Artistic Gardens - seed-sellers
I bought a lot of seeds from Artistic Gardens this year. I am half crazy-nutso in love with them, and half unsure if I'd recommend them. Their business model, I like: they have a very basic catalog, few images, minimal care instructions, not really trying to sell you on the plant, just making it available, and they sell their seed pretty cheaply. They also have "sample-size" packets which are perfect for the backyard gardener, just 35 cents to get a few seeds: 4-7 tomato seeds, 3-5 sunflower seeds, 50 basil seeds...i.e. perfect for somebody like me who'se going for a wide variety but not much quantity of any one thing.
So, I placed an order on March 10: 5 varieties of tomato, 2 kinds of sunflower, 3 kinds of basil, 2 kinds of thyme, plus various others - bok choy, sorrel, sage, fennel, alpine strawberries, goji-berry, various greens... a total of $13 including shipping. I got an email confirming my order and saying they'd email again when they shipped it
lalala...
hmm, it's 2 weeks later and I haven't heard anything. So I emailed them and asked what's up, to which they say that my credit card expiration date didn't go through (I messed up the form, all my fault, though interesting that they weren't going to tell me so until I asked...). They were very helpful, and we sorted that out. They said it was now on track, and they'd package it up tomorrow.
lalala...
hmm, it's been a workday, a weekend, and another couple of workdays - almost a week - and I haven't heard anything. I send an email asking if they've shipped it to please let me know when to expect it. They don't contact me, but the "your order has shipped" email "spontaneously" arrives the next morning, and the seeds 3 days later.
Hooray!! 24 different varieties of seed, 13 dollars. Happy!
Here we have a small business that doesn't have an efficient check-and-balances system, but if you stay proactive and make sure your order gets handled, they're happy to help, and everything turns out fine. Okay. That's just how it is sometimes, especially with small businesses.
I planted my seeds - despite the fact that I ordered in early March, and planted as soon as they arrived, that was April 2. Going square-foot-garden style, that means planting pretty much exactly the number of seeds that I want to have plants. Being a bit paranoid, I planted a few extra. The seeds shipped in a non-padded envelope, and unfortunately some of them got smashed - the hulls were cracked on many of the sunflower seeds, and the basil seeds were too small to see which ones were good or bad, but there was a lot of chaff in the bottoms of the packets. I planted 3 basil seeds of each type, and all the sunflowers. The germination rates were iffy - I've got a total of 8 sunflowers out of 2 packets that should have totalled 13-30 seeds, none of the Roma tomatoes, Opal basil, or oregano came up at all, and I got just 1-2 plants each of sage, cinamon basil, and thai basil out of half-packets said to hold 30-50 seeds. But the other tomatoes grew, I've got at least one seedling of all the herbs I really wanted, and 8 sunflowers (now 7 - I broke one!) ought to be enough for where I planted them.
So, I kind of love Artistic Gardens, yet I'm totally unimpressed with some of the practical aspects. Would I order from them again?? I'd like to say no, because I'd rather have a bit more assurance that when I order seeds they will arrive and when I plant them, they will come up. Yet how awesome is it to have 6 different varieties of tomato plant in my garden this year??? Pretty darn awesome. So I suspect I'll be ordering from them again, but forewarned, forearmed, etc.
So, I placed an order on March 10: 5 varieties of tomato, 2 kinds of sunflower, 3 kinds of basil, 2 kinds of thyme, plus various others - bok choy, sorrel, sage, fennel, alpine strawberries, goji-berry, various greens... a total of $13 including shipping. I got an email confirming my order and saying they'd email again when they shipped it
lalala...
hmm, it's 2 weeks later and I haven't heard anything. So I emailed them and asked what's up, to which they say that my credit card expiration date didn't go through (I messed up the form, all my fault, though interesting that they weren't going to tell me so until I asked...). They were very helpful, and we sorted that out. They said it was now on track, and they'd package it up tomorrow.
lalala...
hmm, it's been a workday, a weekend, and another couple of workdays - almost a week - and I haven't heard anything. I send an email asking if they've shipped it to please let me know when to expect it. They don't contact me, but the "your order has shipped" email "spontaneously" arrives the next morning, and the seeds 3 days later.
Hooray!! 24 different varieties of seed, 13 dollars. Happy!
Here we have a small business that doesn't have an efficient check-and-balances system, but if you stay proactive and make sure your order gets handled, they're happy to help, and everything turns out fine. Okay. That's just how it is sometimes, especially with small businesses.
I planted my seeds - despite the fact that I ordered in early March, and planted as soon as they arrived, that was April 2. Going square-foot-garden style, that means planting pretty much exactly the number of seeds that I want to have plants. Being a bit paranoid, I planted a few extra. The seeds shipped in a non-padded envelope, and unfortunately some of them got smashed - the hulls were cracked on many of the sunflower seeds, and the basil seeds were too small to see which ones were good or bad, but there was a lot of chaff in the bottoms of the packets. I planted 3 basil seeds of each type, and all the sunflowers. The germination rates were iffy - I've got a total of 8 sunflowers out of 2 packets that should have totalled 13-30 seeds, none of the Roma tomatoes, Opal basil, or oregano came up at all, and I got just 1-2 plants each of sage, cinamon basil, and thai basil out of half-packets said to hold 30-50 seeds. But the other tomatoes grew, I've got at least one seedling of all the herbs I really wanted, and 8 sunflowers (now 7 - I broke one!) ought to be enough for where I planted them.
So, I kind of love Artistic Gardens, yet I'm totally unimpressed with some of the practical aspects. Would I order from them again?? I'd like to say no, because I'd rather have a bit more assurance that when I order seeds they will arrive and when I plant them, they will come up. Yet how awesome is it to have 6 different varieties of tomato plant in my garden this year??? Pretty darn awesome. So I suspect I'll be ordering from them again, but forewarned, forearmed, etc.