Brighter Blooms Grade: C+
Top 20 Rank: #7
Website: www.brighterblooms.com
Location: Fort Mill, SC
Why do we list location? This is so you can know, in most cases, where the evergreen shrubs you buy are coming from.
We evaluate and score 10 different categories. You can read details on each category and how we score it here.
Brighter Blooms Review – More Sizes and Higher Prices
Brighter Blooms Nursery’s rating came in at 79. That puts their grade at a C+ and puts them at #7 in our top 20 rankings. Overall, Brighter Blooms has made a transition to selling smaller plants and raising most of their prices. There have been a few issues lately with negative product reviews in conjunction with the increase in some product prices.
Brighter Blooms Nursery has a good selection of evergreen trees & shrubs.
Their field is on the North & South Carolina border in a suburb of Charlotte, NC. This allows them to carry a pretty wide selection of evergreens suitable for most areas of the country. When we checked recently, Brighter Blooms boasted 72 evergreen trees.
One of the problems is the pricing seems to be a bit all over the place. Some of their prices also seem to have increased recently. We found an Arborvitae shrub that was $99.99 for a 3-gallon container. Some smaller, 1 to 2-foot evergreen trees ranged from $14.99 to $49.99. Like shopping for almost everything else, you need to compare prices. You can compare the lowest prices on arborvitae shrubs from our top-rated nurseries here.
Brighter Blooms implemented several changes a little over a year ago. In our opinion, most of the updates are good for you. We like their latest look. it appears Brighter Blooms is constantly testing & trying to improve the user experience. There’s also a lot of content on each product page for planting, care, pruning, etc.
Brighter Blooms (www.brighterblooms.com) and Fast Growing Trees (www.fast-growing-trees.com) are owned by the same company. They also acquired PlantingTree.com in the summer of 2021. All 3 are classic online nurseries that have their fields where they bring in & maintain their plants until sold. They’re not open to the public, all sales are online (or over the phone). Brighter Blooms Nursery is relatively young. They ranked 14th out of 25 sites reviewed for years active.
Sold! Fast-Growing Trees & Brighter Blooms Change Owners
As we mentioned, PlantingTree.com was acquired in July 2021. Then, in mid-September, it was announced that Berkshire had bought a majority interest. Here’s the official announcement: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210913005847/en/Fast-Growing-Trees-Announces-Investment-from-Berkshire-Partners
What does this mean for you? Time will tell but it probably won’t affect you too much.
Trees Just Listing Heights Are Bad
Brighter Blooms have a decent selection of sizes. Seems from what we checked, that most of their trees only list a height but not container size. That’s a big concern. We bought a 3 to 4-foot tree from their sister site and it showed up rooted into a 4-inch pot. View unboxing here. Free shipping seems to be offered most of the time but with varying minimum order amounts to qualify. You can view all website promotions & coupons here.
We automatically update prices every hour. We currently list price comparisons on over 700 products. Simply look up any product you’re interested in at Brighterblooms.com and see if it is less expensive at another top-rated nursery.
Happy and Healthy Guarantee™
Brighter Blooms copy for the 30-day guarantee changed, duplicating what is on their sister site, fast-growing-trees.com. Brighter Blooms call theirs a “Happy and Healthy Guarantee” that is trademarked. It states; “If you have plant issues within the first 30 days give us a call. We will review your concerns and provide you with a one-time replacement if necessary. Replacement plant shipping cost is at the customer’s expense.”
Brighter Blooms Google reviews average rating is 4.0. It was 4.3 just a few months ago. As of April 1st, there were a total of 406 Brighter Blooms Google Reviews you can read here.
They also use a third-party review service called Trust Pilot. There are 3,828 reviews with an abysmal average of 2.5 stars You can read those reviews here. Most of the complaints seemed centered on customer service, but there were two that kind of stood out to us. Brighter Blooms and their sister site Fast-Growing-Trees.com have made it a major emphasis to claim they don’t ship bareroot.
According to 2 Google reviews, they put bare root trees in a burlap bag with some loose mulch. One even showed pictures where Brighter Blooms had pruned the roots. Here’s what that customer said; “they pruned off almost all the roots before stuffing it in a burlap bag full of dirt.”
The 1-star reviews seem mixed between complaints about product quality & customer service. The only positive spin I can think of is at least they don’t try to hide from bad reviews. I used to work for an online nursery that not only suppressed negative reviews but also had staff place fake product reviews. That’s bad.
A friend bought a pink dogwood tree from their sister site, fast-growing-trees.com. You can view pictures of the unboxing and the burlap sack they use here.
Speaking of pruning; Brighter Blooms ‘Terms of Service’ is long and says this; “Certain plants may be root pruned or have excess dirt removed in order to save customers money.” Yikes! I think they should say this to save them money. I can’t comprehend how pruning roots help you out. The ‘Terms of Service’ may be long but it is easy enough to read. None of the dreaded, hard-to-read all-caps legalese I despise.
You should also be aware of BrighterBlooms.com’s return policy. You will pay a 25% restocking fee if they even approve a return. Here’s what it says; “A 25% restocking fee will be charged to the customer if the trees are returned in live condition with authorization, within two weeks of receipt“.
What were the red flags?
- Listing heights of plants with no container size.
- They charge up to 50% of the plant cost for shipping if you don’t qualify for free shipping.
- Buried in their Terms of Service it says they might prune roots, remove a container and even possibly remove dirt.
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