Terrible, terrible company. Based in Bloomington IL with I think warehouses or something like that in other states like Faribault MN. A few years ago (June 2012 or so) I made the mistake of ordering from them. For some inconceivable reason the BBB has them listed as A+ instead of the F they should be. The sheer number of complaints listed under its daughter companies should at least give the BBB some pause. But apparently if you can get your money back after a lot of hassle, that counts as a good grade. Go figure. What is the point of the BBB anyway? Maybe the BBB needs an outside review? O. o

Kelly Nurseries sent me dead plants and told me they were dormant. I know dormant plants, they are still flexible and not brittle. I've successfully planted many many dormant plants and shrubs.

I tried to order a couple of mock orange plants. Three weeks after the order, approximately, I had still received no acknowledgement of the order or update on its status. They said "we are working on it" and that was it. It was difficult to get anything out of their customer service.

They finally came very late in June when it was hot. They were completely dry from the heat of a slow method of shipping in early summer in a ventless green plastic bag with no special handling instructions, that was crammed into my mailbox, breaking the plants even more. For $9.99 shipping you'd expect instead they'd use a protective box and an appropriate quicker shipping method. I tried contacting the customer service and they said plant it and give it a good SIX WEEKS to come out of dormancy. Really? Every other dormant plant I get shipped to me is coming out of dormancy and budding in the box, just from *being shipped.*

The trick is though that IF you follow the customer service instructions to plant the stuff, you can never get your money back, because you must return within 14 days or something like that. But if you don't plant, he then complains you didn't give it enough time.

I made the mistake of trying to plant, which didn't work of course. So after a few weeks I contacted them again and they sent me replacement plants which were also dead. By this time its pointless to ask for more replacements and keep wasting my and his time. But he wouldn't give me the money back until I contacted the attorney general to force him to. Then he wouldn't of course return the shipping fees or state sales tax even though he didn't sell me anything at all, really.

I wonder if he then reclaims that tax on items that were returned for refund. Ridiculous. I even calculated the sales tax at about 17%! He only refunded me $6.95 because supposedly shipping some dead sticks in a plastic bag cost him $9.99. That's utterly ludicrous. He's totally scamming both the consumers and the government IMO.

After I had such a bad experience I had gone online and read some other scam and ripoff reporter sites with reviews on this company or the other names under which it does business. Many people had ordered large amounts of trees and shrubs and went through a lot of work to plant them and came up empty handed. I urge people who have done this to contact their attorneys general and get their money back that way. This is unconscionable business practice!

Note that Kelly Nursery also does business under the following names:
Burgess Seed
Direct Gardening
Dutch Gardens
Exciting Gardens
Farmer Seed and Nursery
Four Seasons Nursery
Honeycreek Nurseries
House of Wesley
Inter-State Nurseries
Kelly Nurseries
Plantron, Inc.
Richard Owen Nursery
Royal Dutch