The scoop on 'Pense Nursery'

I made my first order to this company in January, just over the $30 minimum, to see what they were like. Mailed the check on January 11, asked them to ship ASAP, and got the plants (3 kinds of blackberries) about a week and a half later.

Low prices, really fast service, excellent large plants, well-packed. And they threw in two extras no charge.

I do wish that they sold their raspberries in smaller lots than 12 (blackberries have a 5-plant minimum). I'd buy a half dozen raspberry varieties from them, if they had 3-packs like other places.

Order raspberries twice from Pense Nursery. Plants were much bigger than I expected with great roots. Received them when I requested. Ordered more raspberries by phone today. Pense was very pleasant and personable.

I purchased blueberry bushes, blackberry plants and raspberry plants; over 400 plants in all from Pense nurseries. All plants arrived in excellent shape and every single one lived and leaved out. The only plants that did not live were the ones my dog pulled up. Mr Pense was really nice to deal with and called me personally. He actually sent extra plants in case some of them did not live. His plants and business is first rate and you need to look no further for a fine person to do business with, when I need other plants this is where I will do business,his plants are quality and prices are reasonable, meldreth

I'm new to Dave's Garden but I'm not new to Pense. In 2001 I lived on a bluff in S. Illinois. I had tried to grow berries from another supplier with no luck. At that point I looked for a berrry specialist on the internet. I ordered thornless blackberry plants and the BackYard Berry Book from Pense. The plants arrived in great shape. With the help of the berry book and the strong stock from Pense, the blackberries grew like crazy. In two years we had some plants with 12' canes and had more blackberrries than I thought was possible in the clay soil of the bluff. The blackberries took over certain parts of the property and my children delighted in eating them fresh off the cane. I highly reccommend Pense.

I ordered various thornless blackberry cuttings/plants from this company. They arrived promptly in great condition and they even included some extra ones in the order (which made me dig more holes....sweat sweat) Great prices. Over all a nice experience.

Very positive. I have done business with them in the past and ordered again. I called and left a message. They called me back on saturday. I ordered and received my plants on wed. 5 day. plants were great. 4 extra bundles of 25 had 26 in them. roots were great, moist. everything i've done with them has been good.
randy

I called in an order for 25 Caroline raspberries and 25 Apache blackberries. We agreed on a ship date of March 6th, weather permitting. The plants were shipped on March 6th and I received them two days later on the 8th. They were packaged real well. They looked healthy and most of them had good root systems. They were in the ground less than an hour and a half later. I had previously bought raspberries and blackberries from 2 other sources but they didn't compare to these. The price and shipping was very reasonable. If I am in need of anymore plants I will definately order from Pense again.

plants arrived one week after ordering, four days after they shipped, ordered grape vines, brambles and elderberries, all in fine shape and good size, great prices, and extra plants they give you, more than makes up for the cost of shipping, I would highly reccommend this company.

All I can do is give a honest and objective outlook on my experiences with this company.
I called the company around 4 weeks prior to ordering from them. I believe I talked with the owner. I had specific questions concerning the ordering process, and more specific questions in concern with the items I was ordering and recommendations. He was a wealth of knowledge, describing the techniques to successfully grow and harvest blackberries as well as the characteristics and food values of each, propogation, and cultivation requirements. He even ellaborated on their company history and invited me to visit and that I could pick up my order if I let them know in advance, so that they could have it ready. I even had to "hurry" the conversation because he told me almost too much and I didn't have a whole lot of time.
I ordered Triple Crown Thornless blackberries, Navaho, and Arapaho. I also ordered Vanessa grape and Himrod.
My ordered arrived just a few days ago. They were relatively established plants that come pruned, and with whole roots attached (12-15" long). Altogether the blackberries averaged 18 to 24" and were as big around as pencils, and the grape had anywhere from 3 to 5 canes and were around 24-30" long. I was pleasantly suprised to have much follage on the blackberries, and they also sent me approximately 1/3 extra of each plant in my order. At their current prices I recieved at least $20 more in plants. I requested that I wanted the plants to arrive in the middle of November, they were a little early, but pretty close to that time.
They also sent me a letter approximately 2 weeks before shipment to let me know that they were successfully processing my order and that they were including extra plants to offset the sales tax. I am impressed and will definitely order again from them.

I ordered 50 boysenberry & Dewberry plants in fall of 2004. They arrived in good shape and went right into the ground. They all grew well 6'-12' this year and will soon go dormant and I'm looking forward to berries next year. This was my second time ordering from them with no problems and the prices are excellent!

