Comments regarding Summerstone Nursery

I have placed an order to Summerstone Nursery, who used to be Autumn Ridge. Their products look like sticks wrapped in newspaper. If you soak the sticks for a day or so in some water with fertilizer, and then plant it with mulch, and some soil such as miracle grow. They will grow. They do look dead, but all of my " sticks" grew, except for one. The one stick grew into a nice American Redbud tree, another one grew into a a crape myrtle, and so on. Now, I am buying more for a different residence. I can hardly wait, and the crape myrtle I ordered is white, and yes, I do believe it will grow provided I do what the instructions state, and although they will look dead, I bet they will grow. Products that are from mail order are just that...sometimes they look dead, but they usually look just fine after a couple of years. Their white crape myrtle is the hardiest myrtle I have ever seen. It grows in Richland, WA which is near Hermiston. The zone is 7a, but this is quite a hardy myrtle.

THIS COMPANY WILL IMMEDIATELY TAKE YOUR MONEY AND NEVER SEND YOUR PRODUCT OR THE PRODUCT WILL BE DEAD. THE STATE OF TENNESSEE HAVE NOT SHUT THEM DOWN BUT THEY ARE A SCAM. DO NOT BUY FROM THEM. we have very little money for food and spent a large portion of out budget on plants that i was told were being shipped but never arrived. i cannot believe they are still in business. no one has had a positive experience in over a year with this agency. coincidence? i think not.

ALL I CAN SAY IS BUYERS BEWARE!!! DO NOT BUY FROM THEM!!! I purchased in june 2014....dead plants...emailed for two months. Finally got back to me in Nov.2014. it was a battle...reported to Tenn.BB. they told them a story I bought plants in 2013 over ayear ago. I sent all my emails and receipts to BB. when they tried to get a hold of company again no answer or reply. sent all my info to my credit card and got it taken off. VERY EXPENSIVE LESSON LEARNED>this so called company needs to be shut down!!! I do not know how they get away with selling twigs as plants!

Heed the warnings in spite of the low prices!

Summerstone Nursery sent my order, but it was incorrect and several plants are non-viable plants. I ordered 5 peonies. I received 2. One had a visible eye. The other had what "might" have been an eye on it. Peonies really need to be divided with 3-5 eyes each.
The hostas and peonies I ordered had dry roots. The tiny plants were pretty shriveled.
They did send the free plants and they might or might not make it.
I tried to contact them, but have not been able to speak with anyone or get an email response.

In 2014 I purchased 2 grapes, 3 apple and 1 cherry from summertime nursery in 2014. The trees were very thin hardly any roots. The grapes and cherry tree prompty died. The compamy would not replace the bad items. I thought well, maybe it was just a fluke, so this year I ordered 2 cherry trees, 2 pear trees, 1 scupnine grape. When the trees arrive the 2 Pear trees had no roots and it looked like they cut the limbs off anoter tree and sent tem to me. The grape bush was the same just a cutting from the vine. Very disappointed. I prompty called the company to complain. They wnated me to send these items back and pay the freight before they would replace them. My advice is not to purchase items form th8is company. They do not have good customer service and have inferior products.

Ordered a few things which totaled around $50 dollars. I found all the negative reviews after I ordered and proceeded to cancel my order that same day, not 1 hour after placing it. I emailed and got no response. So I called and no one answered all afternoon. I called early the next day right when they opened and someone answered. They explained that a refund was no problem and I would be put on the list and get the monies put back on my card no later then 2 weeks. 5 months later because I honestly forgot about it I find that they never refunded my money. So I called them and got, oh it looks like they didn't put you on the list. I will do it right now and it will be taken care of. Guess what, it wasn't. I called again 3 weeks after and got the I don't see where you have ever been put on the list, but I do see the note where you cancelled your order back in May. I will take care of this today and mail you a check since they claimed it was over 90 days so it couldn't go back on my card. So this started May 26 and its November 17 and still am fighting to get my money back. Oh and they never shipped me anything so they can't claim its due to unreturned items.

Before reading the reviews on this site I decided to purchases three separate orders of trees from summerstone Oct 12 2014 / Oct 23 2014 & Oct 29 2014
On 11/4/14 my first order arrived it consist of 6 butternut trees 1 plum tree & 1 grape tree. Needless to say all the trees arrived a bit skinny but looked to be in good
Shape, after soaking the trees for a few hours I potted them into large well drained containers until next spring. I plan on taking the trees to Georgia in 2015 to be replanted
There (I live in Miami).I'm Neutral for now but I will update on all three orders in due time.

