Gardening Express Reviews

Name: Gardening Express
Address: Gardening Express, Chelmsford, Essex
Rating: 1.17

1.2 Rating 1,711 Reviews

4 %

of reviewers recommend Gardening Express

Company Reviews

Questions

Metrics

1.2

Based on 1,711 reviews

Shipping & Delivery
Delivery Methods	Courier
Average Delivery Time	Over A Month
On-time Delivery	Greater than 16%
Accurate And Undamaged Orders	Greater than 31%
Customer Service
Communication Channels	Email, Live Chat, Telephone
Queries Resolved In	Over A Week
Customer Service	1.1 out of 5
Returns & Refunds
Refunds Process	Difficult
Returns Process	Could Be Better

Phone:

08448 044 253

Location:

Gardening Express, Chelmsford
Essex
CM1 4UA

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Gardening Express 1 star review on 6th April 2025

Anonymous

Gardening Express 1 star review on 6th March 2025

Anonymous

Gardening Express 1 star review on 28th October 2024

Mark Ramsden

Gardening Express 1 star review on 2nd September 2024

Olga

627

Anonymous

Anonymous // 01/01/2019

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“I have wasted hours of my time trying to get a refund for the half dead plants I received from Gardening Express. I am kept waiting on the complaint site sending messages and photos to and fro, and then their site which is supposed to close at 4pm closes even though it NOT 4pm. Today it closed me down at 3.30 an I know the same thing will happen tomorrow as it has every day since I got the plants on 3rd December. Today is the 8th Dec.”

Gardening Express 1 star review on 8th December 2021

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Posted 3 years ago

“Order did not arrive. They have a Hermes tracking code that says that Hermes have not recieved the plants. Impossible to get them to investigate. I'll not repeat what everyone else is saying. Their 'office' appears to be a social club and Bonnetts Garden Village certainly dont have the stock they are selling on line. (same registered office. So if this is a legitimate company they don't act like one.”

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Posted 3 years ago

“I bought two 'Premium Quality Topiary Buxus BALLS with stylish contemporary Flared BLACK Planters' - the plants arrived late but that wasn't the most dissapointing aspect - the 'stylish planters' are cheap plastic pots and the buxus balls are at the absoute minimum of the 'from' size they specified, and one buxus is very bare on one side. I measured them and they just made it into size category they'd stated, though I definitely wouldn't descibe them as premium, however I thought it was a competitive price because of their 'reduction' so I just hoped they grow. I'm annoyed with myself for not cross checking at my local garden centre (which is in the home counties and NOT cheap) because for £10 more I could have had two 30cm healthy buxus balls. I happened to spot some much larger specimens in Costco on a recent trip and they worked out at £15 more for a pair that are double the size of the Gardening Express ones (shown in the photo as a comparison) so do your homework and ignore their 'discounts' which are a joke. Having seen what poor value their specimens were I did write a review which then did prompt a response offering a 'no quibble refund' but sadly the effort and expense to return the buxus balls and the risk of the products being deemed to have been damaged by my courier means I'll just have to right the purchase off - please avoid, just check out the 47% negative reviews and make your own mind up.”

Gardening Express 1 star review on 18th November 2021

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Posted 3 years ago

“I feel very short changed...... The 'Cypress trees' I received were extremely modest in size - far smaller than the minimum height that was stated and generally looked v weak.... I would have paid no more than £10 per tree MAXimum in a nursery, as opposed to £55 for the pair !! And the customer service via email (-obviously!) was very dismissive of my complaint. Lesson Learnt I will certainly will never purchase plants from Gardening Express again and would urge potential customers to visit their local garden centre/nursery & purchase plants there instead !”

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Posted 3 years ago

“Wish I had read reviews. 3 hellebores delivered were dreadful. Looked as if they had been crushed with yellow and brown leaves. One was barely a stem sticking out of the compost. An agent told me every plant was individual and had it’s own season so not much help. She closed the chat down. Similar plants ordered from another company were excellent with green healthy leaves. Told I could return but not prepared to pay postage. Will never use them again.”

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Posted 3 years ago

“Wow I wish i read the reviews. Unable to actually speak to a person. Ordered a 135cm to 160cm acer received a 110cm one. Apparently it is my responsibility to pay for and return an item i did not, did not order. Also the acer was really badly pruned - very lob sided.”

