Willis Orchard Co
800 Hall Road
Moulrie, GA 31788

In spite of the direct denial of the owner, there are still some things that bother me a bit with regard to the possibility of Willis being a TyTy affiliate. They offer similer sizes of trees, and they use the term "fruiting size" associated with certain of their tree sizes. Even though I noticed TyTy no longer uses this term they used to. I noticed also that all of the varieties Willis sells are also (supposedly) offered by TyTy.

I took the chance because I wanted a Black Jack and somehow stumbled onto their website. When I phoned and found out the size of his 3 gallon tree I just took the plunge. I also let him sell me the Peter's Honey also because of the size. We shall see - probably next year - whether the Peter's Honey is legit.

As I was writing this I pulled up TyTy's web page. I noticed that TyTy has lowered their prices on figs a lot. Hopefully it's because their business has slowed - at least it would have if there is any justice in the mail order fig tree business :)

Henry

Looking at their site, they say they are ex-employees of a big unnamed orchard known for bad customer service. Hmm I wonder who that is?

So, either they are ex-employees of TyTy who actually are trying to make a decent go of it in which case they deserve a shot, or its yet another variation on the old TyTy theme. It could even be ol TyTy saying "uncle", realizing they can't keep using their lawyers to keep their bad practices off the Internet, and so they'd better try to do it right this time.

Scott

Myself and 3 others who used to work at the previous nursery all eventually became disgusted with the overwhelming instructions of what to do regarding customers, that were FAR outside of the realm of respectful to those who were providing the lively hood for the owner of Ty Ty (many know the name well; Pat Malcolm). Several of his tactics which were to attract customers were such as the posting of false positive reviews on any sort of place which allowed them, by creating multiple usernames daily. This was an activity that occurred on Garden Watchdog here, as well as on Amazon's review system. Generally, every positive review that was there was posted was coordinated by Pat. On top of that, we as the employees who kept the business running were being treated just as poorly, with several other circumstances going on that essentially locked us into said job. Finally, enough was enough, and we left. The owner of Willis Orchards, Jason, actively desires to ensure the customer's happiness, which we are making our #1 goal, and also works to ensure that we as his employees are happy with our jobs as well.

I'm glad to have noted a large amount of activity and buzz about our two websites (especially since I, being the senior webmaster, am the one in charge of creation and maintenance of it), as well as some positive reviews both here on GardenWeb / Garden Watchdog, as well as through our Google Checkout system. The similarities which are noted between the text is due to the fact that, on both Ty Ty and Aarons, all of the product descriptions which were provided were written by myself and my two other co-workers who manage all of the computer oriented tasks. The little essential information was given, then we were told to "enhance" the text. It essentially came down to Pat's obsessing over the keywords and Google ranking, that the statement was made "We don't care about giving the customers information, we just want to put as many keywords in as possible. If the customers want information, they can call." Which, of course, was always followed up by the continual "Call by around 4 when will be here.", (normally, the person's whose name was given was non-existant) and the instructions that if the person was not wanting to buy a plant, but just ask information, that we were to get them off the phone as soon as possible, even if it meant hanging up on them.

If there are any questions or comments then please, by all means, feel free to contact any of us here at Willis Orchards / Paradise Palm through our email, orders [at] paradisepalmco [dot] com

Eric M.

P.S. - If there are any issues with the website, or general recommendations on how I can better it to make it easier to navigate, understand, or if you have any sort of feature you would like to see, I am always open for suggestions. An email to the same address above with attention to Eric is always welcome

Many of us have also high regard of a now closed nursery (PN) because of their excellent customer service and honesty.

I am glad that our interaction with the community is well accepted.

It's completely normal for the hostility and skepticism, and the 4 of us who actively left to form Willis Orchards and Paradise Palms were openly expecting it, and prepared to try and do anything possible to prove to our customers and those who were generally curious that we are, in fact, not affiliated with Ty Ty or the likes. A fellow co-worker, Jeremy, was typing up a response as well, though he had to leave work before he could finish; that is probably coming tomorrow.

As for figs, I can't say I am a big enthusiast (Sorry!), as I am just a webmaster (yes yes, I admit it, I am a geek). I've tried some figs before, and enjoyed them, but thats as far as my knowledge of figs go, besides some of their names.

Eric M.

P.S. - Something that would be interesting to those who made mention about the proximity to Ty Ty/Aaron's is that Aaron's itself does not have a physical brick and mortar location, which is why when asked, customers were told that Aaron's was mail order only. Everything is shipped out from Ty Ty Nursery, and the only thing that is done with the Aaron's address was for returns to be shipped to the post office there (which is also checked once a month, if people were lucky).