We placed an order for $159.55 on May 5, 2014, and the order was shipped on 5/16. The order was for 9 dwarf fruit trees and 1 seedless grape. We paid for the upgrade of the larger size. The trees were tiny sticks and all appeared dead. We planted everything hoping they were just dormant. It was very discouraging to find not one plant had a bud on it, and never broke dormancy. They were indeed dead. We contacted Summerstone and we were told they would send replacements this coming fall. I will update if we DO receive replacements and if they are alive. I wish we had seen this site before ordering.

How I wish I had found this site before I ordered from this company. I placed 2 orders adding up to more than $100. Their customer service people were very nice but all the plants died. I checked their replacement policy and it appears like I have to pay more or lose part of that purchase money to get replacements. It looks like a scam to make money for them. I can't recommend this company to anyone. I am sick about losing all that money since I have limited income as it is.

I wish I would've had an experience better than the other folks so I could leave a positive review, but I did not. I ordered a lot of plants: fruit trees, magnolias, garlic, pineapple tree, etc. After reading reviews after I ordered, I was happy to actually receive a package and not lose all of my money. However, I only received half of my order which was my first disappointment. I didn't bother to call to complain because my free raspberry plants and rhododendrons never grew and died. I felt the remaining order wouldn't live either, so I didn't bother. The fruit "trees" (typical dormant cuttings) aren't doing well, and my magnolias never came out of the ground. I've had much success from mail order companies in the past and am an experienced planter/gardener, so don't think it's me. This company stinks and don't gamble your money away. Go to a local nursery or a well regarded mail order nursery.

I placed an order with this company in early June for 5 items. I received them on 6/15 and they all looked dead! Very dried out and crumbling. I emailed them o 6/16 and told them the problem and since they claim they will replace all dead or missing items, I asked for a reship. Well, guess what - not only did I not receive any replacements but they never answered any of the half dozen emails I sent them! I told them in my last email that I planned to report them and give a negative review but that didn't seem to phase them. I will never order from them again and will post as many bad reviews about them that I can - I lost $50!

Posted on May 1, 2014, updated July 2, 2014
I placed an order at a website called Online Tree Farm . After I placed the order I was notified that an outfit called Summerstone Nursery would be filling the order .That made me nervous because of all the bad reviews for Summerstone . Was this going to be a con ? Are they are using 3rd party online sellers because they have a bad reputation ? I crossed my fingers and waited. I received trees that were kind of small but were ok considering the price . The red bud trees were tiny , about 6 inches stick up above ground after planting . The willow trees were nice , about 3 ft. tall and eager to grow . The cherry trees were nice also , a bit thin but about as tall as I expected them to be .The only real bummer I got was a $20 " 3-foot " Seckel pear tree ( I ordered a 3 ft) that turned out to be about a 12 inch twig if you included the roots in the measurement too . I mailed the Seckel twig back to them along with a letter explaining why I was disappointed . Didn't hear from them in a long while and thought it was a lost cause . But this spring they mailed me an actual 3 ft Seckel Pear and threw in a bunch of free trees to make up for it . And they were great free trees ! Some cherry trees , a sugar maple , a purple ornamental plum , a flowering cherry tree , etc. And all of them about 3 ft tall ... I waited awhile to post this because I wanted to wait to see if these trees were dead or alive . So far , most of them have either sprouted buds or have leaves coming out ... so these trees are alive and I am happy with the company . Sounds like they have had problems but also have good people working for them trying to fix things and make it work . So I have to give them a positive rating for how they treated me . If they make a mistake just give them a chance to fix it . I will order from them again .

