Comments regarding Hirt's Gardens (formerly Hirt's Greenhouse & Flowers)

I ordered a clematis from them on Ebay. It took 4 emails & 30 days before they finally shipped it. The plant was very nice, but shipping was ??? 30days!!! I will NEVER order from them again.

I have ordered several items from Hirts through Ebay and thought I'd order a few things from their web site. The plants arrived all in excellant condition. A couple of weeks later I placed two large orders one containing mostly irises and dahlias and the other a few misc items. A couple of weeks later I received the irises. All beautiful and in excellant condition. The packing slip showed that the complete order was included. I emailed them promptly to let them know that the dahlias were not included. No response. Sent a second email a week or so later... no response.
I called customer service. I explained the situation and assurred the lady that it did not say the dahlias were backordered. Without getting enough information to look up my order, she told me she was going to look it up and laid the phone down. I sat there for over 15 minutes listening to people talk in the background before someone hung the phone up. I immediatley called back and got the answering machine. When I began leaving a message, I was again disconnected. I sent several emails stating that I no longer wanted to know the status of my order, but just wanted a refund on the remaining items. Never got a response and never got any of the other items.

Since then, I have accidentally ordered from them again on Ebay. (Seedmart....go figure) and received the order in perfect condition.

Final thoughts: IF you get your order, you will be pleased with the items. It is a gamble.

TERRIBLE, TERRIBLE EXPERIENCE. The absolute worst plant experience ever. They have the worst customer service of anyone I have ever dealt with. I bought some plants from them, the first one spent more than a week in the mail because they sent it by UPS instead of by priority mail like I specified during checkout and it was shipped late in the week and UPS does not transit on weekends. The plant arrived weak but has since rebounded some. My second plant was pretty much incident free, shipped on Monday and arrived on Friday but again, I chose priority and it was shipped by UPS. I bought one more plant and this is where the nightmare is happening. Although I received an absolute beautiful plant, it was the wrong plant. I offered to buy it at about $10 off since he would have to reimburse me for shipping and he wouldn't do it, made me ship it back to him so I did. Then he again sent it UPS and it got stuck on the train so yesterday, it should have been here and it didn't make it. I e-mailed him and he just tells me to file a UPS claim if it is dead. Never once and explanation, doesn't say sorry, doesn't do anything except get off of an e-mail as fast has he can. Never once have I received anything more than a one line reply from my e-mails and not once has he answered an ebay message, I had to find his personal e-mail and deal with him like that. Save yourself a serious headache and think before you buy from this company.
Mark

I ordered many kinds of seeds from their ads posted on Ebay. They advertise and sell a lot of vegetable & flower seeds that are not the run-of-the-mill varieties (They also command a higher price for just a few seeds of any one particular variety.) Seeds were OLD and had minimal to nil germination. I am an experienced gardener with 35+ years of growing and selling vegetables. I have a greenhouse, heated germination mats and professional lights so it was not my ignorance or inexperience that was to blame for the poor germination rates. In general, I feel that everyone should be cautious about buying seeds on Ebay unless you KNOW you are buying from a trusted source. Hirts Greenhouse does NOT fall into that catagory and I will not purchase seeds from them again, period.

Took my money and will not respond to emails. What a bunch of bums. DO NOT BUY FROM THESE PEOPLE!!!

Terrible experience. Quick payment, but no delivery and no response to five emails. They do business on ebay under the name "SEEDMART".

DO NOT ORDER FROM THIS COMPANY. THEY ARE ONLY INTERESTED IN MAKING MONEY OFF INFERIOR QUALITY PLANTS.Ordered 3 canna bulbs off e-bay. It cost me $19 for bulbs and shipping. The bengal tiger bulb, which I was the reason for ordering to begin with, was tiny, dead, and rotten looking . I e-mailed the company and they replied that I ship it back. I was not paying shipping to return the bulb after what I had already spent. I planted it any how and it never came up. The other 2 bulbs finally came up, but are such inferrior quality, I would not have paid a dime for them.

Bought 8 sets of seeds off ebay,sent 3 right away, 1 couple weeks later,4 never came and filed paypal complaint.Received refund after one month then they had audacity to send emails stating that I had to pay again.
Will never buy from again,customer support is non-existant

I ordered an "Christmas Cactus" from ebay, the plant is an african euphorbia. Poorly packed,sad shape, there was a pot but the plant was not in it, the dirt was all over in the box and the plant was broken off. Now a month or more later it looks like it will live.I will never order from them again.