Helpful Report

Posted 3 years ago

“Wrong Acer plant delivered, sent it straight back at a cost of £10.30 and now 4 days later they have delivered the same wrong plant AGAIN. If anyone from GEX reads this PLEASE answer your emails or your telephone and respond to your frustrated customers. Chris Bonnet DO Something!!”

Helpful Report

Posted 3 years ago

“This company is awful. Do not believe the pictures on their website. They send out sub-standard plants and their customer service is appalling. They might be cheap, but do yourself a favour and go to a reputable garden centre where you will get value for money.”

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Posted 3 years ago

“Please Stay Away! No circumstances that I recommend Gardening Express I bought 2 bare root magnolia trees from Gardening Express in late April and planted them following guidelines from several websites. In the intervening period the trees did not become established. I contacted Gardening Express to find out what could be done and effectively the 'customer services' agent Cassie pushed any responsibility back to me. I assumed that quality checks would have been done on the trees before they were shipped but apparently I should have been doing a bark test when the trees arrived to ensure they would awaken from dormancy. I was also meant to contact them within 14 days if I thought the trees would not establish. My understanding is that trees can take a few months to show any signs of growth, so again I was pushed back by their 14 day return policy. This is a good point to add that you are responsible for the costs for any returning 'faulty' plants. The great 5 year guarantee is not so great, it is only limited to certain plants, check the small print - of course the trees I purchased were not included So in short .... they put the onus on the customer to identify poor quality plants that they have sent out, don't give you sufficient time to complain and charge you for returns. There are no circumstances that I recommend Gardening Express. Please stay away!”

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Posted 3 years ago

“Plant never arrived. No way of communicating Gardening Express is a waste of time and a fraudulent company”

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Posted 3 years ago

“Poor. I wish I had looked at the reviews before ordering. My plants arrived I'm a box that looked like it had been sat on. Dispite the wording... Live plants with care. Written on the side of the box. Also some damage to the plants. I have tried to contact Gardening Express several times on the bubble at the bottom of the page. As per their instructions. No phone no, no email address, no customer service. How does this company continue to trade with such bad reviews.”

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Posted 3 years ago

“Wish I had seen these reviews before I ordered. Paid for 2 packs of shrubs (offer 3 plant pack) ie 6 shrubs but received only two individual plants. No way to communicate with this firm despite advertising "excellent customer service" and customer support service via messaging not successful. Email was sent with request for missing plants or a refund but this was never acknowledged. This was an extremely expensive order as far as I am concerned. Perhaps I will just have to write it off and be warned in future - never order from a company without telephone communication and if you do expect to lose your money. Zero stars.”

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Posted 3 years ago

“I ordered an Acer for my neighbours 50 wedding anniversary as I knew she loved them. When it arrived 4 days after it left them. I gave it to them to open. I have never been soo embarrassed in all my life, as they opened their present excitedly the tall box in came in. The Acer was tiny near the last third of box like a dead dryed out twig! The image they post on the internet it looks beautiful in a square pot, Japanese shape All I could do was apologise when I saw the disappointment on their faces.I said never mind there is a 5 year guarantee so will get them to replace it. Since then unable to contact the Company by phone or message, finally after several failed postmaster general sent an email with images of the ripe off plant. I don't know how they are getting away with it. Please don't buy from this despicable Company. If we don't get it sorted within 25 days we will be getting our credit card Company to see what they can do. I suggest everyone does the same. Thanks for reading this review”