(Also, if somebody does not mind explaining to me the way to properly reply with another follow up, I would appreciate it. I had to actively change the name of the subject, as it was rejecting my message)

I've found that multiple replies often require a change to the subject but not always...??? The reply does remain a part of the original thread though.

I'll address every topic as best I can:

Are Willis Orchards and Paradise Palms owned by the same person?
Yes, Jason Willis owns both companies, and Paradise Palms exists only to act as a specialty store for palm trees, NOT to deceive anyone into buying from two "different" companies.

Is Willis Orchards geographically close to TyTy Nursery?
Yes, but it's a good drive from one to the other, I'll tell you that.

Are Willis Orchards and TyTy Nursery associated?
NO. I cannot stress this enough. We are NOT the same companies, we are not run by the same people, and we DO NOT have the same terrible customer service policies that TyTy Nursery has. As my friend Matt has explained, a few of us at Willis Orchards did previously work at TyTy. Thanks to Jason Willis, the owner of Willis Orchards, we were able to leave TyTy and form a company that actually cares about its customers.

Why are there such conspicuous reviews on Dave's Garden?
We are building our company upon a good reputation and good customer service. On some occasions, we have the opportunity to speak with our customers after they have ordered and we tell them about Dave's Garden. Willis Orchards has only very recently been added to Dave's, so I expect some more positives there soon. We have not posted any reviews ourselves, and will never do so.

If you have any questions, feel free to call or email me, or you can post in this thread. You can speak to the owner directly most times of the day, or you can speak with me pretty much all day every day. I'll be happy to speak to anyone.

Thanks,
Jeremy Tangren - 866-876-2945 - jtangren (at) paradisepalmco.com

I was wondering the same thing (re: GW policy regarding commercial representatives posting) but my wondering is not related so much towards the two people in this thread (as they have not offered anything for sale here) but instead in reference to the other posting in the forum at this point specifying plants and prices for sale.

I think the two people from Willis Orchard are ok, discussing figs as well as identifying themselves as distinct from a nursery we have all read about, or been burned by with regard to poor customer service. Should they start listing varieties they sell or prices, at that point I will feel they have crossed a line. At this point they haven't even embedded or linked a single posing to their site.

I also will say that IMHO the reaction of the powers that be over herman2 seems to have been a tad over-reaction (considering the posting "figs for sale" link provided below). I do not know if the poster of that posting received any warnings from GW, but one would think if he had that an apology to the forum (as herman2 did) would have been appropriate.

I hope other people respond to this as well. I know that I don't want to lose the experience of people who happen to also be sellers if policies go overboard, nor do I want the forum to turn into the fig classifieds.

~Chills

Eric M.

It means we have no intentions on using any sort of means such as forums and whatnot for our advertising. We are setup via Google Adwords for our advertising needs. Our sole intention of being here is to provide a link between us and those who have any sort of questions or comments regarding us that we can provide an answer to.

Eric M.

I fail to see how we advertised our commercial site. All we simply did was clarify the distinction between the previous place of employment for those who started Willis Orchards, as well as give some explanation. If you will notice, there have be no links given, nor any statements of anything besides us trying to clear our name of any skepticism.

I apologize if anything which was stated made you feel otherwise, as it was farthest from our intentions. I understand that there was some issues in other parts of the forums other this matter, however we have done no such thing.

Eric M.

I mean you no harm, but I hear names as
Willis Orchards, Paradise Palms (and also TyTy!).
Still very confused with the multiple commercial
names associated with you...
e.g.,
(orders [at] paradisepalmco [dot] com)

Recommend that you genuinely contribute to this FF
(maybe using another alias) without ever mentioning
any association with the above commercial entities.

The mentioning of the names was because the previous company with which myself and the other employees of which this thread is associated with, Willis Orchards/Paradise Palms, previously worked for Ty Ty Nursery. As stated in the above posts, we were trying to dispel any skepticism regarding our association with Ty Ty Nursery, due to its HORRIBLE reputation for customer service, and generally anything else. The reasoning for the email address (orders [at] paradisepalmco [dot] com) was, as stated, for any inquiries or anything else which users might request in such to further disperse any notions that we are, or are associated with, Ty Ty Nursery.

The recommendation will be noted, however our purpose in joining the forum was simply to reply to this thread. It would be noted that I and Jeremy did make a response in another thread, however that was a question regarding a product which a person purchased directly from us; A response was warranted.

