Monday...

My order from David Austin has been in the ground and flourishing for two months already!

The chapter is not closed, but the story is not going so well...

If you do order, use a coupon.

I have been ordering from J&P for years and have never had any issue and have actually been very happy with their customer service - in the past. This year, I ordered 3 Sweet Autumn Clematis back in April- credit card was of course charged immediately. I called several times and was at first told that it was "in processing" and would be out and of course they would call and advise if it wouldnt be shipping. Well, I got trapped in the same problem everyone seems to be having. They are in the middle of their "merger" or whatever they are calling it. After promising to call me back and advise me when my refund would be coming (several times) and not getting either a call or a refund, I of course called them back. Now they have some nebulous list (for real? Can you see this huge company with a yellow notebook listing frustrated peoples' names?) and they will call me to let me know when to expect my refund (that was three weeks ago, still waiting). I did order David Austin Roses this year and they were absolutely beautiful, but , I have to tell you, I will not order from them again. This latest debacle was just too much. A company cannot underestimate the importance of customer service.

I ordered some sale roses on 5/1 by telephone and was given a delivery date of 5/19. When nothing had arrived by 5/22, I tried to check the order status on the Website and learned they had no records of orders placed prior to 5/20. I called the customer service number and was told the records of earlier orders might show up in a week or two. Yesterday I checked again and learned my order had been cancelled. Why? Who knows? I never cancelled it. I tried to re-order, but I wanted to pay with a J&P gift card, and they have no records of the gift cards issued by the previous owners.

Is this a joke? Who does business this way, without any advance planning whatsoever? The rest of us have known for months and months that J&P would be changing hands, so why are the new owners acting as though they won J&P in a poker game last weekend?

I have ordered dozens of roses from Jackson and Perkins over the years. Whenever I have had issues with any of them, they have been replaced. I don't have much luck with their perennials. Those two have either been replaced or refunded.

I will remain a loyal customer.

generally the roses have arrived in good shape with an occassional one barely making it alive, but their site doesn't always rate the zone's correctly - being in zone 5, I've learned to check on other sites before trusting their zone rating for the rose. Of the roses I get from them, if they do well, they do wonderfully. Some never grow at all (customer service does replace them if they have another available or refund) and some don't make it through the winter or make it through one winter, but not a second- I think this could be remedied by verify the zone they have listed for that variety is correct.

Years ago my mother and I participated as rose reviewers for Jackson & Perkins with our respective gardens in Michigan and Illinois. It was not a positive experience for either of us as the roses we ordered for our own gardens and the ones we were sent for review arrived in poor condition, and customer service was lacking (at best). I have not purchased a rose from them since. But many years have passed, and thinking perhaps their service and products had improved, I consulted Dave's Garden in anticipation of giving J&P another chance. Here, in this forum, I found the same complaints about the company as I held over 20 years ago!

I think the reason it is such a bitter disappointment to receive inferior roses and poor customer service is because when we buy a rose, we invest in a dream. No amount of "we'll send you a replacement next spring" can offset the empty space in the garden and the snuffing-out of those fantastic visions of lovely roses --- roses we did not plant, or scruffy weaklings we attempt to nurse to health, because of someone else's incompetence. My solution is to try to buy on-line from smaller businesses and from local nurseries ... and not to invest all of my rosey dreams in one company. I am going to try an on-line order to Chamblee's for some of my roses this year, and I am going to support my local merchants. I wish J&P would wake up and smell the... oh, you know what I mean!

I used J&P's website to cash in a ten dollar gift card (from last year) in January. I ordered 20 Asiatic lilies and had to pay 6 or 7 more dollars to have them sent. They arrived today when they said they would, and the bulbs look fine. They never e-mailed to say they received the order, which I thought was strange, but my e-mail hasn't worked for a week or so. I'm going to give them a positive; the bulbs arrived cool and alive, and if they don't look great this summer, I'll come back and change the rating. Their stuff is pricey, but since it was a gift it didn't really matter.

I also got a dwarf Alberta Spruce as a gift for Christmas, and one that was being abandoned in the office. Both are still alive; so far so good.

The neutral rating is for overall experiences over the last few years. I'd rate more towards negative though for recent plants. Two seasons ago I ordered six "Darkness Visible" delphinium, which came to me as nothing much more than newly sprouted seeds. Very young plants without substance. Two years later, none made it.

This year I ordered a Laura Bush rose, which came with severely chopped roots on half of the rose. It was as if half the roots were sheared off at an inch, and the other half were ok. It graded out as a number one, but still a small 1, versus what I've come to expect from other vendors.

I ordered several nepeta plants and dutch iris bulbs. They were delivered promptly, so I was excited...until I opened the box. The nepeta plants were completely dried out, and literally did not last two days.