Like everyone I should have read the local bbb , f. Rating. And the multitude of horrid reviews of this rip off of a company. I'm on a campaign to warn all gardeners. Unbelievable, made order in January 2014, for delivery 1 April. To my surprise they were delivered on April 1. Was so excited,they offered wonderful romantica, David Austin , a plethora of choices in hard to find roses. All but one were in decent shape, impressed with the root structure for 1 1/2 grade roses. We ordered 13 varieties , over 150.00 . Planned and built a very nice growing area, spent a lot of money. The first flush is done and out of the 13 roses ordered, ONE , is correct. Omg, we are bewildered , ONE. 8 are tropicana, and the others are roses we do not recognize , much less what we ordered. When contacting this pathetic nursery, their resolution is send a replacement for the following year. While we knew that was the policy, never would anyone imagine this. Much less their complete fraudulent way of doing business. Filed a complaint with bbb , going no where of course, however everyone needs to now this and not spend money on such ineptness , with the expectation to lose an entire season , much less the wrong plants for the plan we had. They refuse to refund, why would I ever order from this horrible company again or take a replacement of all the wrong plants. They would expect you to grow season after season after season till they get it right. BEWARE

Order 4173-0098-8727-6892

Ship Date: June 2, 2014.
Order Date: April 26, 2014

I ordered two bare-root Kiowa blackberry plants from Summerstone. They offered a free third plant, so I chose another Kiowa.

The shipment arrived well-packed, and the roots were wet and covered with a wet gel substance. The stalks were very dry and brittle. I planted them immediately, as instructed, in wet soil.

The instructions stated that the plants were dormant from being in cold storage, but that they would sprout new growth in a week or two.

As of today, June 23, 2014, there was no growth. I checked the stems and all were dry and brittle. I pulled one up. The roots were dead, but moist as they should be. The other two were exactly the same.

I will never order from Summerhill again. They’re only 2 days by mail away from me, so the plants were just as they packed them. And it took them well over a month to get around to shipping them.

Last year we ordered from Summerstone Nursery a gooseberry plant. When we received that we were in doubt about identification of that plant. Now as it blossomed and have some berries we see this is something like raspberry or blackberry. This is our unfortunate experience of having business with Summerstone Nursery.

I placed an order May 6, 2014 order number 6314-0232-9195-0910. They charged my card and the order was shipped 5/16/14. The order came on 5/21/14 and everything was dead accept for strawberries and they didn't send the watermelons. Cherry trees were broken sticks, tomatoes, grapes and raspberries all dead. I called immediately and spoke with Kelly @11:40 am on 5/21/14 and told her that there were no watermelons (empty cups of dirt were sent) and everything was dead accept the strawberries. She told me they were backordered on the watermelons and would send replacements for everything the next day. The order wasn't shipped until 5/27/14 and arrived today 6/2/14 and again everything is dead. I called and spoke to Kelly again and told her what had happened and asked for a partial refund for the dead items and she said we don't give refunds we only give plants. I told her I didn't want anymore dead plants and she said too bad they don't give refunds and she could give me someone else to talk to but they would tell me the same thing. I told her I was going to file a dispute with my credit card company and with the Better Business Bureau and she told me to do what I wanted that they weren't going to give me a refund and the credit card company would side with them because of the guarantee they have to send replacements and I wouldn't get any money back from the credit card company. She was very nasty to me the entire time on the phone. Don't deal with these people
I have now filed a complaint with both my credit card company and the Better Business Bureau and am going to contact the state of TN to file a complaint. I live in Northern NY near the Canadian border and is now too late in season to wait for more dead plants that I can't plant.

I have made several orders with Summerstone none of which I would brag about. Some of us are slower than others to learn. I am writing this with respect to order no. 5479-2327-6430-1750. The bulk of the order was for plum trees which arrived wrapped in wet newspaper but with dry roots. I called about the condition when i received the order and was told to soak them and them plant them. I should have enacted the First Promise. None leafed out this spring. I was getting ready to return for replacement but read about the company on this website and determined that it was not worth the effort. Their 2nd Promise is that I ship the dead plants back and that for 1/4th the price they will replace the plants. I will take my losses and run.

On April 24, 2014 I placed an order (Order Number: 2794-7632-1866-1116) with Summerstone Nursery and paid $22.40 (Transaction Code: 94D53478ET135960D) via a credit card. I called back on April 25, 2014 to cancel the order. I was told that I would receive a refund to my credit card. I have called several times asking when I will be credited to my credit card account (as recent as May 27, 2014). I get nothing but a run around. I believe that Summerstone Nursery is committing fraud. Since I live in Kansas and the nursery is in Tennessee I believe this is Interstate Commerce with intend to commit fraud which is a Federal violation. Since the Internet has been used I believe their Website should be closed down with further investigation regarding Federal violations to perpetrate Fraud.

