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Reclaiming the cost of some mail order plants

Cambridgerose12Cambridgerose12 Posts: 1,138
in Plants

Dear Van Meuwen,
After six months of waiting,

Impatient as can be,

Finally my patience was rewarded.

But wait! What do I see?

Green leaves—how can that be?

For Geranium ‘Midnight Blue’

Is famous, as you know too,

For having BROWN leaves

In beautiful sheaves.

So what on earth should I do?


I think you’ve sent me G. ‘Johnson’s Blue’.


So now alas I am sending 

An email about this sad ending

To six months of anticipation

With disappointing information

And a request for a refund of the cost

Since my hopes were all lost


Because £15.94 is a lot

Considering that what I got

Wasn’t G. ‘Midnight Blue’ 

(See photo to prove).

Posts

  • Meadow7Meadow7 Posts: 42

    Let us know what their response is!!

  • Ladybird4Ladybird4 Posts: 37,269

    Hi Cambridgerose12

    Poor you, can this be true?

    They didn't send you Midnight Blue

    I feel so sad, alas, alack

    I hope you got your money back!

    Cacoethes: An irresistible urge to do something inadvisable
  • plant pauperplant pauper Posts: 6,904

    Maybe I should have tried that approach with parker.

    Your bulbs and plants aren't worth Jack,

    Can I have my money back?

  • CeresCeres Posts: 2,583

    Hi Cambridgerose,

    Beeches Nursery at Ashdon (near Saffron Walden) have a lot of geranium varieties so it might be worth giving them a call to see if they have Midnight Blue. I never fail to leave there with plants, even if they didn't have the ones I was looking for.

  • Singing GardenerSinging Gardener Posts: 1,232

    Interesting! A couple of years ago I ordered geranium "Splish Splash" from Van Meuwen. Having lovingly nurtured the bare root plants I was sent when they eventually flowered they were pale pink. I did get a refund but with a rather grudging email which implied that it was very unreasonable of me not to be happy with what I had received.

  • TopbirdTopbird Posts: 8,247

    Have just put Beeches Nursery in my bookmarks - looking at their catalogue it seems like a good place to set the sat nav for image

    Heaven is ... sitting in the garden with a G&T and a cat while watching the sun go down
  • CeresCeres Posts: 2,583

    Always worth visiting. You can spend ages just wandering amongst all the plants.

  • B3B3 Posts: 27,019

    I Have the suspicion that plant traders play on the fact that often by the time you found you've been sold a pup, too much time has elapsed to do much about it.  Both experienced and novice gardeners will often blame failure on external factors such as the weather, disease or whatever.

    I have planted what I thought were tulips and found they were irises. I knew pretty soon they weren't tulips, but was curious. Time elapsed and I couldn't remember where I'd got them from. Who keeps the receipts for months?

    I've also been seduced by the picture on packets of bulbs only to find that I couldn't wait for the xxxxx things to finish so that I could compost them.

    In London. Keen but lazy.
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