Love being able to request items through text this is an 9+ year relationship though. Too bad RainTree doesn’t like some of us or I’d probably be popping in for a little bit of everything too.
I agree, but at least they don’t try to chastise you because “we’ve been doing this a long time” sort of deal though. I feel like i got scolded by RainTree a few years ago but 3/4 of the trees they sent me came dead anyways. I potted them up regardless just to see if I might be wrong and only the one that I knew for sure was alive, woke up. However it’s been a struggle bus so after 2 years, i just let it die. It was a Toka Plum and no idea what was wrong with it but it struggled every year. Not even my Lowes trees struggled as much as that one did and some were in pretty bad shape when i first got them. I ordered a persimmon and some pomegranates using the store credit but the persimmon came with a few measly roots and the giant taproot cut to where you know it won’t survive. I tried anyways and it died as suspected. I counted maybe 4 hair line thickness roots if i recall correctly. I felt as if they did it on purpose specifically for me also my grafting tape was missing but they replaced it after 4 emails.
I think I know which nursery this is. And I’m super happy with them as well.
I have happy memories of the old Raintree nursery when Sam Benowicz was still the owner.
I learned grafting from one of their guys - a real master of the craft- don’t recall his name.
All my original trees came from them. I picked up tons of scionwood from them for free. I gave lots of rare fig cuttings to their horticulturist - I think her name was Teresa. She traded me other stuff.
They really had the same feel as the other great nurseries in the area - Burntridge and OGW - maybe even a small step higher.
I remember in-depth conversations with Sam and others in the crew. A great nursery. It appears that old nursery is now gone.
Yeah, I remembered when i first messaged them and the feeling was totally different than what it is now. Green gage was what sent me to rain tree many moons ago. I’ve been looking for the cherry plums that used to be all over south Seattle and before i knew anything about plums, I thought greengage was the yellow sweet cherry Plum that I liked. I miss the 33-39$ prices too.
I’m trying to get all the Cherry plums and smaller Plum varieties in hopes that I can find what they took out from Seattle. The sidewalks used to randomly have a yellow or red/purple small Plum tree in the 90’s before they decided no more. Also BowLake elementary used to have it too before they remodeled it decades ago. They took out all 4 Plum trees there. Use to have 2 green cherry plums and 2 red cherry plums. I was a sapling and in my homeless era when they were remodeling it or else I would have asked for the trees no idea the variety but I’m hoping I have it one day.
I also bought lots of plants from the old owner’s starting about 1996, happy with everything. Then when ‘Nikita’s Gift’ was first available I ordered it, they waited till spring to cancel it, said it was over-ordered. They did that 2 years in a row. I finally got it, never leafed out, I reported twice that year, finally in fall I was connected to a snippy “expert” that told me I should have checked it for life earlier that year-I would have to pay for shipping again to replace it. I told her to give my money back and I wouldn’t, (and didn’t), buy from them again.
Sounds like you met with the owner
If the practice is to put in an order only through preorders instead of putting in preorders to their suppliers first, that might be why. By the time they ordered it from their suppliers, there’s not enough because they didn’t order early enough.
I hope you got your money back because the only thing they would do for me was store credit.
I spoke with another nursery owner a while back about getting something that I can’t order as a regular person and after a little bit, they told me it was out of stock from their supplier. The nursery sounds like they usually just orders a bunch and hope they sell out which they eventually do by the looks of it. Which leads me to conclude that they would also have the means to only order the amount preordered if they wanted to but that could cause a mess like so. I’m going to just buy both Sprite and Delight cherry Plum instead of waiting next year for the grafted 2 in one from the same nursery that told me their supplier is sold out.
You should have written a review on Dave’s Garden Watchdog. It’s important for people to know that their customer service is lacking.
I understand that things in life are not perfect. Sometimes things happen and you don’t get the outcome that you were hoping for, but there is no excuse for poor communication or poor customer service. If your customer service representative (CSR) can’t be nice about the mistake that (9 times out of 10) the company made or even the ones the customer makes, they have no business being a CSR.