In Feb 05 I ordered blackberries, boysenberries and gooseberries. I received my order 3 Mar 05 and planted them the same day following the instructions included in the order. None of the boysenberries or gooseberries grew. I called the company several times and left messages but they never returned my calls. I have emailed them twice and they have never returned my emails. I know that some plants may not grow through no fault of the grower; but, I expect them to at least return my calls and for them to offer their support. I will not use them again.

Because of their very resonable prices, I decided to give Pense Nursery a try in March of this year. I ordered 12 Raspberry plants, 4 Black Currants, 3 Red Lake Currants and 3 Black Currant/Gooseberry crosses, 10 elderberry plants and 50 Ozark Strawberries. I was very pleased with both Mr. and Mrs. Pense in my ordering and the plants came in at a decent rate and they were very nice plants. So far, all the currant type plants have came out, Strawberries look great and so do the Raspberry and Elderberries. This company is one third the price of my previous favorite company and so far the plants have faired better as well. I will do business with Pense Nursery again. No need to go anywhere else. Price and Quality are paramount.

Ordered 18 blackberry plants back in January. Order was about a week late, but all the plants are growing. I'd buy from them again.

I bought 25 raspberry and 25 blackberry plants from the Pense Nursery last year. They arrived in a timely manner, excellent size, generous quanities. I ordered another 50 plants this year and again recieved excellent plants and four or five extra of each type. Mr. Pense himself took the phone order and he still had my order info from last year. A real deal considering the quality and price. I will do business with them in the future.

Two years ago (spring 2003) I ordered blueberry bushes and grape vines from Pense. I was extremely satisfied with both the price and quality. While the growth of the grape vines has been about average, the rapid growth of the blueberries has caught and surpassed many of my established 4-5 year bushes.
Last year(spring 2004) I ordered more blueberries and grapes. In addition I ordered some fall gold raspberries and some purple royalty raspberries. I have been completely satisfied with Pense and those fall gold raspberries are just awesome.
I have just sent my order to Pense for spring 2005. This year I am ordering more fall gold raspberries and 2 types of strawberries.
I would definately recommend Pense based on both price and quality of nursery stock.
Tom Anderson

I ordered 100 chambourcin plants for delivery in mid January, weather prevented delivery till early Feb. Quality and preperation was great, better than I've seen from other nurserys. Plant performance to date has been outstanding.

I sent Pense an order for various things including blueberries, grapes, and strawberries in March 04. A month later, nothing. I wrote to ask about my order. Only then did they return my order unfilled, saying they had nothing available. No explanation why they waited more than a month to respond. Now the planting season probably is past. Cheap prices but poor customer service.

I have ordered from numerous mail order companies in the past and Pense Nursery has by far provided the best quality stock. The rasberry plants that I received were all well established, large plants, with excellent root systems. I was very pleased with my order, and would gladly order from them again. I would like to add that they their communication does leave a little to be desired, as I emailed them twice with questions before ordering, and never received a reply. However, the quality of their product more than makes up for the lack of communications.

In February, 2004 I called and talked to one of the Pense's about recommending varieties for my area (far Northern Kansas). I talked to a very polite and helpful young man who helped me to not only select varieties that were likely to work in my area, but who also helped me decide when the plants should be shipped to arrive at the proper planting time.

I received my plants on Friday, April 9th. BOY! Was I surprised. These are some of the largest, healthiest plants I have ever received. Most of the red rasbberries were 3/4" or more in diameter and had tremendous root systems. The grapes likewise had very good root systems and were from 18-24" tall. The blueberries (3 year olds) were about 30" tall and had leaves and blooms all over, but had very well developed roots systems as well. I also got 2 different varieties of thornless blackberries that were very well developed and healthy-looking also. The only thing to do now is to see if they grow!

I will DEFINITELY be ordering more items from them. I had no problems whatsoever with my experience.

In 2001 I ordered 50 triple crown blackberries and 100 black raspberries from Pense for the 2002 planting season. The plants were all strongly rooted and all survived. In 2003 the blackberries had a first time yield of over 1.3 gallons for each plant and this was after a 30% loss due to hail.

I ordered 730 of the same blackberries in 2003 for 2004 planting and have received them. These plants have even stronger root systems than the first order.

Both orders arrived on time and in excellent condition. Those who complain about the service at Pense need to keep in mind this is a family run business. And if you have ever run a farm based family business there are never enough hours in the day. On both shipments I was notified prior to shipping so that we could make final preparations.

In late October 2002, I sent to Pense Nursery an order and a check for 200 rooted grape stock. In December 2002 and January 2003, I requested confirmation from Pense of this order via U.S. mail, email, and telephone. They responded to none of my requests. In early May, well past the optimum time to plant grapes in my area, I notified them that I was cancelling the order and placed a stop payment on the check. This company has an atrocious attitude toward customer relations and are extremely unreliable. I very strongly recommend that no one do business with this nursery. I have done business with other nurseries and Pense Nurseries is far far far far below average. If you order from them and receive viable stock, consider yourself extremely lucky!!!!