The first order of 25 plants, two or three survived; the replacement order (had to send them some dead parts!) was slightly better, it looks like 4 might survive.

I give up. The person in the Tennessee state office who is monitoring their compliance to an earlier agreement is:

Jane Salem

I suggest sending a copy of each email back and forth to Summerstone to her.

summerstone does not raise anything. USPS deliveries from them to NC take at least a week, almost as if the USPS is not helping.... they refuse to consider priority mail, or any option for UPS type service....

the business plan, I am sorry to say, seems to be to keep sending out lousy plants and to try to keep as much of the money as possible.

When I was doing a similar business, selling other grower's stuff, I took the order to the nurseries myself, selected the plants, cleaned off the dirt and packaged them in wet paper inside plastic, and sent them priority mail the same day. One complaint in three years by a person whose mailman left the plants at a door she didn't use in 100 degree weather. She contacted me after a week and then found the plants. The replacement shipment went well, she was happy.

Ordered 6Tomato, 6 cucumber, 6 pepper and 6 cantaloupe plants May 4. Called and cancelled order May 5, due to finding this website and reviews. Emailed my cancellation as well. After 4 hours of calling I believe the woman I spoke to was Debbie, she said no problem she would pass it along to the order dept and it would be cancelled. Well yesterday I received all the above plants in the mail. Not only were they dead but so poorly packed they were broken on almost all the stems. This nursery should not be in business period. Terrible customer service and even worse product. Called credit card company and got credit for this purchase. Horrendous nursery do not even think of buying from them.

I wish I'd read these reviews before I ordered my trees.
I made my order mid April, some grape and persimmon trees,
didn't receive yet. I called several times, no one even pick up the phone.

why a company like this could still keep breathing?

I ordered six tomato plants and two blackberry plants in mid April. I received my shipment on 5/9/2014 . To say the least, ABSOLUTELY PATHETIC!! In the first shipment, all six tomato plants were totally fried -- what was left of them was dry, black and brown, primarily due to their shipping method and packing -- hardly fit for shipping rocks. I called immediately (on 5/9) and they reshipped six plants which arrived today. If the plants survive at all I will be surprised! I will NEVER ORDER FROM THIS COMPANY AGAIN nor can I recommend them for purchasing live plants. This second shipment had the plants basically stuffed inside an improper shipping container. On the exterior of the cardboard box there was no warning of live plants being inside. So far my two thornless blackberry plants are sprouting -- they probably will survive but are not even worth the shipping charges.

If I had read this forum or the BBB entry I would not have ordered from them.

I ordered a Bing cherry and Black Tartarian cherry tree 4-5' on 4/13/14 and received them on 4/19/14. There were small green leaves on the Bing but the Black Tartarian and the free Black Hawk raspberry were "dead sticks" as described in many other posts.

I planted them anyway. Two weeks later, 5/3/14, still with no growth from the Black Tartarian or the Black Hawk, I emailed them with no response. I called them 5/12/14 to report my experience, I have received a form to fill out and if I send the dead plants back to them (shipping at my cost) they will send me replacements.

Since the Black Tartarian only cost $20, shipping the dead plants back will cost me at least half that. I'm not sure this effort is worth it.

I do not like wasting my money or receiving "dead sticks" in the mail, I will not order from them again. Please review their entry in the BBB website before you even think or ordering.

I ordered a pink dogwood nearly a month ago. They charged my credit card and the tree never arrived.

Posted on April 11, 2014, updated May 7, 2014
Posted on April 5, 2014, updated April 11, 2014
Posted on March 28, 2014, updated April 5, 2014
Posted on March 26, 2014, updated March 28, 2014
Like a lot of folks posting..I ordered then saw the negative reviews and was worried i had been suckered. About 2 weeks after ordering my plants arrived in a box with the bare root ball encased in still-moist newspaper. Some of the root systems looked better than others--I would say the grape & blackberry looked the worse for the wear. All the plants have green showing when you scratch the bark--none are what i would call dead dry. some had signs of green buds peeking out which surprised the hell out of me. All are soaking in a tub of water overnight & I plan on potting them first before commiting them to holes in the ground--wish me luck

