Burgess Seed & Plant Co
Reviews and Complaints

5/2018 Never order from this company! Never! I did not receive the plants I ordered in March. They will not issue refund to credit card. Said they mailed a voucher for items less shipping(I never received). Customer service incompetent liars. They actually told me to shut up and hung up on me when I asked them to issue a refund to my credit card because I never received the voucher that they never mailed.

Do not under any circumstances order from this company. I had some plants that arrived dead in 2017, I followed their return policy and they sent my claim back and said they wanted to see if the plants would come out of it. I waited and this year the plants were obviously dead. I called them for replacements for the plants that I received dead and a couple more that had since died I was told that my warranty expired in April. No plants around my area were budding this year in April so I could not have known they were dead yet. I explained that to their customer service person and their response was "Sorry".

i only got part of my order, tried to call several times, sent email, with no responce

I placed an order in early spring of 2010 and finally received my order well after normal planting times. To make matters worse they took the liberty of filling my order with plants I didn't want as they were out of stock of the items I ordered.
The plants were mostly dead or close to it and I ended with about half of what I planted never coming up. These were the scrawniest plants and tubulars I ever saw. You can buy better plants anywhere supermarkets, costco, lowes home depot you name it there better. Never Again!

This company is awful. I placed order on March 11th and my credit card was charged on March 16th. They did not ship the order until April 17th. I called weekly until then and was always told that they did not know when it would ship. After it shipped on April 17th they told me it would take 2 weeks. It never came. I was told every time I called that they would not be able to do any kind of trace until it had been 30 days from the shipping date. Now that 31 days have passed they told me that I will need to wait 2 to 3 weeks in order to confirm that I did not get the package and then they will give me my money back. I have my doubts that I ever will.

Do not order from this company, in fact, don't order plants on-line period. After many years of not ordering from on-line companies I decided to take one more plunge and opted for Burgess as I wanted to order crown vetch for one side of my yard. Of the three plants received, only one sprouted leaves and the other two never did. The hydrangea looks like and is a dead twig and the snowball plant is slowly withering away. My cranberry plant has yet to arrive but if and when it does, I doubt if will be any better than the plants I've already received. For the money I paid I was surprised that they didn't even bother to pack the plants in moist moss as some companies do. This experience has convinced me once and for all if you want decent plants, buy from a local nursery and not the on-line companies with the exception of seeks as misc. items such as netting. Anything else beware. You will be disappointed!

I placed an order from the burgess seed catalog in june of this year & was told the trees would arrive within 2 weeks-in july i called and was told they were on their way, in august i received a card saying out of stock delivery in early fall-now in sept i call and am told maybe by oct-no substitution offered-no apology offered-no consideration for the time and expense of area prepared for trees that will now have to be prepared again or the three long distance phone calls i had to make, lack of customer service is an issue the company needs to take a look at-so much for what was supposed to be my anniversary present to enjoy and watch grow-how well will the trees do in the cold new jersey winter?

Improper billing practices - they charge your credit card on the spot for your entire order but shipment as well as the amount of the order being shipped is a mystery and they will not give you a date. Do not order from these people before you read the BBB reports and read from here also - http://davesgarden.com/products/gwd/c/233/

They also do not have a 800 number

They never give you a real persons name in there contact with you. You get a "Customer Care Department" at the end of your e-mails.

Any mail order plants are going to come smaller than we anticpated because of logististic and the nice catelog pictures.

But this company's customer service is terrible. Don't expect your order to come in a timely fashion. Maybe that is because of the nature of fresh plants but if you put the plant on your cover you think you would have enough on stock... It took weeks to months to get my orignal order which was rotten when it got here. So you figure call them up and get some replacements? No way you have to send them the orignal box label to get a replacement which has been over a month ago.

So save the box and anticpate that your order will not be right.

I received dead plants and they would not send new ones. I followed their policy and was told I didn't know a dead plant from a live one. I e-mailed them and told them I would never buy plants from them again. As a Master Gardener and gardening business owner I can tell if a plant is dead. Sounds like a lot of others have had the same problem. Be careful this company sends out catalogs using different names...one of them is Dutch Gardens. Still researching to find the others. I have never had problems from other companies...and I do buy a lot of plants!

we ordered a lot of plants from them and about half died I told them about it and they in so many words said too bad .SO DONT ORDER FROM BURGESS

I placed an order on 3/08/12 but after 12 days had no confirmation of the order being received or shipped despite receiving immediate confirmation from other nurseries. After calling them today, I was immediately concerned because the attitude of the representative was so unconcerned. I was told they do no email confirmations. They process the order after 1-2 weeks and ship it 1-2 weeks later. I asked to cancel the order but the attendant told me she couldn't cancel. I think when I ordered I confused Burgess with Burpee. I have discovered that some areas of the internet report over a 60% rate of unhappy customers with this company.

This is the worst customer service fiasco I have encountered since the 1970s. Plants ordered are small and poorly rooted. Failure rate was from 80% to 50%, nothing better. This in environment that had a 95% success rate with other vendors.

After a month, sent shipping label as required by company. Waited two weeks for response. I was then informed I would have to wait 6 weeks? Doesn't 4+2 equal 6? Calls and emails to customer service accomplished nothing, very brusk and non-involved attitude.

Who needs this frustration in their life? The season will be over before this company responds, (assuming they ever respond). I've written off the purchase as wasted money to a scammer, and ordered from another firm.

I ordered some plants last fall everything is fine except my sedum (3) sets for a total $13.47 plus my shipping they did not live thru the winter so I want to know what my options are at this point. I saved my order form etc.
I have been calling but always get a busy signal. Please advise

Every plant I ordered from them (two seperate multiple orders) poorly packaged and never showed any life whereas all plants from other companies all lived and grew. No easy way to provide them input on this and tell them don't send me any more catalogs.

I always buy Planters Deluxe mixed nuts because I don't like hazelnut or peanuts. Now I buy a can of said mixed nuts and to my dismay I find you have switched Brazil nuts for hazelnuts. Very unhappy in Illinois.

I just ordered stuff from them 2 weeks ago and they charge your credit card on the spot and you wait, wait and wait. After e-mails to them all you get is the order is in there shipping department or that it will take 1 to 2 weeks to process the order depending on weather and product availability. When questioned about the early charge to your credit card they just ignore that with no comment at all. Also any contact you get from them they do not give a last name of who you are talking to on the phone and on the e-mail contacts all you get is "Customer Care" for whoever replied to you. I called my credit card company and enacted a dispute on Burgess for No product and or service provided and my credit card company said they were going to remove the charges instantly. Then e-mailed them a order cancellation notice with informing them that I will not accept any packages from them as informed to do by my credit card company.
Somthing tells me from reading complaints from others that they will still pull some stunts and this matter is not over yet.
The Ill. BBB has a huge amount of such complaints about Burgess all about this type of practice as well as DEAD/faulty products with warranty recovery scam. Also they have 10 companies under a umbrella Name.
here you can also see in detail complaints on this company as well as my post.
http://davesgarden.com/products/gwd/c/233/