The bulbs had been sent in a different shipment, but much to my horror all the bulbs were INFESTED with dead or dying aphids!

The only reason why I'm not giving a negative rating is because of the extremely friendly and apologetic Customer Service woman I spoke with. When I asked if I should ship them back to the company, she told me to just throw them in the trash. She gave me a refund and offered a 20% discount on my next order (which I turned down). I will not order from them again, and I've stopped their catalogue.

All of my roses are from J&P. All arrived in excellent condition. I have lost a couple through the years, but due to weather conditions or my own negligence. The roses I ordered this year are true show-stoppers. A great company with friendly people. They make good when there is a problem with their product.

I too have been buying from J&P for years and I've always loved their roses. I never buy their products from garden centers because they are overpriced and they just don't look as nice as the ones directly from J&P. I am giving a neutral rating because I am judging based on my purchase in my new house, not the old one where I had plenty of sucess with this company. Last year, I got 12 of their red ribbons rose blanket Garden Ease Roses. They were supposed to be all red. They didn't all bloom for me last year (which was fine) because I ordered late in the season. This year, one of the 12 came up pink. How do they pack 11 reds and one pink?

*Roses - Negative Experience (TWO YEAR RETROSPECTIVE)
*Decor/Plant Supplies - Positive Experience

Two years ago, I ordered six (6) tree roses and three (3) bush roses. I have worked my fingers to the bone for two years to keep these roses alive - forget healthy. The roses are all extremely sensitive and vulnerable to black spot, mildew, spider mites, aphids, and every other malady known to mankind. I have treated, fertilized, sprayed, re-treated, and even tried moving the location of the roses! One rose bush is dead. Two rose trees currently contain only one living branch, and will likely die soon - assuming I don't give up on the ugly things and toss them, which I should. Everything else looks terrible, with few living branches. Only the two trees on my front porch might survive another year, and only because I spray them with fungicide/insecticide on an almost daily basis.

Jackson Perkins Roses simply DO NOT THRIVE in GA, and are simply not hardy enough for my hot/humid zone (Atlanta, GA). Although JP does a great job with their catalogs, they do little to inform customers of how hardy their roses are, or in which climates the roses might best thrive. On the other hand, I don't think ANY roses do well in the Southeast... but these roses seem particularly unsuitable.

I do like the JP indoor and outdoor decor items, and have had luck with several nice products.

This is the second time that I have ordered a plant from J&P that has proven not to be hardy to my zone. According to their catalog, I'm in zone 7, so I ordered 6 lavenders, supposedly hardy to this zone. 3 Kew Red & 3 Otto Quasi. The Kew Red were so small with tiny root systems, that 2 died shortly after planting, and the 3rd made a valiant effort to live but died after the 1st frost. The Otto Quasi's were bigger and grew well last summer, but appear to be quite dead now. They credited the Kews b/c it was within the 60 days grace period, but the customer service agent just told me that they can't cover plants past 60 days or against chill, but it's been a mild winter.
She offered me 20% if I ordered another Lavender, because they no longer sell the Ottos. I don't think so. I should have paid attention to all the other sources that stated that Spanish Lavenders aren't very hardy.
The same thing happened some years ago when I ordered a Passion Flower which was also reportedly hardy in my zone, but died over the winter. They didn't stand behind that one either, and I later found that particular cultivator listed for Zone 9!
I still have an outstanding order with them for roses, and 3 hardy (to zone 5, ha!) Mimosa Pudica (these are tropical plants according to other sources). But they are inexpensive and interesting, so I am treating them as unusual annuals. And I could not find these roses anywhere else. But I don't trust them to provide accurate information-so buyer beware and definetly look elsewhere for perennials before ordering from J&P.

I just want to say that the C/S rep tried to be helpful.

Jackson & Perkins should pride itself on it's customer service. They will try, and try, and try again to make things right. Unfortunately for you, this means that their plants may not be right the first time.

I greatly debated what kind of rating to give J&P until today. Making the story as short as possible, I received an email offer of 4 David Austin Roses at a collection price. I was thrilled with the 4 roses they offered and ordered the same day. When the day passed that they were to arrive, I sent a short email of concern as to their whereabouts... J&P quickly responded and said they were sending another set FedEx! I was thrilled with there service!

When the order arrived three days later, in the box I received only 3 roses, of those, only one was what I had ordered. So again I emailed them for an explaination as to why ONLY 3 and not what I had ordered. Today I got an email saying "We see that the order was entered for
three David Austin roses. Since this order was entered incorrectly we are sending a fourth David Austin rose as a good will gesture..." (Good will gesture?)

I even sent them a copy of the confirmation email (4 David Austin Roses and there names) I recieved FROM them with the order. Now they are saying I made an error?!