If you have any more comments regarding any sort of "commercial advertising" which you feel may be occurring, then please feel free to email Jeremy or myself at the email address which was listed, and we will gladly respond.

Eric M.

Sorry, I had missed that point, now things make more sense.
My apologies,
George.

I hope this is sorted out, and feel that Chills expressed a viewpoint that I agree with. This forum isn't for advertising, but we should welcome any expertise that comes our way!

Glenn9643... I hope this wasn't the first time we have agreed...lol

~Chills

PS.. I did admire some of the workers at TY-TY Nursery as pictured on their website though. LOL

Yea, you will probably notice that a few images have the same people, as when we left, I copied the work I had done for the Ty Ty/Aarons site to use as a structure for the new sites which were being created. Some of the images were reusable, and in such we used them. Just had to make sure they were not images which were Photoshop'd as was requested of us constantly at Ty Ty.

Eric M.

woops! My mistake, I misunderstood the sentence. Yes, Pat gets his models from places like iStock Photos and other such online stock image sites, and would have us cut them out and paste them into the pictures. Sometimes there are peoples heads which are superimposed onto other peoples bodies. (Jason is on there a plethora of times, with a different head). Worst part is when one of the employees (who now works here at Willis Orchards) was told to take a guy's body, and put a woman's head on it. The outcome was....interesting.

Eric M.

Rather than featuring scantily clad ladies and...equally less clad fellows, our site focuses on the product that you are actually receiving. When you go to a page featuring an Elberta Peach tree, you're going to actually see an Elberta peach, instead of a woman's bosom being covered only just barely by a peach or two--or something even worse. If you could only read/hear some of the complaints people had with those "suggestive" pictures. Oy.

Anyway, we're getting off topic here :)

--Jeremy

If you are going to use a generic stock photo, please be very explicit about that fact.

I find it very offputting to discover an identical photo accompanying 2 different varieties of a given fruit. It leads me to question the validity of all of the photos associated with a site.

I know some well respected nurseries have this problem.

Shape and growth habit of the tree, as well as the appearance of the fruit are considerations that customers such as I often take into account when choosing varieties.

--Jeremy

Getting the correct species is not good enough.

--Jeremy

I'm glad to hear your response.

Just so you know "species" is more general than "variety" or "cultivar" which are synonyms.

I believe that you are saying that you ensure that you have an actual picture of a Fuji apple tree next to the Fuji apple you sell, instead of just the nicest picture you can find of a reddish looking apple.

I think its pretty self evident that customers prefer good pictures. I was trying to emphasize that, from my perspective, more important than that is that the pictures be accurate.

I consider it misleading bordering on dishonest (whether intentional or through negligence) to show a picture of one cultivar with the intent to sell another. I'm not suggesting that your nursery was planning to do that, I'm just cautioning against doing so.

I apologize, when I reread my post just now, it seems that I was being a bit arrogant--I don't mean to be though.

Thanks,
--Jeremy

I personally would rather see a clear picture of the actual plants being offered rather than a "stock" photo of what some professional photographer says is a particular plant. I'd also rather see 2-3 pics of a typical specimen rather than a single "perfect" tree. I've got plants that while perfectly healthy and well grown that have never looked like the pictures in the catalog out of which I had purchased them. (Daylilies are infamous for this)

Even some of the respected fruit nurseries make mistakes. Wayside (not a place I buy fruit plants from) had a picture of a papaya for a fig recently and another well known fruit catalog had a picture of a blackberry for a mulberry (or was it the other way around, I forget) for a couple years.

~Chills

--Jeremy

Sadly, I didn't know any better and sent a check/order off to T*T* last week. I made reference to it in another forum and found out the error of my ways.

Willis was one of the other vendors I looked at but opted for T*T* since the cost was less... and well, I'm a cheap b@st@rd (or so my wife claims).

Rather than stop payment on the check to T*T*, I decided just to let the order roll and see what happens. Since the cost to stop payment is not much less than the order total anyway.

I will now place an order with Willis for some of the same varieties and document the resulting plants progress "side-by-side", and document the results, and let this be a real world comparison.

Since the garden is run by my kids and wife, I will not tell them anything about either Co. and just label the plants "A" and "B", to keep it legit.

To the folks of Willis, let me state that I fully understand your dilema, as I once worked for a (computer networking) Co. that was horrible, and ventured out with several co-workers to join a start-up that was comprised mostly of refugees from the original and we did quite well. I truly wish the same for Willis!

Just did so, today.

>How do they look?

Will advise when the goods arrive.

