Direct Gardening Bloomington, Il 61704

DirectGardening.com Review companionplant 2020-04-28T12:46:11+00:00

DirectGardening.com

Direct Gardening (DirectGardening.com) is a online retailer of everything gardening-related based out of Bloomington, IL. The generally service gardeners who are located in the contenental USA and Puerto Rico. While their website lacks the modern look and feel of other retailers, these guys have been in the business for a long time.

About Direct Gardening (House of Wesley, Inc.)

Phone: (309) 662-7943
Address: 1704 Morrissey Drive, Bloomington, IL 61704
BBB Rating: C
Facebook: facebook.com/Direct-Gardening

Overall Pricing: Medium
Seed selection: Medium
Bulb Selection: Small
Organic Seeds: No
Heirloom Seeds: Yes
Garden Supply Selection: Full selection

Editor's Review of DirectGardening.com

In researching some of the best places to buy seeds online, we can across DirectGardening.com. While their website and brand seems to be no-frills, their selection of seeds, heirlooms, supplies and more seems to be pretty expansive.

Thousands of seeds
No organics but heirlooms seem plentiful
Trees, shrubs, etc. which many other online retails like Eden Brothers do NOT offer
Vines and climbers

In reviewing their pricing for a set of products, DirectGardening.com has middle-range pricing for comprable products. Definitely worth a look.

DirectGardening.com Product Offerings

Product	Offerings
Seeds	250+ seed varieties
Plants and Trees	Large variety of plants and trees which ship to you
Flower Bulbs	Several hundred varieties of flower bulbs (seasonal)
Organics	No/few organics
Heirlooms	Hundreds of varieties of heirloom flower and vegetable seeds
Gardening Accessories	Fertilizers, sprays, traps, repellents, etc.
Bulk Seeds	Not offered from what we can see

Direct Gardening Shipping and Customer Service

Shipping Charges

DirectGardening.com charges for shipping except when noted. Direct Gardening shipping charges seem to be reasonably priced and orders generally seem to ship quickly.

Customer Service & Refunds

Per their guarantee, DirectGardening.com offers free replacement (with shipping label) within 1 year of purchases, one of the best the we've seen.

DirectGardening.com Coupons

We do our very best to keep coupon codes up to date. Please contact us if a Direct Gardening coupon listed here is no longer valid. Thank you! Click to see more Direct Gardening coupons.

Direct Gardening Customer Reviews (User Submitted)

Have you shopped on DirectGardening.com? If so, please tell us about your experience.

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19 Comments

Minnesota May 13, 2018 at 5:33 pm - Reply

Direct Gardening substituted flowers for shrubs. Was told I should have used comments field to say "No substituting". Problem was I never found the comments field on their webpage. And flowers were dead on arrival.
Thomas January 13, 2019 at 5:32 pm - Reply

This is my place.I started out with so many garden companies when I first started gardening.With Direct Gardening I've had the most success.Now,yes some plants die but these guys are the best at getting you a replacement,just keep that label that is on the packaging and send it to them for a new plant within a year after purchase.I think usually the ones that die is due to the long shipping experience but that is the convenience of ordering online because you just can't get the quality and variety of plants these guys have at the local nursery and the local nurseries are way overpriced.I will stick with Direct Gardening and I definitely recommend them…try one of their gorgeous tree peonies…happy gardening!
Lyvers23 February 13, 2019 at 5:32 pm - Reply

Website say ships in 2 weeks. I am still waiting going on 5 weeks for probably a bad shipment after reading the reviews. Should have done my research first lesson learned
Randhill March 13, 2019 at 5:32 pm - Reply

I ordered item #4377 3 to 4′ stella cherry tree. It arrived on 5/4/19. It was only 18 inches in height. A little short in height per their ad I would say; requested a return
JohnA May 7, 2019 at 4:50 am - Reply

Their not honest the size it states online was twice the size of what I received and they are not trying to make things better.
Corina May 23, 2019 at 1:28 am - Reply

I saw a lot of bad reviews but I still made and order and I was pretty happy my order came with healthy bulbs it took a bit longer since they were on back order. Overall good.
Eagle June 2, 2019 at 11:53 pm - Reply

Not good bad customer service and they got my order wrong.
susan magruder August 2, 2019 at 11:30 pm - Reply

totally dishonest in their product guarantee, replacement, or refund. sent part of dead bush back with shipping label and note they sent all back to me and told me to re write note more specifically ! called and customer service rep was intentionally brain dead. do not waste your time or money on this dishonest company.have ordered online for years and direct gardening is the only co that did not honor their own guarantee. lousy plants, lousy customer service..
Thao Tran September 10, 2019 at 9:27 pm - Reply

If you have ever had to deal with any horrible company and thought it was the worst, Direct Gardening company is thousand times worse. They sent me dead plants and when I asked to return, they wanted me to send the original package back and to pay for the return shipping cost. What? I cannot believe that there is a company like this exist in America.

This company not only makes money from products they sell but they also make money from overcharge for shipping. At the end, you will lose money one way or another way. I purchased 24 white strawberry roots; it took them a week to ship the order out and took ten days for me to receive it. The worst thing was all the roots died and the package was a plastic bag. I returned the package by USPS and paid only $4 for two days shipping. So, they made at least $7 to $8 for only the shipping. This is why they love to send dead products. They don't care about their customers, they only care about how to steal your money. They are the scam company.

Please, do not ever ask for the refund if they didn't issue the cost of shipping. You should call your credit cards to dispute it. If there are many people call and dispute transactions. For a long term it will hurt the company for it and you will get the full refund.