Well, in the end I did not receive the roses I had ordered and they can not seem to figure out the error THEY made. Having ordred from J&P for many, many years. I am quite disappointed and will find another supplier for my roses in the future!

I'm a bargain shopper, so Jackson & Perkins have always been too pricy for my taste, but after spending a considerable amount of money on garden variety Wal-mart roses ,just to have them die, I decided to see if these J&P roses are everything they make themselves out to be in their catalogs. Last year (2004) I ordered their "cheaper by the dozen" collection and planted them around my yard. Some I planted in pots, others went into the ground where other Wal-mart roses had failed. Four out of the 12 roses died right away, and not having experience with mail order roses I didn't bother calling J&P to have them send me replacements. A year later and three near hurricane misses my garden needed a total overhaul. I wrote off all the roses as dead so I purchased a new collection, this time trying out their new Lavendar Simplicity roses. To my surprise, several of the roses planted last year were still alive! Add to this the fact that the new Simplicity roses grew past any expectations I had. As an experiment I planted a row of the Lavendar Simplicities next to Blue Girl roses from Wal-mart . The Blue Girls have been dwarfed by the Simplicity roses. Furthermore, the Blue Girls have contracted Black Spot where their neighboring Simplicity roses have continued unscathed. I also ordered a new "cheaper by the dozen" collection for thise year (2005) and four of those roses did not fair well in the South Florida weather. This time I called and was met with a well mannered gentleman who promptly made arrangements to replace the roses.

I've read some of the other positive responses written about J&P and think that they sound like a J&P representative wrote them. I can assure you that my satisfaction is very real.

In the spring I ordered three Cecile Brunner Climbing roses From this company. They were very healthy and grew robustly all summer, however they didn't even have a single flower on them, A couple of week ago I sent an email to Jackson and Perkins asking if this was normal for the first year especially since they did grow all the way to the top of the arbor they were trained on,hence my neutral rating as they have not bothered to answer my question I can only asume that they don't really care. They have my money and to heck with my questions. Customer service is as important as the quality of the product.

I don't think the company is really a "bad" one, but my personal experiences with them have been less than stellar, and I do not order from them any longer.

For example, I ordered specialty daffs from them, but what bloomed were basic yellow trumpets. Mistakes do happen, but when I called to point this out I was put through a bit of a wringer, and finally very reluctantly offered a replacement. In addition, I found their roses to be less than grade 1, despite their claims. I have to wonder if this has anything to do with the fact that I'm in a colder zone that receives later shipments of bareroots, since I've heard so many reports from people in the warm zones, professing to the impressiveness of J&P's roses.

Otherwise I've found their plants and bulbs to be of good quality, though their prices are higher than I like.

I bought 3 oranges n lemons bare root from this company a few weeks ago....they are all sprouting leaves like mad so I am pleased with that but, 2 are very small and thin stocked only one is very nice. After reading the other reviews it seems the final test will be seeing if they gave me all the right bushes

Report from my coworkers--I placed my last (in a chronological sense) order with J&P in 1995.

J&P's bare-root roses are always satisfactory. That was my experience, as well. I just don't currently have a good place to put roses, which is the chief reason I haven't ordered from J&P lately.

J&P's perennials are another story, however: overpriced, undersized, and of poor quality. That was my overall impression in 1995 also, but things can and do change. My coworkers report that this has not changed, based on this spring's order.

The neutral rating is because the roses are so good, and the perennials so poor. I figure if you average the two together, you get neutral.

I hadn't heard anything negative about J & P when I first got their catalog and ordered, so I had high expectations. I ordered 3 bareroot roses and they arrived ok. None of them will be blooming this year as promised but they are still alive and sending up shoots. I'll have to wait and see if they deliver the 5" blooms as advertised. I sent my Mom a basket of 3 mini potted roses from them and they got rave reviews.

I ordered some small roses and potted plants. The small roses arrived beautiful, healthy and blooming. The potted plants arrived small and fragile, and died quickly. Seeing as they are rather expensive compared to other mail-order companies, I doubt that I will be ordering from them again.

I ordered a 5 plant rose bare root special. I wanted the Gemini, and the others were a bonus in my book. Several weeks later I received the 5 bare root roses. Excellent packaging and the roots were all large and healthy looking. Only problem was, there was no Gemini in the package. They 'ran out'... and substituted Diana, Princess of Wales.

So I received, 2 Diana's a JFK, a pearl essence and a Sweet Valentine. I soaked in water, and planted.

There is lush growth on the Sweet valentine, it is happy and doing well. The others are pathetic. One bud eye sending up a short shoot. Nothing on the JFK at all.

All of the J&P roses I bought locally are doing very well, will not order mail order bare roots again... just too iffy.