I ordered some plants without checking reviews. Month later received credit card statement; company took payment same day even their polity states to bill credit when ready to ship. So I email them asking for estimated time of shipping. this answer came two weeks later " we moved your order in front to be shipped when we are able to ship." 14 days later I requested shipping update again. No response. Another two weeks later I sent an email cancellation request. No response. Tried to fax their fax line for days----fax not receiving! Finally this morning (5-5-14) got to a lady. "She will get to it." the answerer told me, not even asking me what order # I was calling about. The unprofessional way of answering the phone, and talking to me instantly told NOT to waste any time with these folks. I called Chase bank and explained the situation and they ve done a charge back. This company is beyond SUCKS. From now on I ll stick to ordering local; and when not available locally will order only Starkbros ( 1 great experience with them) and Jung ( repeated great experience over the years--- ) or Park ( good 2 good experience with seed ordering ).

I had no idea that Summerstone Nursery was a scam. I just ordered trees from them. I will be on the watch as it is too late to discontinue my order now. I placed the order Friday 4/25/14. Now I am worried.

DO NOT BUY FROM THESE PEOPLE EVER FOR ANY REASON! I made a huge mistake by not seeing something that was too good to be true and doing my on line research first. I place a $257 order only to get a box of dried up dead sticks. (Now why would someone go to all the effort to grow, dig, pack and ship plants that were in that condition?) Some of the plants did not even have roots. I sent a e-mail complaining. They told me to ship the plants back. This is in direct conflict with their guarantee. I have heard nothing back. There are 162 complaints against these people with the Better Business Bureau and many more on other sites like this. This is their MO. Dead plants, no refund, they say they will ship in the fall but don't, No communication. They hope you get tired and have more important things to do and just go away so they get to keep your money. My saving grace is I charged it on my Visa and will charge back and get my money. Why the authorities don't shut these people down I don't know.

I placed an order w/ Summerstone Nursery totaling $68.10. More than half of the plants died or were dead on arrival because they never grew or produced more than a leaf and then died. I received the plants in the spring and sent my replacement form in the fall hoping to receive new plants the following spring (as promised). I did not send the dead sticks or root balls back to Summerstone when I sent the reorder form. There was never a response from Summerstone and when I attempted to call, the phone rang and rang and rang w/ no answer. I, instead, contacted them via email to ask about my replacement plants and gave them my phone# also. There was no response from them either by email or phone.

It is two years later and I attempted another phone call. This time I did speak w/ someone but was told that because I did not return the dead material there will be no replacement.

I will not purchase from them again.

ordered several tomato and pepper plants before seeing the info on this company - so of course was worried and with good reason-- when the order arrived after several weeks-- the tomato plants (14) were nothing but a dead stem in some kind of very dry planting medium - none of which I could save - the peppers were not much better - out of 12 plants I have managed to salvage 2 plants - the 2 "free" grape vines were nothing but dead stems wrapped in dry paper towels --- very disappointed and will never order here again -- worse company for plants I have ever used!!!!!!

Beware! Summerstone charged my credit card the same day I placed an order, which was to be shipped in two weeks. They never shipped -- and they won't acknowledge my e-mails asking them to cancel the order and issue a refund. DO NOT TRUST THESE THIEVES. They have earned an "F" rating from the Better Business Bureau.

Charged our credit card immediately, shipped almost 2 months later, due to weather, they said. They sent dead twigs. No refund policy. Our bad for not checking them out first. We learned to never buy until we check the vendor out here and at the BBB.

Ordered fruit trees from them...when they came in they said they were dormant, but they were dead...after hassling them over the order they agreed to send replacement trees...all of them were dead but one and it broke off of the graft and died...contacted the BBB and they couldn't get them to answer the phone or emails...finally got in touch with them early this year ( after acting like I was a new customer) and they sent me the same old lame form to send them money for replacement trees...still email them weekly requesting a refund or live trees. BBB sent me a government place to file a complaint with but they will probably just pop up with a different name and start over...nice scam selling dead trees and then requesting 40% more to send you some more dead trees.

