Comments regarding Hortico Nurseries Inc.

Posted on May 20, 2014, updated July 18, 2014
Posted on December 10, 2013, updated May 20, 2014
Posted on December 10, 2013, updated December 10, 2013
BUYER BEWARE!!!!!
Nov 1, 2013 charged my account $29.59 for they said a 10% deposit, it was more like 20% and told roses being shipped next week
Nov. 19 E-mailed again was told roses being shipped next week
Dec 2nd phoned them immediately when M/C had to cancel my card as it was used twice in Quebec and gave them my Visa number. told rose being shipped Wednesday.
Dec 6 recieved e-mail from them that they were unable to ship 2 of the roses I orderd.
Dec 9 sent e-mail to ask, where were rose NO Reply
Dec10 today phoned and was told all the roses had been shipped, and were unable to ship mine due to weather conditions.
Will never never order from them again and hope everyone else is aware of the shoddy business.
Have given them my Visa number but I have doubts I will get my deposit returned

Posted on October 7, 2011, updated October 25, 2012
I have ordered several times and have always had great customer service. Plants arrive healthy and always within the time frame I ask for. I couldn't be happier with my experience with them.

I placed my order with Hortico 08/31/09 and received a confirmation almost immediately. This confirmation stated that the rose would be available for shipment 10/01/09 - 03/31/10. This was acceptable to me and my card was charged. I was notified via e-mail at the end of '09 that the rose would not be available for shipment until spring. Again that was fine with me.

Upon checking my files 05/19/10, I noticed that I had not received the rose and had not received any sort of update regarding delays in shipment of the rose since last year. Certainly, if the rose would have been unavailable until fall, I would have expected an unprompted update in spring and even an offer to credit my card.

I contacted Hortico via telephone and was informed my Katey that the rose in question had not been available from Hortico for the entire season nor last season. Also, I was told by Katey that the confirming order number--which I received via e-mail upon placing the order--was a bad number. She was willing to argue this point for some time but, since I had a copy of the confirming e-mail in my hand, I was not really willing to argue the point. And certainly any confirming number issued by Hortico--even if it was only a temporary number--should be searchable by any Hortico employee. She then informed me that she could search my order by my name. Why not just get to that in the first place?

And indeed why take the order in the first place? And charge my card? And certainly why would I have to contact them to find that out? This was not a huge order but really!

I shall report back upong the receipt of the credit to my card. I cannot speak for the quality of the plants, or the shipping, but they need to work on their customer service.

The rose was delivered in good shape with adequate size, but was delivered six weeks after my requested ship date. The company did respond quickly to all of my e-mails and apologized for the late shipment.

Having in the past had very bad experience with this company, I am now delighted to report some of the best experience I have had in many years of mailorder buying. I placed an order early this month which is now on its way to me, an astonishing fact in itself, since most eastern companies force you to wait for their shipping schedules convenience. In the course of processing my order, Hortico sent me several emails and two phone calls to clarify various issues involving out of stock material and shipping.

Every single person I dealt with was friendly and helpful and ALSO efficient. It actually was fun to deal with them --- I could almost feel the past bad experience washing away email by email.

The rose list is now one of the best anywhere, a lot of new "modern oldfashioned" that I haven't seen anywhere else, a good supply of Kordes, various Australian breeders and prairie hardy roses as well as some teas. Alas, I can imagine spending all too much time there! I will post again when the roses arrive to tell of their condition.

As a former employee of Hortico I have to say this.
The company is very disorganized. The employees do try very hard to provide good service but the majority of complaints I have read about are the result of poor organization.
The company does have a giant selection of hard to find plants. And the managers know more about plants than many other nursery managers.
Because of their selection and price a lot of the nurseries around Hortico are selling plants that they bought from Hortico at an inflated price.
I would definately buy plants from Hortico.

I too have just recently had a very bad experience with this company.

I ordered a huge order of plants that I had had difficulty olocating elsewhere (bog plants and woodland plants, including lady-slippers, and stepable plants). I also bought a Milky-way flowering dogwood, 2 azaleas and a pieris mountain fire.

My pre-order emails communications were very nice, however, going to pick up the plants and most post-visit experiences have been very bad.

The following plants were sunburnt:

fern-leaf peony
sweet woodruff
ajuga chocolate chip
lysymachia numillaria aureola

The following were nutrient difficient (iron):

The dogwood
The pieris
Both azaleas (also too packed in at the greenhouse -- no lower branch growth)

The following were simply very very week plants:

The dog-toothed violets (trout lilies)
marsh marigolds
cardinal flower
siberian iris
anacyclus depressus

The following were mislabled:

wrong variety of pieris
wrong variety of cardinal flower

The following were very healthy and surprise me given the other's conditions:

pitcher plants (but I would order from niagra exotics next time)
ladyslippers (big plants looking decent! for half price)
jack in the pulpits

However, more than half my order was unavailble (and I wasn't told until after I got there). But, probably a good thing in the end!

I wrote a letter to ask a question on how to help my plants (not demanding a refund!) and got no response, wrote another asking if the dogwood was mislabelled (far, far, far, too pale a set of leaves) and got no response. Phoned and got hung up on!

Anyways, never never do business with these people.

If you visited their greenhouses, you'd understand why the negative comments.

I was going to place a mail order last year, but instead drove to their place for a visit as I was very impressed with their selections of hard to find trees and plants in their catalog.

When I got to their nursery I was dismayed. The greenhouses were completely disorganized, many pots were full of weeds and many were mislabeled. Many were just dead.

But..i did find a lot of what I was looking for, but it was only because i got to hand pick what I wanted. As for the ephemerals, I just didn't take a chance if it wasn't already poking up in the pot. We did get a lot of wonderful trillium species and a few hard to find clematis.

I am a repeat customer, they can't be all that bad.

I've had several experiences with mis-labelling from Hortico. However, the selection of plants is unmatched; that keeps me returning. And their prices are really, really reasonable. A big plus. You take your chances, but they're not robbing you blind.

Many of the best-loved plants in my garden have come from them: Japanese Maples, magnolias, poppies...

This is a hit and miss nursery as sometimes the order is not mixed up and okay but many times you get a poorly packaged, mislabeled and very low quality plants.

From two orders they have send shipments which required 3 weeks in transit - some plants withered, others ok, all sprouting. One plant I requested replacement was replaced. All in all: expensive, chancy, good variety though. Management seem both positive and behind times at same time.