Don't worry too much about your order from TyTy. Before I learned better I actually ordered from them more than once (before my trees had time to produce fruit). I have some very healthy trees I got from them. It's just that I don't have a clue what kind of fig they are other than they are NOT what I ordered. That was my experience with them. I think I ordered 6 trees from them in two orders. Not a single tree was what it was supposed to be. However, one of them has turned out to be one of my favorite figs to eat.

"Italian Everbearing" is actually a generic term, similar to saying "it's a Ford truck." Italian Everbearing encompasses many different varieties of Italian fig, and we carry only one variety that we call Italian Everbearing.

I have just put up clarification on the page stating that our Italian Everbearing tree is of the Black Roma strain. The pictures on the page are indeed accurate and reflect the plant that you are being sent.

--Jeremy

MY trees have not arrived (waiting till DEC) But those ordered by my friend showed up last week and I was indeed please to see that they were well packaged, no broken limbs, properly pruned, and minimal root damage, that I could see. and he got a decent size order for a home-owner. Peaches, nuts, pomegranates, figs, etc., etc.

I purchased...

Washington Navel Orange
Santa Rosa Plum
Florida Prince Peach

They were packed well like you said and pruned for production which too which is nice.

This is a company I can whole heartedly recommend. Their customer service is top notch too as I can attest that I called them several times and the phone was always picked up on the 1st-2nd ring by a person who was both friendly and knowledgeable.

The immediate legal concern arises, and the worry is based on whether or not, prepaid plant mail orders will be fulfilled or lost, if Willis Orchards and Paradise Palm Co. collapse after possible government interdiction, foreclosure and quarantine.

Of course I have no way of knowing as I have nothing to do with either company other than being an unhappy customer of one and a happy customer of the other. Of course all of this is just speculation on my part but I bet in the end we will find that this was orchestrated by TyTy to get rid of Willis. After all TyTy could not bring a libel suit against Willis because the things they were saying about TyTy were true. I just hope this criminal case against Willis is not true but if they took intellectual property from TyTy and used it I’m sure there is something they can be charged and convicted of. What makes all of this sad is that the people at Willis all seamed like good people from every post I have seen them make and from what little exposure I have had with them over the phone and I hate to see bad things happen to good people.

Just my .02 cents.

:)

I'd make a friendly wager susieford remains anonymous.

As we all know, anybody with a small handfull of dollar bills and an grudge can file a lawsuit, and the courts are hopelessly back-logged with frivilous and unsubstatiated cases.

>alleges

You can "allege" all you want but until it goes in front of the courts, and is ruled on, it doesn't mean _sh!t_, unless you are attempting to launch a public image smear campaign, which this sounds like.

If you are so "in the know" why don't you share with us WHO filed the lawsuit? (Keep in mind it is a matter of public record, so don't use that as an excuse not to.)

Standing-by.........

The pictures for the Celestial Fig and for the Texas EveryBearing Fig are the same? The Texas Eberbearing is a mirror image of the Celestial Fig and has been enlarged just a little and the color has been changed and lightened.

--Jeremy

there's been at least one thread on florida gardenweb regarding willis:
http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/flgard/msg1108165123059.html?13

i ordered a bunch of seedlings from them... prices and selection are excellent, but communication is a bit weak... after ordering a few weeks ago, i had to call today to find out when they planned to ship. still, they were friendly and fairly knowledgeable on the phone, and promptly answered my questions regarding rootstock.

i'll try to remember to post here about the quality of the plants. i plan to espalier most of them, so i ordered the smallest size available.

Gary

here's a pic:

gman

This company is a "keeper" I would order again and recommend it to my friends.

Black Jack Fig was smaller than I expected but healthy and new shoots are starting to break already after only 2 weeks in the ground.

The merlot grape vine's roots looked pretty weak and ganggly but it has also started breaking buds.

Really impressed w/ the Compact Stella Sweet Cherry Tree.
excellent pruning and larger than expected size.
Would purchase from them again.

We ordered a sizable order from them in December, 07. The order included some trees for our orchard: two peaches, two apples, a crabapple, four raspberries, two blackberries, and two pears. [The order lso included one dogwood, two redbuds, and three crapes] The trees were very healthy and as large or larger than advertised. The roots were pruned well and healthy. We planted the trees in mid Decmeber (4 weeks ago) in zone 9A. They are all growing already. One peach is flowering, and leaves are growing or the buds are swelling on the rest of the trees. They've been watered twice a week.

The only complaint I have is the shipping department did not alert us that the trees had shipped. We received the order unexpectedly on a Monday, not the best day for us to plant trees. I received an email notification and tracking number four days after the trees were delivered.