ABSOLUTELY AWESOME!!!!! Big, healthy plants. Order filled exactly right. Order received exactly on time. Excellent service. I received my first order from Pense shortly after receiving my first order from Gurneys. The difference in quality, service, and accuracy was monumental. (I've since received an additional order from Gurneys, and I am NOT happy with them. They sent me a substitute tree that is not anywhere near the quality of the cultivar that I ordered, and is not even listed in their catalogue.) I'm very much looking forward to ordering from PENSE again and again!

My husband and I are setting up a small u-pick for berries and have ordered everything from Pense Nursery. We have had nothing but the best results (plants and customer service)!
We have ordered: Blueberry (3 varieties), Thornless Blackberry (1 variety), and Grapevines (3 varieties), 200 plus total. We have experienced no loss. Plants were large, healthy and rooted quickly. You cannot purchase plants here in NY for that price and quality!

Thanks Pense!

Mike & Maryanne Reagan
Central New York

I have ordered several times from Pense. The plants always arrived in good condition, had massive root systems and were larger than locally available nursery stock. Have always had courteous service. If customers have had plants die, I suggest their cultural practices are at fault.

Half of the grape vines I received have died over the past 3 years. Others are not growing well at all.

I was extremely pleased with my order from Pense. I was ready to order before I saw the two negative responses on this website. Most other companies weren't taking orders after March, so I decided to take a chance. I mailed my order first thing Friday, April 26, 2002 and received the order one week later, Friday, May 3rd. The plants were very large caliper with good roots. I had to dig trenches about 5 feet long for the yellow raspberries to spread out the roots. Everything was available except the blueberries. I received a refund check Wednesday May 1st. I will definitely use them again.

After having a negative experience trying to place an order from Black Diamond Nursery, I emailed Pense hoping to find out if boysenberry plants were still being shipped so I could order from them instead. (The owners of Pense and Black Diamond appear to be brothers, sons of a successful AR nurseryman. However, they don't seem to have learned much.) After at least a week, I still have not heard from anyone at Pense.
Another business that's DEFINITELY not into customer SERVICE ! (Must run in the family)

I wanted to order some berry plants but could not get anyone to answer the phone or return a call. Shipping costs were unclear so mailing a check seemed unwise. Evidently not very customer oriented.

We had ordered and paid for 1000 blackberry plants from Pense Nursery, and they delivered only half the plants, of 1 variety, as ordered for spring 2000. They promised the other 500 plants of 2 varieties for fall 2000, but did not ship them then and did not return our money. We finally got plants of 1 variety and root cuttings of the other (when we'd ordered plants) a year later, but the root cuttings were tiny and only 4 plants grew out of 285 cuttings. After repeated letters and phone calls, we finally got our money back for bad plants and the price difference between plants and roots cuttings in summer 2001, 18 months after we'd paid. Two years after we got the field ready with raised beds, we'll finally finish our blackberry planting with plants from another nursery. We had also ordered 2000 strawberry plants from Pense, which they buy from another nursery, and the plants had started deteriorating by the time they sent them to us. We planted the ones that still seemed OK, but almost all died, so again we had to completely replant the field the next year with plants from another nursery (those plants did great). So I'd warn anyone not to place a big order with Pense.

I did some checking--got ahold of someone from Winfrey Valley Nursery, another spinoff from the father's (Loyd Pense) original nursery. I asked the person I spoke to there about Pense Nursery and was told that Philip Pense has had back problems during the past year and his wife, Donna, is sick (I'm not sure how serious or how long). In my eyes, that could explain the apparent discrepancy between early postings and postings during 2000. I contacted everyone I could who'd posted about Pense Nursery…The response was consistent with the postings, a mix of good and bad. Using a search engine and the information I had at hand, I also learned that the Pense family has had a significant, longstanding presence in Winfrey Valley. Thoughthere appear to have been some recent problems with the business and I was never successful in reaching Pense Nursery directly (after multiple tries over a four-day period), corollary evidence suggests that Pense Nursery is NOT afly-by-night. For my own purposes, I probably waited too long to order anyway (Arkansas is well into Spring, while Western New York is still getting snow at the time of this posting). I was hoping to make a limited trial order to make a risk assessment on several varieties while I do site preparation for a larger planting in Spring 2002. I'll pay a bit more to get what I need from other nurseries (there are a number of other excellent sources out there), but might place an order with Pense Nursery at some time in the future. In the meantime, I wish their family the very best.