Would NEVER order from here again. They sent tiny, tiny, almost dead plants to my Mom (I ordered for her off ebay) and god love her, she tried to nurse them back to health. She called them immediately when she got the order to say they didn't look like they would make it. They said they would refund if they died. Well, they died. And after she left several voice mails and e-mails and I left several (neither of us got a response) I finally got someone live. "Send in the dead plants and we will refund your money." We did and a year later, I am still trying to get a refund. No response. THEY ARE SCAM ARTISTS.

Last year I won the bidding on a Chinese ground orchid, a golden lotus banana, a yellow clivia, and an Alocasia 'Hilo Beauty'. It was mid-winter in the area where Hirt's is located, so I suggested the shipment be delayed until the weather was more conducive to shipping. My suggestion was not heeded. When I opened the box, I found the orchid and the Alocasia completely black from freeze damage! The clivia and banana were fine. If the freeze damage had occurred during shipping, all the plants would have been damaged, so I knew Hirt's had boxed up severly freeze damaged plants and mailed them to me. I took photos of the plants and sent E-mails with the photos attached. An automated response said that, due to possibilities of computer viruses, messages with attachments would not be opened. When I resent the E-mail without photos attached, I finally did get a response. I was told that I should return the plants (at my expense) for a refund. Seeing the feedback here about refunds often not being processed, I didn't bother sending back the plants. The two freeze damaged plants did finally recover, so I let it go.

Too bad we can't post pix along with our notes here. I still have my photos documenting the freeze blackened condition of the plants upon arrival.

My suggestion would be, don't buy at all or, especially, don't buy in wintertime when you are likely to receive their frozen nursery stock.

Jeremy

Several months ago I bought several hundred dollars worth of plants from Hirt's on eBay. It was several auctions. Their instructions said that I could combine auctions and pay half the shipping on the total. I guess I could have figured it myself, but I emailed them for a total to be sure that I sent the correct amount. And hoping I could possibly get another discount since it was so many plants. No response. I emailed again. No response. Only the automated invoice at the end of each of the auctions. Again I requested a total. No response. I called them. "We're awfully busy. I'll get a total off to you in a few days". A "few days" pass and No response. By now I'm leary of sending my money off to someone that won't communicate with me so I don't. No additional requests for payment are sent to me. No "non-paying bidder reports", nothing. It's just like the auctions never happened. I personally have no experience with their plants. I never received them. Thank goodness I never paid for them either.

I did receive the plants that I won on EBAY, but the poor plants were not in good shape. There is a red "clearance" sticker on the one geranium-from another store. The other geranium is beyond help. It is just plain dead. The packaging was just the plant in a pot with dirt and masking tape wrapped around it. It arrived dried out & missing most of the dirt. This was disappointing..won't buy from them again.

i received 4 bulbs from Hirt's Bulbmart which 3 were rotten
they require rotten merchandise to be returned at my expense for a refund ???
what kind of customer service is this ?

I strongly urge my fellow gardeners to avoid this Website. They say they process orders within a day. I placed my order on March 10th and did not receive it until April 12th. By that time, I had sent three e-mails asking what had happened, but I did not receive a response to any of them.

Four of the 13 items were not included. A line was drawn through the names on the packing list. No explanation was offered for their absence, and the missing items are still being offered for sale on the Website.

Common varieties were sent instead of the fairly exotic ones listed on the Website. A Saxifraga oppositifolia, for example, turned out to be a common arendsii.

The perennials I received were tiny, withered, and yellow. The bulbs had been growing for a long time in stapled brown paper bags without any airholes. The new growth was dead or dying.

I e-mailed the company with my complaints the day I received the order. No one ever responded to my message. Their policy requires the dissatisfied customer to repack and return the plants. The customer also has to pay the return postage and cover the cost of tracking and insurance. Why should a dissatisfied customer have to insure a box of worthless plants?

I got old lilies for a high price. They had pale green growth about eight inches long and of three bulbs only one bloomed. Three more were puny and three were fine. When I wrote to them about the puny dried up bulbs they ignored me. MY girlfriend wrote many many letters to them and finally got a refund but she put a lot of effort into it.

I ordered two sets of 3 lily bulbs. None have come up. I have contacted them and was told that I had to dig up the bulbs and mail them back at my expense to get a refund. . If the bulbs didn't come up chances are they rotted! I have never had another gardening company to make this request. I think that they must be selling old bulbs. I also ordered a peony, it arrived almost completely rotted. It tried to sprout but didn't make it. I was told to wait until the end of the season and get back with them about it. The customer service for this company is really poor, sales are the priority here, not customer satisfaction!

