Would you accept this?

[ChipButtiesRule]

I bought a choisya from an reputable online seller. I wanted a semi-mature shrub so spent £60 on a 10 litre sized plant.

It's arrived today and I'm really disappointed. As I took it (carefully!) out the box it was coming away from the soil, like the plant was loose. I tugged very gently and the whole plant came out of the pot and has such a small root ball. It can't have taken up more than 20% of the total size of the pot.

It really looks like a 2 litre ish root ball that has just been repotted into a much-too-big pot to be sent out and sold for a higher price.

Just want to check I'm not being unrealistic in my expectation?

I don't think I've ever been to a garden centre that doesn't have them, so you should be able to find one this weekend.

A lot of them do that trick of selling plants by pot size.

It gives them a nice cheap & easy way of potting something small into a larger pot and charging three times as much.

Complain.

That plant shouldn't have cost more than a tenner or so.

Thanks @fluffycloudalert - I did complain, they agreed and refunded me the total cost and I will go on a hunt this weekend to find a good replacement that I can see in person before I buy. Which is probably what I should have done anyway, with a costly plant

It's good to hear Crocus refunded you.

I bought a 2l pot Choisya from Waitrose 5 years ago for £12. It settled and grew really quickly and seems to have been 'fully grown' from year one really. In fact, it has pretty much taken over its bed now, so I am not sure you need to buy a big (£60) one.

Norfolk Quality Plants are a really good online plant seller. They charge about £13 to £15 for good sized plants and they are packaged really well.