To warn you all NEVER to buy plants from Thompson and Morgan!!

[Sheepareawesome]

At the start of May, with the garden centres closed, I thought why not order some plants online for the first time. Looked through my Gardeners' World mag and saw some ads for Thompson and Morgan. They looked good, their website was good and had quotes from satisfied customers, so I placed an order for 3 items.

BIG MISTAKE!!

The first 2 deliveries took one week to arrive from being posted, so were obviously dead on arrival. Emailed them (website said phones were off so email only) to complain and ask to cancel remainder of order which hadn't been sent yet as I didn't want to receive yet more dead plants. Got a reply with an apology and then a refund for the dead plants, but she said I couldn't cancel the remaining item that wasn't sent at that time as it was being picked and they couldn't stop it being sent. She said to reject or return the delivery and when they get the items back they would refund.

Hmm, bit strange but I thought OK as they said picking took 5 days so I was expecting them quite soon so should get the refund quite soon. That was 28th May and they still haven't been sent! Or refunded!

I looked into Consumer law as I was sure I had the right to cancel, and sure enough it says online you can cancel any time after placing the order up to 14 days after you receive the items. Since I haven't received the items, nor have I had an email telling me they have been sent, (nor an email telling me they are delayed from the original date of 21 days which has now long passed) I emailed them again 2 days ago, yet again asking to cancel the remainder of the order.

Yet again I was told they can't cancel as it is being picked. I asked them about the Consumer Contract Law in my email and they completely ignored this - just sent the bog standard 'sorry we can't cancel send it back if you don't want it sorry for any inconvenience' email.

So here I am, 6 weeks after ordering items that were supposed to take 3 weeks, still waiting for a company who so far have taken 19 days to do something they said would take 5 days, to send me an order I don't want which I then have to reject or return to them and then wait to get a refund.

If they can pick and post an order they can cancel it. What a complete farce of a company! Looking at their Trust Pilot and the various FB complaints groups, I am amazed they are still in business. Shame I didn't look before I ordered...

And to top it all, I paid using PP so I thought that would be OK so I tried to dispute it. PP opened the dispute and I got an email saying my email was passed to T & M so to wait for them to reply.....not the most helpful!

I expect I will get my money back at some point but for goodness sake how crap a company is this?!?

Anyone who can't get to a garden centre and who is considering ordering online - I strongly recommend you AVOID Thompson and Morgan! AAAARRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!

I ordered 5 dwarf fruit trees and they were in very poor condition

Yes I'm not buying from them again - they all arrive at different times and in not very good condition

This is not just a covid thing for T&M - they've been pretty iffy for 2 or 3 years now. Such a shame as they used to be great.

As well as adding to the recommendations for Sarah Raven and Rocket Gardens, I'd also add Beth Chatto and Ashwood Nurseries - superb for perennials.

Covid or not I've always been disappointed by mail delivery from the big names.

JP's... Bougainvillea that had no leaves and were utterly DOA, same with their fuchsia collection.

T&M.... Strawberries arrived diseased and battered

Gardening Express.... Specialist Acer arrived with so much leaf scorch I had to de-leaf it in its entirety and give it a fighting chance to grow back by the autumn.

All of the companies above I ordered from last year and despite saying 7 days from order to delivery they were all 1-3 months late and such small pathetic specimens it rendered them completely pointless to display that season. I can't imagine they get much repeat business. I've learned my lesson the expensive way and have grown myself or waited until the garden centres are open.

The only company I've been happy with was David Austin. Roses arrived in time and in good condition

I bought bulbs pre pandemic and they were fine!

I posted earlier about T&M sending me dead raspberry canes and then not replying for weeks. I emailed them again yesterday in the back of this thread detailing what had happened and they've emailed me back to say they're sending me replacements. Obviously yet to arrive but it's more promising than no reply 😊

Beautiful rose in my garden and the plug plants were very good

Hurrah my tomato plants have arrived at last from T&M

Wow. Good luck getting any tomatoes out of those this season. They may produce something next year I guess.

I was going to say don’t use primrose either . I had to fight for a full refund for an item they said was in stock but never arrived . They said they were struggling because of increased orders , they should have taken the opportunity and ran with it . I won’t use them again because they had no customer service skills at all.

Wow at those tomato plants.

I think that everyone accepts there may be longer delivery times on plants just now, but when there is no information at the point of ordering, other than it may take longer than usual and then you discover their eta is two or three months ahead, then I think that they can be said to have broken their contract, or at least, been economical with the truth.

If you like heuchera, I ordered some from Heucheraholics. They’re based in the New Forest and in normal circumstances, have open days. Their website is good, the delivery times were stated as 3-4 weeks and they arrived within that timescale. The plants were really well packaged and excellent quality.

Thanks to all those who’ve posted recommendations for reliable suppliers, very useful for the future.

Welshmaenad
Sorry for tardy reply
I have been looking for the contact details
Then tried to DM you to no avail

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That's shocking. In May I ordered some plants (heucheras) from a specialist company in France, they arrived safely and in good condition 2 days after dispatch, 5 days after placing the order. Delivery was the same as it would cost from the main UK specialist growers. I just didn't want to wait 4 weeks to receive my order.

Never heard of this company but DH is a delivery driver and said last week was the first time since lockdown that they caught up with the deliveries - been clearing the backlog for weeks and months- could be the delivery company's issue rather than the seller's. Bit of forbearance as Martin Lewis would say! But good to have a rant sometimes!

Secret gardening club are fab - cheap and delivery in 3 working days! Had to wait 6 weeks for my last Crocus order. Great Dixter have a great online nursery with really interesting reasonable plants. Will definitely check out Morrison’s now though.

@NervousInYorkshire

I've just had a T&M order from last week delivered and it's fine.

Marshalls, on the other hand..
I ordered plants at the beginning of May for a memorial type planting on a specific day in June. I chased up at the end of May and got an auto reply saying they might take up to three weeks to reply.
The day in June came and went, and still nothing. I got an email five days later thanking me for cancelling my order.

I forgot there were two parts to my delivery The agapanthus that came last week is doing well; the dozen gerbera plants that came today are really bushy and healthy - i don't know if I've jusr been really lucky or if it's so hit and miss with T&M.

Oh - and I'll update when I see how the cucumber plants I just ordered on Ebay turn out....

My Thompson and Morgan stuff took longer but the plants were fine,I'm very happy to keep using them

I have just received the replacement tomato plants (see further up thread). Four out of six are completely dead: hoping I may be able to revive the other two but doubtful.

With regard to suggestions we should cut them some slack. Sorry, but I and many others have been unable to go to garden centres. For T & M to then suggest they can supply this service is false advertising. They keep advertising to get new customers, but are unable to supply those further back in the supply chain. They should have done as other grocery suppliers did: acknowledge they could not keep up with demand and limit orders to current customers/and/or those unable to leave their houses.

I really cannot be bothered to ask for a refund: all I can do is to warn others of their disgraceful service.

Had anyone tried Farmer Gravy? I keep getting their adverts and they have a lovely range of bulbs. Can't decide between them and Sarah Raven for my autumn bulb fix.

Gracy!

The plug plants ordered before lockdown from T and M have been fab, petunias on a special offer all arrived dead and seeds took forever. Plants from RHS tip top. Sarah Raven took ages but arrived in good health.

I've ordered a lot from Gardening Express, YouGarden and some from Garden Bargains. They took weeks and weeks to arrive, but were open about their difficulties with low staff and very high orders. Plants were fine when they arrived, a bit behind for the season but they were okay. T&M...36 raspberries...about 2 alive and thats from suckers.