I purchased a tree peony,from this company, via e-bay. He specifically offered delayed shipping, which I requested, when sending payment, as instructed.He totally ignored the request, and mailed immediately. When I arrived home, after a 10 day trip, the plant was a dried twig, that did not make a come back, no matter how I pampered it. I e-mail him immediately upon my return and was very nice, explaining how heartsick I was (it was to be my first tree peony, and an anniversery gift) and asking if he would replace, if it didn't make it. I have never received a response from him.I am no longer being nice about this. I WILL NEVER BUY FROM THIS COMPANY AGAIN!!

I defiantely would NOT recommend this company. I purchased a large flower/seed order and received old outdated seed. Someone in the company blacked out (with a marker) the original printed "packed for" date on the seed packets and placed a Hirt's 2004 sticker over that date to conceal the true 2002/2003 dates on all the packets. You can peel off the Hirt's sticker and hold the packet to a light to seed the true "packed for" date.
A very low percentage of seed germinated; some packets didn't have one seed germinate.
When I confronted them twice via e-mail, I recieved NO response.
Bottom line - they sell over-priced seed packets and ship old outdated seed which they probaly buy at closeout the year before.
STAY AWAY FROM THIS COMPANY!

I attempted to correct this seller about what they were advertising as "true" bamboo. I got back a rude response. I'm surprised that they would be so unprofessional. I hope they will be more kind to other suggestions.

//cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2362396368&category=20524
Hardy Variegated Dwarf Bamboo Bonsai
Pogonatherum crinitum variegatum
"This true bamboo forms a tight thicket ..."

I wrote:
> Pogonatherum crinitum. "German grass". Lovely, delicate grass of tiny, bamboo-like stalks. A miniature bamboo, though it's not.
>
> see //www.americanbamboo.com

Hirtsgreen@cs.com>
Please check all of my auctions for inaccuracies. I cannot afford an expert like you so I appreciate you working for free. By the way, Bamboo is a common name with no meaning or value. The proper genus and species is listed.
Also, get a life!

Never again. I ordered quite a few tomato plants from these people, and to begin, the majority were in terrible shape. Some were leggy beyond belief, but most were small, withered, wilted, had brown leaves, just pathetic. Because most need to be ordered in quantities of 4, I'd say that for most, only 1 out of 4 was even salvageable. I'm truly amazed that any company would even ship out plants that must have looked horrible when they left their facility.

But to my mind what's even worse is the fact that I received wrong varieties. Now, as someone who grows from seed myself, I can understand the occasional plant being wrong. But when I order specific varieties, I expect at least 3 of the 4 from the lot to be that particular kind. Nope, completely wrong kind....which I of course only discovered AFTER taking the time to plant, fertilize, stake/cage and nurture these plants, to wind up with small nondescript red tomatoes as opposed to what I had ordered, namely white tomatoes. I haven't yet contacted them about a refund, but even a refund of the cost will not compensate me for the lost time and money and energy spent growing plants I had no interest in; I have very little space to begin with, so to take up space with unwanted varieties is not a luxury I can afford. That is just unacceptable.

Ok, I admit it, I should have known better, I read the reviews on Dave's Garden to late. I took a chance and lost. I ordered several bulbs on E-Bay that I really liked. Well, I finally got 3 of them up and one of those died and the survivors are small and won't bloon this year for sure. I took a chance and lost. This wont happen again. Thank you Dave and the many gardeners who keep us informed of those companies to avoid. Now wiser

Ordered 3 Tirol Canna and one was wrong variety. Transaction via eBay. They offered to take them back ... yeah right after I had them potted and growing for 2 weeks.

Suppliers like this should have a higher order fill accuracy than what I experienced.

Bob

I have paid hirts a long time ago for 2 red habanero plants and after 2 weeks I still have not recieved them. He has claimed that he has sent them to me 3 times now and he was VERY rude to me on the phone when I called to ask about my plants. HE said if I dont get them after the 3rd try then he's not sending me anything. I will probably just try to get refund out of this but the guy is very unprofessional and rude. His plants obviously have not been delivered even close to the time they were supposed to. I advise that people do not buy from Hirt Greenhouse & Flowers.

I just received 20 of the most pitiful tomato plants I have ever seen. The plants are small & limp. I have them under lights now & a couple have perked up, but I have my doubts that they will all survive.
Masking tape was used to hold the dirt in the rather flimsy cell packs. In some cases, the leaves of the plants was also taped to the pack!
Needless to say, there were damaged leaves.

