Early this spring I looked over the Arbor Day Foundation website and placed an order for 6 trees, and 5 bushes. Arbor Day offered a "bonus" of 10 Redbud trees if I joined up as a member for $10.00.
What I learned. . . . . (I did follow all included instructions prior to planting)
Arbor Day says they will ship the trees when they believe it will best to plant them in your area, but they got here about 3 weeks after peak planting time for my area. The ground was already drying out and the daytime temps were already above 80* making it tough for the bare root sticks to have a chance. Maybe it's just because of where I live but I called and emailed ahead of time letting them know I needed them before summer temps and dry weather hit but they would not ship earlier than what their computer recommended.
3 trees are slowly budding but they do not look promising, I am hoping the hot summer sun doesn't burn the leaves as soon as they open. They are not in full sun so hopefully they have a chance. 3 trees are pretty much dried out brittle sticks but I will keep watering as recommended with the slim chance they may survive.
2 bushes are doing well, both are blackberry. 1 blackberry and 2 forsythias are dry brittle sticks, which are probably dead but I will keep my fingers crossed.
The redbuds didn't arrive until last week, about 4 weeks later than ideal planting season. Of the 10 only one shows a green bud, the others do not look promising. Again, these trees should have arrived in early to mid May and even though I called and asked to have the shipping date moved up they refused.
Arbor Day does (sort of) offer a guarantee on the plants they send. If I pay half the original cost per tree, plus shipping, they will send replacements if available. Maybe I am over cautious but I did not feel comfortable trying this effort again getting replacement trees even later into the hot, dry summer season.
However, even if I chalk this up as a poor buying experience the most annoying part is the fact they spammed me with emails at least once a day starting the day after the order was placed, they sold my phone number and mailing address to other companies causing a slew of unsolicited phone calls leaving messages asking me to become a member of their organizations. On top of that, the offer to join and get the "free trees" did not mention a time period for the membership. When I received the renewal bill in the mail 3 months after placing my order and before receiving the bulk of the order I learned the membership was only for 6 months. Maybe this wouldn't have been as annoying if the membership renewal bill hadn't arrived the same day I started receiving the unsolicited mailings from similar/sister companies looking for membership and donations.
I know the emails had an unsubscribe option but I didn't want to unsubscribe before receiving my shipments (3 different shipments for the small order) because I wanted to have notice on when I would receive the package.
The day of the membership renewal bill, the same day the other spam mailings began arriving, I called Arbor Day to complain. After 30 minutes waiting for anyone to answer I was told she couldn't help me and she would transfer me to a supervisor. After 10 minutes of her trying to find anyone to transfer me to she said they told her to take my name and number and they would call back in a couple days. I politely asked her cancel my membership, to remove me from all email, phone, and mailing lists and to immediately stop selling my information to any other company or organization.
Again, I know I could have researched more before placing the order but I am sharing this to help the next person who may be trying to research prior to placing their order. Some people may enjoy a large quantity of junk mail, I am not one of them.
I hope this helps someone.
Arbor Day Foundation has not impressed me.
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