I ordered using the Google option. I think they have some bugs to work out with the shipping and tracking of orders. The trees, however, were large and healthy.

Knowing what I know now, I would definately order from them again, and just call them a couple times a day until the order shipped. When I called, they were friendly.

Tom Anderson

It seems like you may have overreacted. The vast majority of people who have done business with Willis Orchards seem to be pleased (as I am). From what I've read of other people's experiences and from numerous conversations with folks at Willis they seem to be reasonable and dedicated to keeping happy customers. Maybe you should try again to work this out with them - rather than jumping from your unpleasant experience to calling them a scam - at the bottom of a thread where virtually everyone who did business had a favorable experience.

Hey NE _FL..how are your trees doing ? care to fruit swap this year ?

angel red pomegranates were first introduced last spring. they were hard to get, most places were sold out, nobody had any more than 18" or so. except willis, they had 4-5 ft trees, or so they claimed

so i bought one. seemed dead on arrival, i planted it anyway, nothing after a month, so i sent it back. had to call after a month to see where my replacement was. finally got the new one, dead on arrival, planted it after soaking the roots in water, never grew

i wonder; how could willis be the only nursery in the country to offer large angel reds? or am i mistaken?

Shipping bare root plants are always going to be hit or miss, but I think so far that my experiences with Willis has been pretty good.

I've spent over $1000 this year alone mainly on internet nurseries which ship bare root plants, and 90% of them always seem to have a problem, like not having the plants I ordered in stock or delaying the shipment for 2 months. This one didn't. I got my orders in within a reasonable time.

-

Also a note about tyty's/aarons... I tried to order some stuff from them a year or so back from them. I had a list of stuff ready to order, and after reading a few off of the list and the person on the phone constantly telling me he didn't have each one I had listed so far, he hung up on me before I could even finish the list and place an order. This is before I read all of the bad reviews on this company and am glad that they didn't actually have those things, or I may have gotten stuck with some bad stock.

Not saying all of them are as bare root trees don't always make it and some people don't always plant them right away but I question a lot of those negative reviews posted at the garden watchdog.

And by the way Figlover69 if a nursery shipped me a tree that I could not otherwise receive in my state I would quietly thank them not turn them in.

Summary: Disappointing products, poor customer service, no willingness to address the problem, and rude people

-I ordered a 3 Yr old Navajo Blackberry plant, a 3 Yr old Brazos Blackberry and 25 Sequioa Strawberry plants in November. The order came within a few weeks but the blackberries were far smaller than I expected (8 inches) with virtually no root mass. The strawberries were totally dried out. I called Willis at the time and asked about the dried out strawberry plants and was assured "to ahead and plant them, there shouldn’t be a problem" and told that I should expect three foot of growth on the blackberry bushes. I diligently planted everything according to instructions including the expensive Mycorrhizal Fungi that Willis recommended buying.

Now that spring has arrived in Washington DC and everything else in my yard is bursting into bloom, I have two dead sticks in the ground with no buds and not surprisingly, not a single one of the strawberries is alive.

I got on the phone to Willis requesting that they send me some replacements. I got the run around needing to talk to three different increasingly hostile people to explain and re-explain the situation. I was told that they could not send me replacements for the strawberries because they now have a "no guarantee" policy on strawberries even if they were shipped to me dead, and that they were not able to ship replacements to the blackberries until next season. I am pretty disappointed to miss an entire growing season and not to be able to grow anything this summer so requested that they just refund my purchase. The woman I was dealing with at that point got very snippy with me and told me that they were not going to do that, that I would just have to wait, and then proceeded to HANG UP THE PHONE ON ME!

While the GW site seems to create doubt that they are associated with Ty Ty, the similarity of my experience suggests that I am dealing with the same folks.

Some other thoughts as you weigh your purchase decision:

-The Better Business Bureau gives them an "F" rating (the lowest possible rating)

http://www.bbb.org/columbus-georgia/business-reviews/nurseries-plants-trees-etc/paradise-palm-company-in-moultrie-ga-91800692

Ironically the dreaded "Ty Ty Nurseries" has a better BBB rating – a "C"
http://www.bbb.org/columbus-georgia/business-reviews/seeds-and-bulbs-retail/the-nursery-in-ty-ty-ga-15001569

-The interlocking names of Paradise Palm versus Willis suggests that they are trying to hide something

-They have now taken down their web site

Stay away from these folks

This is a marked contrast to the figs that I got from you which are doing great!

Scott