Direct Gardening Review:

Direct Gardening is mired in last place for the second month in a row.  We counted 21 evergreen trees & shrubs in stock, down from 27 when we checked a month ago.

DirectGardening.com has been around a long time, starting in 1999.  That placed it 7th in our evaluations of  online nurseries that sell evergreen shrubs, deserving a 10 out of 10.  Domain authority, or how Google perceives their authority with online nurseries went down 7 points in March, second biggest drop for the month from online nurseries we monitor.  Two months later and it hasn't recovered from that sudden drop.

Direct Gardening has one of the shortest Terms of Service of all the online nurseries we evaluated. Whatever you do, KEEP the original shipping label! Their return policy has 2 segments. 

If you're not satisfied within the first year send them the plant and original shipping label and they will offer a replacement. "If you are dissatisfied with any merchandise, return it together with the ORIGINAL SHIPPING LABEL within 1 year of receipt for a FREE  REPLACEMENT.   Replacement guarantee is VOID unless the ORIGINAL SHIPPING LABEL is returned." 

They do offer a refund if notified within 14 days after you received the plant(s).   "For a REFUND of the purchase price, RETURN THE ITEM AND THE ORIGINAL SHIPPING LABEL, with the correct postage affixed, within 14 days of receipt."

It took us a long time but we eventually found 2 plants where Direct Gardening lists a plant size when shipped. 

They don't disclose it as far as we could tell but it appears everything is shipped bare root. Kind of explains their low prices.

It seems shipping is flat rate at $9.99.  Again, we couldn't find it stated anywhere but as we added more & more to our cart, the ship cost remained at $9.99. They also offer some free plants with minimum purchases.  Details can be found on their home page.

Compared to other online nurseries, even ones older than Direct Gardening, the site seems a bit outdated & clunky.  

What were the red flags? 

• The product descriptions are pretty basic.  Not a lot of details.
• No product reviews that we could find.
• No container sizes listed that we could find.  If if they are shipping evergreen shrubs bare root, they should have some sort of size range.
• Ship times seem a bit vague.
• We found broken links as well as sizes that are listed both in and out of stock.
• They are getting HAMMERED with bad reviews on Google.  A 1.5 average rating.  Facebook isn't any better with a 1.5 average rating.