This is a link you can find it helpful if they overcharge for shipping:
https://www.attorneystakingaction.com/excessive-shipping-costs
Earl Franklin March 30, 2020 at 11:59 pm - Reply

Never again! These guys have an attractive web site. I ordered some stuff. Then some more. And more. Five orders and several hundreds of dollars. Slowly, it began arriving. The rose tree was the crowning jewel. The good news is the blueberries look like they might survive. The rose tree is dead as a door nail. And the Douglas firs. And the thyme. And lots more that I cannot remember, because I can no longer see my orders on their website. Alas, it is all my fault because I did not retain and therefore cannot return the original shipping labels. What, their online records and the order numbers that I provided are insufficient? Why have they denied my access to my order records?
Pam Bloom April 6, 2020 at 1:20 pm - Reply

I just placed my second order with Direct Gardening. I waffled and worried about ordering from them again remembering what I went through with my first order (which mirrored many of the reviews here and else where). But all I have to do is look out my front window and see the carpet of Candy Tufts to make me reconsider and order from them again. I ordered 20 plants that looked dead upon arrival and 17 of them leafed out about a month after I planted them and even bloomed the first year. Two years later and I have to thin them out! Yes, I did lose 3 to mold but I think that was my fault. I did not ask for replacements as I was still mad at the company but at the price I felt in great loss. And I think that is the key. They are CHEAP and for a certain gardener, like me, that means a lot.

And I think that a lot of negative reviews are well deserved and self-inflicted by the nursery. It may be in an effort to keep cost down or just due to bad guidance but their website lacks a lot of crucial information. They do a terrible job of informing customers about how their plants will ship (i.e. if they are bare root/dormant), giving updates on orders in process and, of course, customer service can be hard to reach. But with the dormant plants comes really good planting instructions and if you follow them, your plants should do fine. My Candy Tufts also benefited from a rainy late spring/summer. So if you do order from them, you will probably want to water more often than you would something that has already leafed out when planted.
MaryAnn DiPaola May 7, 2020 at 8:46 pm - Reply

I ordered plants online from 4 different companies this season and Direct Gardening wins first place for lack of communication, rudeness, bad shipping, delayed shipping and the ugliest, broken and dried out plants ever. They use outdated packaging techniques, don't communicate about shipping and generally sell junk…if you ever receive it al all. Good luck if you place an order with them. Pathetic.
Thomas Foster May 23, 2020 at 7:23 pm - Reply

This place is a scam and falsely advertises plant they do not have and the ones that come in are rittled with diseases. I hope they go out of business honestly its not worth the health of you're garden. Who sends the wrong plants? And diseased at that? They even sent it in a plastic bad so the came in really broken and rotted.
jua May 29, 2020 at 11:17 pm - Reply

Dont buy from them WARNING, you wont get your product for three month, thats if you ever get it, they wont refund even if you dont receive it… stay away and read the reviews…
Taber Diane August 22, 2020 at 2:06 pm - Reply

Ordering from direct gardening was a HUGE mistake. Bogus return policy. The product comes winterized. Most of it was dead. I spent over 100 dollars and only 10% lived. I Want my money back, but will never see a dime.
SCOTT KLINE September 14, 2020 at 2:11 pm - Reply

Avoid these people. They are a joke if it is more than one guy in a basement. They have crazy low pricing for a reason, they send dead twigs to you. They then want the label of the box, the invoice, and payment mailed to them and other items to just try and get a replacement. They have no internal account, bookkeeping, or order system. They have no way to look up orders and make the dead things they sent, right. I bought a few cheap priced trees from them. They came looking like a prank. After 3 weeks, they are still dead twigs. They will do nothing to help. Do yourselves a favor, there many great nurseries that stand behind their plants and trees. They actually have a service department and ethics. Go to Nature Hills, Michigan Bulb Co, Gurneys, and others out there.
MICHELLE MARIE MARTINO October 22, 2020 at 5:24 pm - Reply

DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES ORDER FROM THIS COMPANY.
There is a reason there are over 600 reviews and ALL are negative. Silly me not researching their reviews before ordering. Customer service is nonexistent, they will not cancel an order that has not shipped in over 8 weeks (my ground is covered with snow and going to freeze this weekend – no way to plant bulbs now). When they do ship orders, they are incomplete orders and offer no assistance in trying to rectify their mistake. You cannot speak to a supervisor….they either hang up on you when you ask for a supervisor, make excuses when you are forced to explain why you want a supervisor or, my favorite, a supervisor is not available; call back. I will be contacting Visa and disputing my 2 orders and I will be sharing this review far and wide! Friends, feel free to share!
A 1 Star is too good for this company.
I have also filed a formal complaint with the Illinois Department of Consumer Affairs and the McLean County Chamber of Commerce.
becky October 26, 2020 at 11:07 pm - Reply

Do not ever, ever, **ever** order from this company, ever. They don't ship plants, they lie; they ship roots. If you do end up with a plant or I should say barely a sprout, it will die.

I ordered in April, they took my payment in May, and I got a tiny bag in mid-June. Half of everything arrived dead. I shipped back, at my expense, half of the order and they have not issued a refund. The rest of my order? Died.

In fact, they're claiming I didn't pay them at all which is utterly absurd as I have the bank statement showing paid. Now they're threatening me with legal and police action, harassing me, trying to extort money I already had paid them. Half of which they still have not refunded.

They do not answer their phones. They reply by email so slowly and never with any actual useful information. These people are total scammers and I do not know how they sleep at night knowing what they do to people.

Reported to BBB and will report them other places. They need to be shut down.

Avoid at all costs.
Mark Martin February 18, 2021 at 9:57 pm - Reply

Worst ever terrible customer support
Don't stand behind shipping out wrong stuff