I ordered Empress Wu from there. The price was the best I had seen but shipping was more. It worked out fine though as I spent less with hosta and shipping combined from even on Ebay. Empress Wu was just one eye...but I am happy.

The alleged Hosta Rhino Hide turned out to be a blue-green center with a gold edge that is likely Frances Williams. When I complained via email The Hosta Farm responded by sending another identical to the first. When I complained again the response was that the hostas sent were Rhino Hide according to the "greenhouse". They did, however agree to refund my wife's $19. Now I wonder whether the Dancing Queen is the real deal. The leaves are gold and wavy but hardly rippled or piecrusted like the pictures I have seen. Time will tell; IÂll see if the hosta gets lighter as the season progresses.

The folks at The Hosta Farm, while responsive, do not seem to know their hostas very well. I recommend you beware of The Hosta Farm. There are so many other knowledgeable hosta sellers.

Mark

Hi Mark,

The Hosta Farm is affiliated with Gorge Top Gardens, and they are notorious for sending completely different plants. Often you don't know it until the perennials flower. After reading your initial post I was 99.9% certain Rhino Hide would not be correct, as it is hard to come by, would never be sold bare root in bark, and it was being sold by Gorge Top Gardens.

Don't plan on seeing your refund any time soon.

Be sure to leave feedback at the gardenwatchdog.com Gorge Top Gardens, also now known as "The Hosta Farm" is one of those places that intentionally preys upon people online. This isn't a matter of "not knowing" their hostas, they intentionally advertise things they don't have and then ship you something else.

I hope you have better luck than I have had with this company. I wish I had done a search of the internet prior to ordering. If I had read all the negative comments, I would not have ordered. I contacted them for replacements under their 1 year guarentee. After getting e-mail confirming my replacements were on their way, I waited and waited. Many months later, countless e-mails and calls, no replacements. Now I have discovered the surviving hostas are not the ones I ordered. I have the following fakes Eskimo Pie, Dancing in the Rain, Remember Me, Silver Bay and Flemish Sky verified by Master Hosta Judges! In the future, I will pay a little more and my hosta bucks will be spent with reputable vendors.

I purchased 5 hostas and two clematis last fall. I recieved them on time, they were healthy and about the size I expected. I will definitely buy from the hosta farm again. Prices were in my budget, as well.

Interesting that your first post ever was related to a business and on a thread that is five years old, greenwelsh.

We get those occasionally. They sign up one day and make either an outrageously negative comment or outrageously positive comment and then we never hear from them again. They never posted to gardenweb before, but drop by to tell us they got what they expected. Hmmm...

bk

Well, this issue has been going on for a while, it seems. I ordered a nice crop of 8 plants, set to ship the 31st of August. Nothing. I emailed them, promised to ship the 8th of Sept. Nothing sent, no order status update. I email to cancel as I am out of town for a week and don't want plants delivered while I'm gone (and they don't seem punctual enough for me to reschedule). Nothing heard back. We'll see how this all plays out. Every week is less time they have to get established in the great white north before winter.

hmmmm. I, too, ordered several plants in August, paid thru PayPal, and have not received my plants yet. Guess it's time to do some follow-up on my part... Grrrr.

revluke and roxanna, I'm in the same boat right now. I ordered in July. When I didn't receive them in a month, I emailed. I did receive a response that said they would be shipping August 31. It's now September 14 and I've yet to see anything. I was just getting ready to send another email to them. I assume that the end of August is very busy for shipping so I was trying to be patient.

I sent another email, they promised to contact the greenhouse manager again to ship, nothing today... So, I'm cancelling, hoping they didn't charge my card until they would ship. Went through paypal, so I'm fairly confident I'll be able to fight it if a charge does appear. Disappointing, but I hit up some Hosta library auctions from Naylor creek for nicer plants at better prices, so all is well.

re: charge. Right, you can certainly dispute any charge on your card. Please remember to post your experience on Dave's Garden Watchdog and perhaps save someone else grief with this company

Well, this morning I received an email from the Hosta Farm to say that my August order was on its way. I'll give it a few days to see if it actually arrives, and let you all know. =) Their website did mention recently that they were about a week behind schedule, which (for me) is not too bad. Hope your order is similarly en route, Popmama!

Same here roxanna! It says it's on the way and there was tracking info too.

yay!!

I got mine yesterday--just about a week late. They were on the small side too.

i imagine small size might be due to weather conditions this summer. A daylily order I just got apologized for the smaller fans for that reason... Guess we'll have to baby them for a while after planting!

Mine arrived today and are what I consider good-sized plants. Assuming that each really is what it purports to be, I am pleased. =)

Good deal for you. After they hadn't shipped again last Monday I canceled. They sent a reply email and canceled, but said it was too long ago (7/27) to refund via paypal so they would send a check. Still hasn't arrived as of today, 9/20, so I have opened a paypal dispute until it gets here.

