The scoop on 'Sandusky Valley Nursery'

I am a Country singer in the Nashville, TN area who purchased some Nut trees from Sandusky Valley Nursery recently. Order was placed in July and my order arrived about 2 weeks later.

I now have myself some English Walnut trees which are shooting out fresh leaf buds. I am very happy with the service at Sandusky and will continue to order trees from them. With Pecan & Filbert trees on the the way it is sure to be a nutty life!.. lol

God Bless!!

Keepin' it Country,

Jason Rogers

[HYPERLINK@www.CowboyJason.com]
[HYPERLINK@www.MySpace.com]

I bought 3 plants of ebay (Aronia, Fusion Quince, Lycopene Berry) on June 9th, 2008. They arrived June10, 2008. Plants have leafed out beautifully with no problems. They were 10" twigs, which I expected for the $3-$4 price tag. I will buy from them again!

I ordered plants from Sandusky on May 2, 2007, I have still not received any plants I have emailed them twice. The first time they claimed their suppliers hadn't sent them yet, this was in July. I then asked for a refund and they won't reply to my email. DON"T BUY from this outfit they are thieves!!!!
I am in the process of repoting them as a fraudulent website.

On May 5 I sent a seventy dollar check--which was cashed-- to this company . I started on eBay where I won one item for, I think 3.95. His eBay page suggested I go to his webpage for more choices. I did and ordered approximately 66.00 more in plants. It is now September 3 and I have yet to receive my plants or have my money refunded. Also he has refused to answer emails. This constitutes the single worst business experience I have ever had. I have complained to BBB also.

I ordered 2 elderberry bushes back in the 1st week of march, it is now may and i still haven't recieved them. I emailed the company in mid april and they said it should arrive soon and still they haven't! If I knew it was going to take this much work to get the plants I wouldn't have ordered them. It is past the time to plant shrubs in my zone now so when i do get them it will take more work to get them through the summer months. Very disappointed.

Did not send my order for 3 forsythia and 1 salix for 4 months.He would not answer the phone or e mails.i finally had to send a letter threatening to report him to 3 separate organizations who deal with business fraud,which this surely felt like.he received my letter on fri and I got my order on tuesday.No apology-No explanation-no touching base to let me know if there was a problem.PLUS he charged my order to my card before it got sent out which is the worst business practice.He gets no more business from me.

I ordered a bunch of butternut trees and sumac from them. I was very happy with the order and will order form them again. All of the butternut came up and just 2 of the sumac didn't.

I ordered 2 spice bushs on June 21. As of this date I have no bushes and have never had any contact with John. I have emailed him several times threw his website and his email address with no response. I have a claim dispute ongoing now with pay pal. I'm glad to hear he has sent some plants, I thought he was a total fraud.

I ordered 2 Pawpaws, 3 goumis, 1 american elderberry, 3 aronias,1sweet shrub and 1 sweet mockorange in January 06.
I received all of them, but the paw paws, early April, perfect time for NJ. Small plants, but healthy and well packed. They all came to life almost immediatly and are growing well.
I was ready to give this company a positive rating regarding the price and the quality of their plants.
BUT, I have to change to neutral, the 2 paw paws due in back order for late April are still missing.
I sent 3 emails asking when I should expect them and telling them that if they don't have paw paw to send me 2 serviceberries instead, but never got a answer.
So, if you are ready to test your luck, it can be a good deal, but if you are use to get what you paid for,and receive a answer when you ask a question you may be disappointed.

I never received 3 plants ordered in March and promised for late April delivery. I sent John 4 e-mails, asking him to please substitute another plant if unable to get the ones I ordered and were still out of stock -- no response. Also, one of the plants never did come out of dormancy, and I asked John for advise on getting the plant to grow. Again, no response. If he is so busy, obviously he's making money, so let him get some help. That's no way to run a business!!

I had difficulty communicating with John. He did not respond to emails, and did not send the shrubs I ordered when he said he would. It took a phone call on a Sunday morning before he sent a partial order. He said that the others were out of stock, and that he would refund my money through Paypal. However, six weeks later he had not done so, and did not respond to my email. Again, I needed to call him long distance (and pay for the call!) before he finally refunded my money.
The shrubs that I did receive arrived in good condition and were packed expertly.

Could not get owner to respond to email regarding why hadn't received order. Contacted PayPal (thankfully, my method of payment) for step 1 where they contact seller for info. Still no response. Filed official claim with PayPal and still no response. Finally received order even though still no explanation.

Not the kind of business I want to deal with.

I ordered 7 bushes and 6 nut trees from Sandusky Valley. I thought at just under $4 per plant, if any were bad or if the company were disreputable I wouldn't be out much. Just received my bundle through the postal service and all the plants were healthy and starting to leaf out. They were bundled securely and the roots were moist. Each plant was labeled with a hand written red tape marker.

They are all very small but I can't beat the price. I will be ordering from them again.

The only (I hesitate to say negative) thing I found was, I left a comment on the web site and didn't receive a reply. I chalk it up to being a busy season.

I have purchased a large quantity of plants from John on several occasions now, and I've been extremely satisfied with every purchase I've made. As far as what I've bought, while I'll probably miss some things, what I do remember is a European Plum, Dwarf Apricot, 3 Date-Plum trees (Diospyros lotus), 2 Prinsepia Cherries, 2 Prinsepia fruiting cherry bushes, 5 Goumis, 1 Autumn Olive, 6 Magnolia Vines (Schisandra chinensis), 1 Dwarf Cherry (Prunus besseyi), 5 Serviceberries (Amelanchier laevis), 3 Aronias, and a Witchhazel.

John's not a blazingly fast shipper, but twice he's called me to follow up, and he always gets things delivered. I think some of the latency is due to his INCREDIBLE pricing which has to keep him busy filling orders: almost everything I've bought from him has been $3.95 or less! That's why, as you can see above, I've gone kind of crazy buying stuff (keep in mind I'm sure I've left off about a half-dozen or more items).

Everything has been shipped bare root, and the plants all appear to be one-year or less seedlings, all healthy and all doing well except for the dwarf Apricot which John said he'll replace in the spring if it doesn't turn around.

I don't think you can get grafted cultivars here -- Sandusky's is seed-grown saplings at a fabulous price.

I noticed the link to John's website is wrong. Try this if you want to take a peek at what he offers: [HYPERLINK@www.svnursery.com]

You can also go on Ebay where his user ID is buckeye55 -- [HYPERLINK@cgi3.ebay.com]

Anyway, I've been very happy with everything I've received to date from Sandusky Valley.

- john ferguson, kansas city

The prices were very appealing so I went overboard and ordered 27 fruiting trees and bushes. Two weeks later I got a bundle of trees. I don't know if he is always this generous but the six extra trees I got were just the ones I wanted extras of. The plums, aronia and elderberries are still dormant, but the princepias, goumis and quince have been producing leaves. All of them are lovely. The plants have healty roots and nice buds. I definitly plan to order again from him next fall.