I discovered Pense Nursery at the end of February 1999. I gave them a call at that late date and they were very helpful and told me what berries they had left. I was very happy with the plants they sent. Most of the berries I bought from local sources died that year because of the harsh weather and poor quality of the plants (at twice the cost.) All of Pense's survived and thrived. Some of Pense's had berries on them same year. I place an order in November 2000 for berries and grapes and forgot about it. I order from quite a few places. It wasn't until February 2001 I realized that I hadn't received my order. I should have checked on my order and not waited so long. I called and then sent a copy of my order and canceled check. My order along with a check for money due for out of stock items was sent in a short time. Pense berries have the best root system I have ever seen.

Just wanted to add my comments. I had already sent an order in to Pense Nurseries before I found this page. I started to read the comments and was I was pleased at what I was reading until I got to the year 2000 comments. I started to worry. Pense had charged my card on the 8th of March even though I had told them not to ship until any time after the 20th. I found this page while at work on the 23rd and reading the last couple of comments I got nervous. Shouldn't have. I got home from work that day and there was the box from Pense. It had my proper order of blueberry plants, 20 of them, in 4 different varieties. At least I know there are at least 20 plants there, there may be more since I haven't had time to separate them yet. The soil they are in was nice and moist andthe plants look healthy and vigorous. The are at least a foot higher than the 3 year old plants I bought locally last year at 4 times the price. Only small problem with the shipment is that 3 of the plants near the top of the box had some broken stems but I don't think that will matter much since there are buds down lower where they can branch out. Don't think that was Pense's fault anyway since it looks likesomething had been set on the box in shipment since there was a bit of a dent in the middle of it. So far however I am satisfied with my order and will definitely consider ordering again. [update 4/18/2001]…They have been sitting in the cold and rain bareroot for over 3 weeks now and yet are still alive and very vigorous seeming. Some are putting out new shoots even though they weren't planted. So far only one seems to be in trouble and that is a runt plant that I went out in the rain to plant within a couple of days of getting it since it hardly had any dirt covering its roots at all. Must say these seem a great group of plants and I would not hesitate to recommend Pense to anyone.

I placed an order for a good number of wine grapes, blueberries, and other plants via fax this spring. Pense never delivered my order, never responded to my e-mails, nor returned numerous telephone calls. I am not sure if the company actually exists. Due to the lack of any response, I did not place an order with another nursery, fearing I would over-purchase stock. In the end I entirely lost my spring planting season. Hope others have better luck!

After reading all the positive comments about Pense, I placed an order with them last Winter. I have since not been able to contact them by either e-mail or telephone, they cashed my check and did NOT send my plants. EXTREMELY aggravated.[update 7/2000]I ordered some plants from Pense nursery last winter and sent a check, which they cashed around Christmas. After not being able to contact the company by phone OR e-mail (no answer either way) I still waited for the shipping date of march 30 which I had specified. Nothing arrived. I tried to get a hold of them again but no luck. I finally contacted the better business bureau and they promised to look into the matter. Pense didn't get back to them either and they closed the file. DO NOT ORDER FROM THEM!! I'm not even sure the company exists; I found a handful of websites that looked almost identical, same plant lists and everything. Might just be a way to cheat people out of money.

I ordered a few grapevines, some raspberries, and some blueberry plants. All arrived in great condition; the grapevines were very good sized, as were the blueberries. I was very impressed with the beauty of the blueberry plants. The people were very helpful with suggestion of varieties. I hope they grow well now!!!

I purchased raspberries, boysenberries, and Orus-8 gooseberry/currant crosses from the Pense Nursery this past Fall. Like one of the other people who commented on this nursery, I found them to be very generous with the number of plants they sent (I ordered 12 raspberries and received 16, and ordered 12 boysenberries and received 14). The customer service representative I spoke with was very helpful and honest about what I should try to grow in North Alabama's heat and humidity. They only sell in fairly large quantities (minimum of 12 raspberries, for example), but the prices are excellent. I will definitely be a repeat customer.

I would highly recommend Pense Nursery. I made a small order, and my shipment arrived on time, and in great shape. The plants I received were huge, especially for what I paid. All of the plants survived, even the one my daughter's dog dug up and chewed on. If I had more land, I would order from them again without hesitation.

Although I look forward to ordering some berries from them next year, neither an email nor a phone message was responded to a month ago. They lost a tool and book sale as a result.

I ordered stock from several companies this year, and have planted their stock side by side, you can really tell what came from where. The stock I ordered from Pense Nursery doing WONDERFULLY!

We ordered from Pense this spring and found them easy to deal with even on a small order. The stock they send arrived in great shape, and they were generous in their count of canes. I'd definitely do business with them again.