| I’ve used the ratings here to help me find vendors for many years. Seeing the amount of negative ratings for this company, I was reluctant to purchase a dozen plants—but the price was untouchable anywhere else. So, I looked for reviews on the company at other sites and found they were much more favorable. Without trying to read too much into it, I decided to roll the dice and see what happens.
For starters, these plants are EXPENSIVE for tiny 2″ pots. So my expectations are that they are gonna be good investments.
Fast forward to receiving the goods.
Instead of what I ordered (string of TURTLES & string of DAGGERS), this guy sends me 2 string of HEARTS.
After several back and forth emails with photos, he finally Sends a partial refund for string of turtles only because he says “What a joke. String of Daggers is the same genus and species as String of Hearts.”
Alan you are a joke and a scam artist at best.
Don’t buy from this guy. There are a lot of sellers who are honest and customer service oriented and will work with you. I’ve been buying plants online for a couple of years now and have had good luck with many online sellers including Etsy shops. I’ve never had quite an experience as I’ve had with Alan hirts. You should google his shop reviews too, they are eye opening. wish I had seen sooner before my purchase as mid-shipments of plants are a regular occurrence.
I messaged and sent photos of my plants upon arrival and got excuses or brushed off. My most recent order I had emailed five times or more with plants that arrived in terrible. I finally got a message back stating “live plant sales online are final”. Well, if you send me a dead plant and I email you immediately, good customer service would be to refund the plants.
Disappointed and feeling ripped off! Caveat emptor. On January 27th, 2020, sunrider5 added the following:
My recent order arrived quickly! I ordered 50 strawberry plants because they had both varieties I wanted and at a great price. The bare root plants arrived with large root clusters. The plants were clearly arrived and started thriving within days.
Unfortunately I also ordered a “Romeo” bush cherry. The plant was the correct size but was also clearly dead. It arrived desiccated wrapped in completely dry paper towels. No fibrous roots and the twigs just snapped off with no green core.
I contacted Hirts and they were great. They asked me to plant it and try to wait 2 weeks to check for any growth, then contact at them back. I gave the cherry a soak and planted it in a pot and doted on it. Two weeks later still dead. I contacted Hirts and within minutes they sent me a refund for the plant.
Each plant I’ve actually recieved has been great. The shipping is fast and the plants are as pictured, and really pretty- at a great price.
My issue lies with the sansevieria. I’ve bought and paid for this thing twice now.. and just never got it. The first time I thought it was a mistake, so I emailed Matt. He said it was out of stock and sent me a new order form, with the sans X’d put and a note that I had been refunded.
The second time I emailed him again asking if he could send me the new order form just like last time, so that I could have in my records that this had not been sent to me, with written confirmation of the refund. He was very curt and rude- saying “I can not. You attached the order form with your email.” I was like, yeah I know but it says on here that the sans is in my shipment, but it’s not. I assume it’s out of stock yet again and I’d like a written record that it wasn’t sent to me and I’m not being charged. He responded to my email with the proper order form. That’s it- no apology or any other words just the form. Kinda “meh” customer service but whatever.
My suggestion would be- if someone orders something and it’s out of stock by the time you go to mail it, you really should send them an email or refund notice or at the very least include a packing slip with the shipment that says “not in stock, wasn’t sent to customer, customer refunded”. I like to have a paper trail when it comes to my money because if I look on my account and am still charged for it, I have no proof I didn’t get it. You know what I mean?
I also feel like overselling things once is excusable. But twice? They need to keep an updated online inventory that correlates with their in-house inventory. It said that multiple were available when I purchased it. I have no clue why I can’t seem to actually receive it. It’s very odd I’ve never experienced this before, and I shop 99% online these days. On October 25th, 2018, Sophiar728 added the following:
The first batch of plants I recieved from them was missing two items. Plants from this batch arrived in okay conditions and they’re still growing well more than two weeks after receiving them.
I should note that the company only likes to communicate via their personal web-based messaging system, which doesn’t really initially have any way of showing that it works.
The second batch was basically the two plants that were missing. These plants appeared to have committed seppuku prior to getting shipped, and they look mostly dead still, despite getting the same attention from me as the same plant from the original batch sent (THAT plant is actually growing beautifully).
Seeing that others had the same experience, I suspect that the Hirts garden owner is the type of person who doesn’t like to have people catch a mistake and kindly request that it be corrected (especially since a payment was already made). It’s sadly reassuring seeing that I’m NOT the only one who had a negative experience with this vendor. even moreso in seeing extremely similar experiences to my own.
One can’t help but wonder– if a mistake was made on the part of the vendor for a paid item, shouldn’t the vendor be willing to correct the problem? Why be punished for asking for the services or items one already paid for in full?
Of course after this, even though I’ve ordered hundreds of dollars of plants from his company, he will not be getting another cent from me. He thinks he is a big dog now that he sells on Ebay and Amazon, but I think that if you don’t do what you promise, people will go elsewhere.
Upon receipt of the dying sapling, I phoned and emailed Hirt’s about the problem, but no one answered the phone. And, though emails were answered, the responses were short, disrespectful and not related to my problem. I emailed photos of the dying/dead tree and lengthy explanations, detailing how I had nurtured it in efforts of reviving/saving it. But I received no adequate answer. I also called PayPal and Walmart, and each time a recording at both announced a wait of over two hours! So finally, in desperation, I called my credit card company, where a kind and helpful person assisted me in filing for a chargeback.
I contacted Matt Hirt and explained to him that I ordered specific plants for specific areas of my garden, so I needed to know which ones were which. He said he could identify what they were if I’d send photos, so I did. And never did hear back from him. I’ve attempted to call and email several times every day this week, but he refuses to respond.
The other dahlia purchased from Hirt’s never sprouted at all. (All 12 of the others I started from other suppliers grew fine and bloomed beautifully.)
Plants were reduced by 2/3 in size in an attempt to help them regenerate. As of 7/19/17, one plant appears dead; the other has sprouted tiny, new growth.
This was the worst plant shipment that I have received ever. These plants should never have been sold; the method of packing for shipment was poor; this was a waste of money.
An email was sent to Hirt’s today. No request for compensation of any kind. However, this negative experience and review of Hirt’s Gardens will be shared often. Prospective buyers should consider the number of negative vs. positive reviews and proceed with caution.
Hirt’s Gardens (formerly Hirt’s Greenhouse & Flowers) has 374 reviews (153 negative, 181 positive and 40 neutral) at the Garden Watchdog.
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