Just wanted to update everyone on this company. I just received a catalog from them this week and having learned my lesson from buying without checking here first, I checked on Garden Watchdog. The catalog listed Summerstone Nursery, P.O. Box 274, Morrison TN as the address. I typed in the name and got a "No companies found!" response. So I typed in the zip code to see if it was maybe had another company with a similar name...no luck. So then I went to find their website and googled it and got a review page from Garden Watchdog on the same name. Well, the address is different but the name and state, etc. are the same. It's pretty apparent that they have just gotten a P.O. Box so they could keep scamming. I'm so glad I wasn't suckered in by their low prices and I found this page on Garden Watchdog. How can we list this so it comes up under the search because I'm not the only one they're mailing to, I'm sure. Thanks Dave and thanks GW!

I ordered a Pink Dogwood tree and got a Pear tree for free. The dogwood was DOA. The pear tree lasted a couple days. I contacted them, and they sent me a request form for new plants. I sent it to the address on the form and it was sent back to me as no such address. I finally found the correct address online. I am suppose to be receiving my duplicate trees this month. It was for my mother for mother's day, so it will only 5 months late.

Posted on September 11, 2011, updated August 1, 2013
EVERYTHING SHOWED UP D.O.A. !! I have NEVER received such poor quality plants from anyone, anywhere before! Their catalog does NOT say whether the plants are shipped live or dormant... so considering I am new at Southern Gardening, I thought I would call for information. Well I was assured by 2 'associates' I spoke with that my hybrid tea roses would not only be between 1 and 2 feet tall, but that they were live and had FOLIAGE! I placed an order for 16 HTR's (at $9ea) 6 rhododendrons, 4 hydrangeas, 2 patio rose trees, and 8 double-blue balloon flowers. EVERYTHING showed up dead including my "free gift" stella d'oro daylilies. Not dormant-DEAD. When I called on a Saturday (don't ever try THAT!!) the man who answered kept telling me that no, nothing is shipped with foliage, and I was wrong, none of it was dead, and how HE didn't take orders OR pack them so it wasn't HIS problem!! OMG when I finally spoke to a supervisor on Monday I found her to be as disillusioned with Summerstone as I am. She basically told me she had tried over a dozen of the roses she picked for herself and managed to get 2 of them going. She was very nice and re-shipped my entire close to $300.00 order, but it was in even worse shape. Dead AND soggy. Out of everything I have, I have managed to salvage 2 tiny double blue balloon flowers and over the entire summer I have nurtured them. This is my first time with this perennial and also my first summer of gardening in Mississippi rather than Ohio. I have done very well with all the plants I have bought myself at various local nurseries and my roses I put out from bags in March are enormous. I'm sad that the beautiful, yellow, purple, white and red rose garden I envisioned has yet to be. i wish I'd spent the money on raising my beds instead. Just FYI, some of the employees are okay to deal with but this is a rip-off racket; don't expect anything if you do order from them, and don't even think about trying to get your money back!!!

Ordered 6 pine trees and a hummingbird vine. They sent a free crape myrtle and this was the only thing that lived. I started calling about 3 weeks after I planted them as the needles on the pines started turning brown and the hummingbird vine did nothing. They said wait about 6 weeks and they should come back. They did not and when I called they said they would replace in the fall. By this time all 6 of the pine trees had broken off and fell over. They said they would send me a form to fill out and then they would send the plants when fall came. Today I got the form, almost a month later, and it stipulates that I have to return the dead trees. I talked to them and even asked if they had to be returned and they said no, just return the form. Now, I can only get a replacement if I pay a portion of the original cost PLUS shipping and handling. I should have looked at this website and the BBB before I ordered.

Ordered 4 trees on 4/11/13. Planted. Two trees were dead and two other had green leafs when it was to be PURPLE leaf plums. Contacted company Summerstonenursey 6/4/13. Sent replacement same . Two dead plants and two wrong colored leafs. Called company and they hung up on me. After first order contacted VISA and complained. The sent form to me then charged me interested on disputed amount $50.30. 07/11/13 will contact company again and VISA. DO NOT buy ANYTHING from this company .

ordered 2 Thompson seedless grape plants. Planted them and after four weeks, nothing. I emailed them and asked them what next steps should be. No response until I withheld payment through the credit card company. With no response, I found the plants at my local Walmart @ 1/3 less than I paid to the nursery.

Then I get a letter asking me to pay 1/4 of the original price plus $3.50 in postage to replace the plants that were dead. I don't want the grapes anymore. Nor do I want to throw good money after bad.