Comments regarding Harris Seeds / Garden Trends

Ordered several kinds of seeds from them. They were well packaged and labeled.

Unfortunately none of the wave petunias actually were wave petunias but flowers I had not ordered at all, I had to look them up and they were summer snapdragons.

So I contacted them about it and was told they haven’t heard any other complaints about it and was asked how I planted them, did I plant them in the ground, the implication being I must be confused about what I planted where. But I had used an indoor greenhouse with everything labeled and have never bought summer snapdragons in my life.

I told them so and never heard back from them. I didn’t spend a lot of on them, just a few packs, so I’m not sure why they didn’t find it necessary to even offer to send replacement seeds.

I won’t be using them again.

Posted on August 8, 2018, updated February 21, 2019
The worst experience ordering seeds in my decades of gardening. I ordered Winter squash "Honey Nut" after careful garden planning and research, I was very interested in this new squash from Cornell that had received a lot of press. I received the seed from Harris, labeled Honey Nut, and proceeded to devote a lot of garden space to it. Once the plants started setting squash, they looked rather odd, not what I was expecting at all. But since I had never grown this, I thought perhaps I was mistaken. Several days ago, I received a "refund" to my credit card from Harris. No explanation or indication why. I called them to inquire. Turns out they sent out a completely different seed and I am now growing tons of Delicata squash. Not even an email from them to explain what happened! Don't you think the least they could do would be to send the correct seed or offer a gift card of some kind to compensate for all the labor and time that went into growing the mislabeled plants? I will never buy from them again, the most basic obligation of a garden supplier is to sell properly labeled items. Shame on them!!

"On Aug 19, 2018 9:20 PM, Harris Seeds / Garden Trends responded with:

Thank you for your review and for being a loyal Harris Seeds customer. In regards to the winter squash you received that was not what you ordered, we sincerely apologize for the mix up. When the issue was discovered, we took action to notify and refund our customers who ordered the seed as promptly as we could. In doing this, we realized that the refund was being processed before the letters of notification were reaching our customers. We understand the confusion this causes and have made efforts to re-structure our system to avoid this in the future. Your disappointment in not receiving the item you ordered is also completely understandable. We pride ourselves on selling top quality seeds and do all we can to ensure that this is the case. Rarely, a mix-up will occur in seed processing and it is not discovered until late in the season, as happened with the Honeynut Squash and Bush Delicata Squash this year. This is certainly something we wish to avoid, and we are implementing additional checks to help prevent such occurrences in the future.

We sincerely apologize again for the issues you encountered. Your feedback is very much appreciated, as it helps us to improve and to better serve our customers. If you have any additional questions or concerns, please feel free to reach out to our customer care team. You may call us at 888.270.4751 or send us an email through this link: [HYPERLINK@www.gardentrends.com]"

Posted on November 30, 2017, updated November 30, 2017
I decided to try a different company. I ordered a garlic bulb collection because I received an email from them saying they had starting shipping garlic. A week later my order was still in "Getting order ready" status. I called after 10 days and was told my order would ship in 2 days. I waited 5 and called back to be told it would be another 2 weeks. At no time did Harris contact me with a order status or tell me there was a backorder. Their site clearly says "All orders (except back orders) are normally shipped within 48 hours of receipt." I canceled my order and tried another new company that I am very happy with.

Today I received an email: "I am sorry that I missed you this morning. I was calling to thank you for your interest in Harris Seeds. I know that you tried to order the organic garlic collection back in September and unfortunately the order was cancelled due to a back order on of the items in the collection. We apologize for the inconvenience." My order was made almost 3 months ago!! On top of that, I have been home all day and received zero calls and zero messages. They didn't miss me... they didn't even try! I even verified that my correct number is on file with them.

I tried a new company based on a friend's review. I will not order from them again.

I ordered 2 apple trees, 5 raspberry bushes and some rhubarb in March 2010. In early April, I emailed asking when I should expect them as I was leaving town for an extended trip and needed them by April 22. Three or four days later I got an email that said they were scheduled to be shipped the week of April 26 and if there were any problem with that, I should call them. So, I called them, (it was now April 15th) and was told that they could not ship anything early. They did offer to ship a week later, but I would not be home to receive them until the end of May. No offer was made to ship part of the order or to make any other accommodation. So I canceled the order. I do not understand why they could not ship any of the things I ordered 5 days earlier. It just doesn't make sense to me. I was very disappointed.

I placed an order with this company after receiving their catalog in the mail. I ordered cherry tomatoes that cascade from a hanging basket, as well as sugar baby watermelon seeds.

The company sent my tomato seeds but said the watermelon seeds were on back order. I planted the tomato seeds, and absolutely nothing happened after two and a half weeks. I also got tired of waiting for my watermelon seeds to arrive so I went to my local home center and bought a packet of sugar baby watermelon seeds and a packet of cherry tomatoes. All came up fairly quickly and are growing nicely.

I received a call today 5/10 (a month later) from Harris seed to tell me the sugar baby watermelon seeds are still on back order. I told the CS rep to cancel the order, as I already bought the seeds elsewhere. All she said was "Okay. Thank you." No apology from the company.

I will not be ordering from them again.

This year I decided to test several companies and their vegetable seed to do my own comparisons with pricing, germination, quality, etc. When I received my four packets of seed from Harris, I was shocked to see that they were all treated seeds. If the catalog said that their seeds were treated, then this statement was very well hidden. I have not found anything on their website either. As an organic grower, it is important to me to know that I am not adding any chemicals to the garden. If I had known that these seeds were treated, I would not have ordered them.

I ordered some wave petunias this year as a surprise for the wife. we recieved a partial order of almost dead plants ,mainly because they had very little root system. The second batch of 20 had been back ordered twice due to what they said was problems with germination. out of the 20 wave petunia plants we did get, 6 survived barely and it turned out they were not waves at all they were trailing petunia's. We bought our waves from wal-mart and they have gone crazy. yes harris did credit my payment for the second batch not received.

Hi,

Placed two orders with them, hoping they'd get their act together. Forget about it (as of 2001, won't order from in 2002). Mis-shipped simple order and backordered indefinitely some seed starting kits that were obviously low-balled because every other catalog was more expensive.
Cheesy answer why they weren't available (other companies had no problem filling order).
Year before, seed was of marginal quality.
Caveat emptor!

I ordered some calla lily bulbs and some begonia plants from Harris. The bulbs came up nicely, but I was very disappointed with the plants. They were very small and even though I planted and watered them, all but one died. I don't think I'll order from them again.