These were to be distributed to family & friends. I have a feeling there will be some disappointed people.

I will NEVER use this dealer again!

Nancy

I bought seeds from these jerks from eBay. Received seeds packaged (by another company) in 2000 for 2001 (it's 2003, folks!) with Hirt's label over the original label and Hirt's year sticker over the original.

What customer service, hmm?

"ButchPoodle purchased only 10 Gardenia Seeds from us on Ebay on 10/16/2002. Look at our feedback on Ebay (over 27,000 favorable feedbacks) from our customers. Hirt's has been in business since 1915 and has become very successful on Ebay due to our high quality, fantastic selection, and low prices. This makes our competitors very jealous! A few lies will not stop us from offering gardeners the best at the lowest prices!
thank you,
Alan Hirt "

I ordered hibiscus seeds from them thru EBay and the seeds turned out to be hollyhocks. I emailed them and was informed they have never sold hibiscus seeds. I emailed them back the EBay listing thru which I had won and received and abrupt response that it would be looked into.

Numerous emails later and no response, guess it's not worth it to them to give customer service. Stupidity, cause I spend a lot on mail order.

Let me start out by saying that I have bought alot of plants from hirts thru ebay. The plants were ok and customer service had been good, until my LAST order which was in spring 2002. I ordered some tomato plants. I did not receive them until late august, much to late to get anything from them had they been viable! After about 30 emails to the guy. Everytime I emailed he would reply with what plant didn't you get or what was the order number, this went on back and forth but I persisted. I had included all that information in the first 10 emails. He did however finally refund my money but only after I told him I was not going to send one more email or answer one more question, because it seemed like he was just trying to put me off, and that he would just get negative feedback if this was not resolved. I finally received the refund check 2 weeks later after that I received the something that at one time was supposed to be plants. I don't know if they were held up by mail, but to give me such a hard time after I had spent hundreds of dollars on prior sales and to not be able to keep track of the orders or to track the package? He was not very professional at all. I see alot of plants listed for him on ebay but I will not be buying from him this year because numerous emails I had to send just to get a refund for 2 tomato plants!

I had a bad experience. I ordered seeds through their website, but didn't get any answer. Fortunately, the didn't charge my credit card (I hope...) I even sent them an e-mail, inquiring, but did not receive response.

Moris Polanco
Guatemala

"We do not ship seeds to foreign countries through our website. Moris was sent an email explaining this. Perhaps the e-mail service is poor in Guatemala.
thank you,
Alan Hirt "

Bulbs never grew.

I bought a water lily from Hirt's on Ebay in March 2002. Received one that was dried up and nonviable. Requested replacement - received one excuse after another ("oh just give it another week, it'll be fine"). Gave up after eight weeks and numerous emails. Have never heard from them again, no replacement ever arrived. Don't do business with these people!

I bought a water lily from Hirt's on Ebay in March 2002. It arrived completely dry and nonviable. I requested a replacement, received one excuse after another - and after eight weeks I gave up. Have never heard from them again, no replacement ever arrived. Don't do business with this company!

I found some perennials on e-bay that were listed as "hardy" in their listings, which once would have gooten them a sale, given that Ohio isn't that far south of me in northern New York.

But I've been burned before and checked the plants in question only to find that, yes, they were perennial in zones nine and ten--the very deep south.

Confronted with this obvious deception -- trying to sell southern semi-tropical plants from ohio as "hardy" -- they simply said, yes, my information was correct: they were hardy in zones 9 and 10.

My suggestion that zones be included was not followed and this deceptive [stuff] continues. I have no idea how good a plant they produce, but northern buyers should beware.

Just because it's described as a "hardy perennial," and just because it is being offered from a greenhouse in Ohio does not mean it will "live" in Ohio, New York, Virginia or about 90 percent of the rest of the country.

Starting out in perennials I only got burned about ten dozen times from being ignorant and from buying from farm stands etc. that were probably just as stupid.

Since I've learned, though, I've become vigilant, trying to aleart others who are bound to make the same mistakes.

My best advice: get a good perennial book, keep it with you wherever you buy plants, check the zones and spread the word about deceptive practices like this place employs.

I ordered from this company last spring by way of ebay. I purchased 12 Strutgart cannas. It took over two monthes before I got them and as they grew not one was variegated. When they flowered they were different colors also.
I emailed them several times and never got a responce and even wrote to them and still no responce. I would never buy from this company again !

Bulbs I received were rotten, when I wrote they e-mailed back that they were sold out, would replace with other bulbs; never received; wrote again, said they would ship that week; never received.