Native Columbine, Mislabeled!

Forum Archives

 

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Fern

Location: Washington, Western Cascade Foothills

Posted: Jun-10-2005 at 6:37pm

I know we were talking about the native columbine before the data was lost. The one I bought last year finally bloomed and it is not the the native one! Somebody else wrote that that had happened to them, too. It has long red spurs and a yellow center, I still like it but I am pissed it's not the native one. I bought this at the nursery I work at too, I am going to take a flower back, complain, amd get credit for it. I know it was labeled incorrectly by the grower[I wish I could remember who, I would complain to them too] and we know that does happen, not often, but when it does the policy is to give credit right away and say we are sorry. It just frustrates me that I'll put it in a prime spot, taken care of it for a year and it's the wrong plant. I will buy another plant to ease the pain. It also happened with a tree peony I had bought, it was pink instead of yellow [ the grower's tag], and I had waited 3 years for that to bloom!

Fern

 

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DebbieTT

Location: Washington, Kitsap Peninsula

Posted: Jun-10-2005 at 7:42pm

I know that is such a bummer when that happens. I have had it happen, even from well-known very reputable places.

 

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cjmiller

Location: Oregon, Willamette Valley

Posted: Jun-11-2005 at 10:29am

How often have you picked up a tag that was in the pot and the tag says petunia but the foliage says Ipomoea. I am guessing that part of the problem is lazy or careless patrons. It would be nice if cashiers were conversant with the products and could recognize more than the scanning tag.

Carol

 

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Lisa A

Location: Oregon, Greater Portland Metro

Posted: Jun-11-2005 at 1:35pm

As someone who has worked at a nursery, I can tell you that some of the problem is lack of good pay to attract and keep knowledgeable people. I made only a little more than minimum wage (the discount helped offset that for me) but I was expected to have a fairly extensive knowledge of plant material. In fact, I took a test as part of my application process. However, to pay staff more would translate to higher prices for plants, which would knock nurseries even more out of competition against big box stores.

I've also encountered a few nurseries that hire people to work strictly as a cashier because then they can pay them only minimum wage. Any plant knowledge they may have is a bonus.

I don't know if my experience at Loen's is the norm, but a large percentage of the wholesale nursery staff was filled by people who often didn't speak English or spoke broken English while the plant tags were in English. It doesn't take a genius to figure out this will cause problems. We tried to catch mislabeled plants when they sent stock to the retail side but I know we didn't catch them all.

It is an unfortunate situation - I've bought mislabeled plants as well. I have to remove the red-twig dogwoods that are almost certainly the species form and not 'Isanti', a dward form.

 

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Fern

Location: Washington, Western Cascade Foothills

Posted: Jun-11-2005 at 8:06pm

Lisa, that is oh so true. It is hard work and low pay in the nursery business. No one gets rich. Do you know of a place to get fresh seed of Aquilega formosa? I wish the rain would stop, have you noticed all the sales going on in nurseries? It's because business is so slow.

Fern

 

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KellieD

Location: Oregon, Northern Coast

Posted: Jun-12-2005 at 8:52am

Fern, my aquilegia formosa is developing some good fat seed heads even as we speak. Interested?

 

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cjmiller

Location: Oregon, Willamette Valley

Posted: Jun-12-2005 at 8:25pm

Rainyside member to the rescue, what more could you want? Hooray for Rainyside! Kellie, you ROCK!

Carol

 

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Fern

Location: Washington, Western Cascade Foothills

Posted: Jun-12-2005 at 8:31pm

Yes , I would love some! Even just a few in a envelope. With some I planted a few years ago I got some seedlings coming up and when they bloomed after 2 years I saw they were just the ones that reseed naturally, so you can see this was not my first disappointment with them. Should I pm to you my address?

Fern

 

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JeanneK

Location: Oregon, Greater Portland Metro

Posted: Jun-13-2005 at 8:08am

Glad to see that Kellie is going to give you some seed. Otherwise, I would send you some!

Jeanne

 

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Fern

Location: Washington, Western Cascade Foothills

Posted: Jun-14-2005 at 8:51pm

Thanks for the offers. You guys are great!

Fern

 

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scole

Location: Washington, Puget Sound Corridor

Posted: Jun-15-2005 at 9:35pm

Just be thankful it was columbine since it's relatively cheap & abundant. In addition to experiencing what you did, I also had a similiar experience with mail order. To my surprise, I found out that a mail order nursery to the south carried Sitka Valerian (the very abundant Cascade sub/alpine plant). I ordered what they had, which was about three 1 Gal plants at $7 a pop (plus shipping).

Well, after a few weeks I knew something was wrong. I quickly discovered that what they had advertised as Sitka Valerian was in fact Common Valerian which grows MUCH taller, looks different, and isn't native to the PNW. I was irked but never complained. I did notice that the following year, the nursery had corrected their catalog..

 

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Fern

Location: Washington, Western Cascade Foothills

Posted: Jun-16-2005 at 8:35pm

Scole, you must have been irked and that is not cheap. It's also just the disappoint of it all too, isn't it? I would have complained even if I didn't expect my money back, if they a good nursery they should appreciate you telling them. The sooner they know the sooner they can correct it and keep more customers from getting mad at them. Just yesterday some plants came into the nursery and 1 or 2 of them in a flat weren't tagged at all. And they were plants that look identical till they bloom. It's a pain to have to handwrite tags. We have complained to this company before about this.

Fern