Buyer beware!

[Liccycat]

I am long standing keen gardener and have been gardening for over 50 years. Gardening Express are by far the worst nursery/company I have ever ordered from. Their plants are in poor condition, tiny and not garden ready. They compare very badly with the same plants bought from different nurseries and they refuse either to refund or replace.

Sorry you have had a bad time with them. I’ve done ok. 2 standard hollies for £15 and a lucky dip bare root patio fruit tree collection for a tenner in July which I thought would be a disaster .

Was supposed to be 4 but got an extra and all 5 are doing well to my surprise. I think I was lucky.

None of the plants I ordered from them a year ago ever arrived and I didn't get any replies to my emails. That cost me over £80. I still get their crappy spam emails though.

I would never go near them again. Shocking way to steal peoples cash and not provide any customer service whatsoever.

I no longer buy shrubs online after bad experience with Gardening Express. They are not at all concerned with customer service and after care. Sometimes you get lucky, but I'm never giving them my money again.

I found them terrible. Ok if the plants are in stock. Otherwise trying to get a refund took me months and a lot of energy. I will never use them again

I think I have been very lucky and am going to quit whilst I am ahead and nog use them again.

Terrible company. No direct telephone number. Ignore emails. Plants arrived dead and the rest were poorly packed

Thank you for the reminder. They kept coming up in my searches last night. I knew there was a reason I didn't want to buy from them, I must have had a dim recollection of this thread

Never bought from GE and never would because of what I have read. But I do buy online because you can get a wider range of plants, although that means buying from different places, fruit trees from a specialist fruit nursery, perennials from a specialist in perennials.

What I look for is a well established nursery, evidence that they raise their own plants, specialising on a single group rather than seeking to sell everything (which means they are a buyer-in of plants not a raiser of their own plants). A breeder is good - look for plants named after them, for example David Austin sells lots of roses with breeder’s name (the bit in brackets after the rose name) beginning AUS, Ballard’s nursery (which I think is no more) produced umpteen Michaelmas daisies named after various members of the Ballard family.

I do buy from Parkers, which seem to be a buyer-in, because of their offers, but accept their plants are small and need tlc. I’d advise anyone not confident with that to buy larger plants even though more expensive

Longacres are a good online nursery but they only deliver locally but their service and plants were excellent. GE avoid at all costs. Scam artists selling dead plants!!!

I've never been on the Gardening Express website before, so I thought I'd go and have a look. I chose 'Shrubs & Trees' from the menu and what do I find? Among the 'evergreen' and 'shrubs for containers' is a section called 'fragrant shrubs'. And what picture do you think they are using as an example of a fragrant shrub? A fragrant shrub, perhaps? No. It's a picture of lily-of-the-valley.

Says it all, really.

Yes, I don’t buy from Gardening Express either. I also have had bad luck this year with Farmer Gracy and interior bulbs. The interior paperwhites were pathetic, and the forced hyacinth didn’t ever get to full bloom…they shriveled up. Back to Peter Nyssen I think!

How bizarre as I received a couple of days ago three Nandina's that were in perfect condition and larger than I thought they would be. Very healthy plants and very well packaged.

Why he a sheep?

I've bought from them many times and never had a problem.

Because I can’t be doing with hassle if it goes wrong and would like to minimise the chances of it going wrong. If that makes me a sheep then I am fine with that.

What a strange comment to make .

Someone more suspicious than me would be forgiven for thinking that this thread had come to the attention of GE’s social media team. Good thing I don’t have a suspicious nature.

Totally agree - gardening express are appalling.
Everything I've ordered from them arrived diseased or dead and customer service is completely non existent.

Never again.

They've just be tempting me with 15% off some of their Dahlia tubers

I've not bought anything from Gardening Express but have bought very successfully from You Garden. My two lovely Acers came from there.

Have been disappointed by Farmer Gracy twice so won't get anything from them again.

They have always been terrible in my experience, I did two orders. Never again. I had to chase them on delivery and on both occasions one of the plants was in very poor condition.

I know they are cheap but it seems the reason is nearly zero customer service

Eek I just bought from them! Fingers crossed I'm one of the lucky ones

I ordered off a gardener's express it took about 2 weeks for delivery I received my plants yesterday I ordered a lucky dip ten plants I thought I was gonna get one of each plant I got 3 sets of 2 every single plant is unhealthy of damaged in some way. I believed I was going to get quality plants because of all these tests the plants have to go through before they send them out and then they send me complete rubbish. The only plant I got healthy was the the IVy. And that's because they near impossible to kill anyway. I also ordered 2 lavender trees 2 of the stems were broken which I have now since used a splint. I am waiting to hear back from customer service these are The Worst Plants ive ever bought in My Life I'm actually disgusted.