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Posted 3 years ago

“I sympathise enormously with all the previous respondents. In the early days (2020) I was very impressed with this company, the quality of the plants, careful packing & efficient delivery. Sadly my deliveries this summer have been most unsatisfactory, quality has severely deteriorated with plants in poor condition &/or later dying. Finally a garden bench failed to arrive, without apology. This cost almost £80 - far more than I would normally spend on a single item from this company but before placing this order I was not aware of any serious problems. The order confirmation told me to expect some delay so initially I didn't worry but the item never arrived, although the rest of the order eventually did, & tracking just showed this order number had been delivered. I then tried to contact Gardening Express, firstly by email to support@gardeningexpress, with no replies despite repeat emailing; next using their unresponsive ‘chat bot’ which if I managed to get it to respond sent itself in a continuous loop when I stated my problem, & made me start again - endlessly; I found and tried a telephone number that never got answered; the FAQs said go into my account to ‘raise a ticket’ but this produced another loop with the perpetual response “there are no tickets on this account”. I then got locked out of my account altogether because the site refused to recognise my well-used & to me very familiar password (so no mistakes) yet when I had to give in & clicked on the ‘forgotten password’ link I got an empty email in response WITH NO means to set a new password. I have tried asking to reset my password several times now with the same blank email in reply. My replies to all these useless emails brought - you guessed - NO RESPONSE. I have reached screaming point, I want my bench or my money back but cannot even raise the matter with Gardening Express. They have made certain you CANNOT communicate with them. BE WARNED: DO NOT RISK WASTING YOUR MONEY ON THIS ATROCIOUSLY BEHAVED COMPANY - it appears to care not a jot for customer service.”

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Posted 3 years ago

“Ordered some plants and got told of the dispatch date and was given a Hermes tracking number. The order went into a sorry there is a problem so you know that something has gone wrong at the Hermes depot. I have tried desperately trying to speak to the people from Garden Express via their chat which is difficult as I have to work myself so cannot just sit there waiting for a message back. They keep giving me the same lines. Hermes still saying the same over a week ago and trying to get a refund is very difficult with their very strange messaging customer service. Very easy way to steal people's money as they just ignore you. So I have paid for something I have never received and they will get paid again when they claim from Hermes. Disgusting thieves”

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Posted 3 years ago

“Gardening Express is a joke!(Gardening Snailmail) I recently paid £38 for 2 yellow rosebushes and they delivered them to my billing address instead of the intended delivery address. The system picked up a combination of mine and my sister's address (her name, county and post code but my first line of address and town) I sent an email via reply to the confirmation email to advise of this giving the correct address for delivery, but of course it was ignored because they dont monitor this 'No Reply' email box. Whoever transferred the order details spelled her surname wrong too, so they can't even say it's computer error. I gave the plants to my daughter as I couldn't get them to Yorkshire from Wales 😡. The complaint options are a joke, the only means of communucation is an infrequently manned bot, which can take up to 2 hours to respond. No email address, no telephone number so no chance to have a real conversation. When I sent a bot message to complain I was out of pocket because I would have buy more. They basically responded the items were delivered sending me a screen shot of the delivery, so I wasn't out of pocket as I had the plants (allbeit at the wrong end of the UK) so tough luck and would take no responsibility for the error! Needless to say the only recommendation I would give is to strongly avoid this company!”

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Posted 3 years ago

“I simply wanted to know what the problem with a small tree was. Supplied last November it thrived until this August when the leaves started to die back. I got on the chat line and sent a photo. I got standard paragraph after standard paragraph, and no answers of any use. I can have the tree replaced but I have to post it back to them (at my expense) plus the original order, and the original label!!! How I wish I had researched this company before spending £85 on a tree that is now apparently dying.”

Gardening Express 1 star review on 28th September 2021

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Posted 3 years ago

“Ordered 6 plants and they arrived in a box stuffed one on top of another - obviously they have a rate with the carrier which depends on box size? One of the plants was dead and their chat service (the only way you can correspond) is just designed to fob you off taking no responsibility for the poor delivery. Don't buy from them unless you are prepared to lose the money you paid as they have absolutely no customer service.”

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Posted 3 years ago

“Absolutely atrocious company and products. Do not waste your money - poor quality plants, unprofessional company only interested in the money”

Gardening Express 1 star review on 25th September 2021

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Posted 3 years ago

“Bought a quite expensive tree from them, delivered in May, planted according to their instructions. The tree had buds on it, they still look exactly the same over five months later. Did a bark test, no green to be seen. Have tried for days to message them on their ‘chat’ facility, eventually was able to send photo; their response was your tree is dead and is not covered by our five year guarantee. No replacement or refund offered! Tough! Will never buy from them again.”

Gardening Express 1 star review on 24th September 2021

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Posted 3 years ago

Gardening Express is rated 1.2 based on 1,711 reviews