I can remember when I started working in the CS part of the call center that I worked for and customers calling upset because their order wasn’t right. They would be cussin’ and fussin’ and even calling me all kind of names… stupid, idiot, the word that means female dog… all of it. I still remained professional. I kindly apologized when “we” messed up their order and tried to help them fix it.
We were also required to try to upsale, so after I helped them fix their order, I would ask them if they wanted to add more items to their new order. LOL, now you would think that they wouldn’t want to buy more stuff since they called with all that noise, but actually, a lot of times they would add items and even apologize for being rude to me.
I’m not saying that people should be allowed to cuss CSR’s out, but if an agent is unable to remain professional at all times while dealing with customers, then they should move on to a different career path. CS is not for them.
Irrelevant to everything here, but I found that i loved customer service so much, that i bought my own drive thru coffee stand once upon a time
Read an article about how your first interaction in the morning can dictate your overall day. Since then, I put on a super fake me in the morning for everyone and my tips went up.
I am not a morning person had a guy caught me yelling at my husband once and found out he was a sub and he liked me “mean” so I tossed my facade for him and he would get all giggly every time and saw me and came by more often. I miss that dude. He owned a few businesses too sometimes i think i made the wrong partner decision cause I’m at my wits with him.
After calling my card company, they finally shipped and i got them. Just wish i could say better things or that they changed their practice because the Blue Ribbon blueberry is exceptionally beautiful and I really want to order 3 more.
Top Shelf came stripped but that’s okay.
I really wish they would change their batch shipping process and such because they’re so close and I wish I could love them as much as the other nurseries around me.
Nice looking plants, but personally, I don’t spend money with businesses with poor customer service. I don’t care what their product looks like, you are not about to treat me like trash and then I pay for you to continue the cycle. I can handle you making mistakes, but I’m not interested in businesses with huge egos or attitude issues.
If everyone had this rule for doing business we wouldn’t be dealing with companies with poor customer service at all because those who do not want to do what’s right would be forced out of business.
East hill doesn’t ship last i checked and that must be new for pense because when i put in my last order, it wasn’t there i don’t think. Unless I’m blind and i did add it to my order
Well, I’m not against you giving RT another chance if you think you should. I just know that I probably couldn’t if they had someone answering the phone who didn’t know how to act while I was speaking with them about my order that they messed up or the dead plants that they sent me. No thanks.
Here is a thread I did a few years back on my experiences ordering from mail order plant companies. I’ve ordered from more now, but you can’t adjust old threads. If I could I’d put OGW and Parks Seed in the mid to good category. Nowadays I only order from companies that mail the product immediately. Never liked the idea of giving them my money and waiting till they feel like sending it to me. To many chances for things to go wrong, but they have the money.
It seems service these days is almost extinct. No matter what you purchase, very often it takes a lot longer for the item to even ship. I order a lot of different things on line because of our rural area. Some sellers just don’t care. And what is aggravating is they often will not let you cancel or change the order. Two sellers, Deluth Trading and Columbia will not allow you to cancel or change an order after even a few minutes of placing it.
They expect you to receive it and then return it.
Sellers should be able to change or cancel an order, if it hasn’t shipped.
One seller took almost a month to ship out some T shirts. It was a good thing I ordered in October for Christmas. Lol!
this is an 9+ year relationship though. Too bad RainTree doesn’t like some of us or I’d probably be popping in for a little bit of everything too.
also my grafting tape was missing but they replaced it after 4 emails.
no idea the variety but I’m hoping I have it one day.
had a guy caught me yelling at my husband once and found out he was a sub 
and he liked me “mean” so I tossed my facade for him and he would get all giggly every time and saw me and came by more often. I miss that dude. He owned a few businesses too 
sometimes i think i made the wrong partner decision cause I’m at my wits with him.