Yikes, I don't think I'll be ordering from them. Too much hassle.

I did receive my three hostas. I'll post pics later. They were pretty small, but the roots look healthy. I just hope they aren't too delicate to make it through the Winter here. Crossing my fingers!

Hey, Popmama, I'm in Westminster! : )

Hey don! I have followed some of your comments on here. Knew you were in Colorado (that part is kind of obvious), but didn't know you were that close. Do you know of any hosta events around here?

These are the three I purchased from HostaFarm: Whirlwind, Lakeside Paisley Print, and Victory.

That "Whirlwind" looks like Revolution. All of the tags are Walters Gardens tags and to my knowledge it has been quite a few years since Walters has grown Whirlwind. If the plant was shipped in an elle paper pot (the fabric wrapped plugs) then it was definitely mislabeled.

No hosta events in our area, Popmama : (

ctopher_mi, it was shipped in bare root in plastic bag, then wrapped with an off-white butcher-type paper. No fabric wrapped plug.

I guess I can keep an eye on it to see how it turns out next year and look for signs of something other than Whirlwind. Although I am sure I won't know the difference. :-)

Don, perhaps we need to start our own hosta event. I am up for it!

FYI, got my refund today via paypal, so that's nice

It is Whirlwind.

Horrible. Whatever hosta they sent me was not the Empress Wu I paid for, and their employee Kevin has been promising since March 2015 to replace it. After 7 months of his failure to honor the original order I am just grateful I didn't spend too much on my initial trial with this disappointing business.

Sooo not impressed. I ordered August 4 for a Sept 28 ship date - STILL NO PLANTS ON NOVEMBER 4!! I emailed and called nearly a dozen times, was told three separate times that they'd ship it "tomorrow", or that it was "on it's way", and finally heard today that they aren't shipping any more orders this fall and I will have to wait until spring. While I totally understand they have a busy season and would have been willing for a little while after my order should have arrived, I find this completely unacceptable. No apology or explanation from them, either. They can't refund my credit card and now I have to wait for them to mail me a check for a refund - I'm afraid they're going to give me the runaround on this too. Mistakes happen, but this is outrageous. I am so disappointed and would not recommend them.

Sorry to welcome you to the club of growing customers that have been lied to by The Hosta Farm. Consider sharing your experience on as many social media sites as possible. I've posted on Dave'sGarden, GardenWeb, Facebook and Yelp. I also plan to post photos of the wrong plant they sent me every year it fails to grow into what I paid for, and will try to post regular monthly updates of Hosta Farm's continued poor service.

Great advice from BKay!

Buyers beware: Hosta Farm is announcing a "Hydrangea Trials" sale on 12/2/15 which is very similar to the sale that roped me into buying an Empress Wu hosta several years ago. I was one of at least several customers ripped off by Hosta Farm when they did not send the correct plant. For the entire growing 2015 season Hosta Farm made endless promises to send the real Empress Wu, but never did. Now they don't even respond to any updates requests. "Trial" in the description is a huge red flag with this dishonest business.

Beware Reminder: Hosta Farm announced a new website on 2/23/16, but this business is notorius for sending the wrong plants and making empty promises to replace them. Don't be tempted by rock-bottom prices. You get what you pay for, and Hosta Farm is the worst of the bunch.

BEWARE: On 2/27/16 Hosta Farm advertises Empress Wu price comparisons, showing their bargain basement offer. What they DON'T tell you is that you might not get the real thing, and they will eventually ignore your requests to honor what you paid for. Don't waste your money at this dishonest dealer.

New Hosta Farm Flash Sales compares themselves to reputable dealers like Wayside Gardens. Do not be fooled! Hosta Farm will do anything to grab your money, then ignore you after they've sent the wrong plants. To Chicagoans, Hosta Farm is the Lincoln Towing of the nursery business: dishonest.

Beware Hosta Farm's latest ruse with ads for Empress Wu's "Cousin". Don't believe a word Hosta Farm says, because after they've snatched your money and sent you the wrong plant you will never hear from them again.

Hosta Farm in Coeburn, VA might be getting desperate with their latest email of two-buck sales, despite also warning that they have only one staffer who is already behind schedule. That doesn't improve their history of sending the wrong plants and then lying and failing to honor what was ordered. Gee, maybe these bad reviews are making a difference. I know over 200 people have seen mine. Stay away from this lousy business at all costs!

I began ordering plants from the Hosta Farm in 2013. I was pleased with the delivery and quality of the plants in the spring of 2014. After that, it was all downhill!!! I pay for my plants months in advance and choose a delivery date. When it came time to deliver my orders in 2015 nothing arrived. After numerous unanswered phone calls and emails, I was advised there was storm damage which caused delays in the shipping. It was a harsh winter and I was patient. Yet after weeks of no plants, I became annoyed and continued my barrage of emails and phone messages. My order was supposed to arrive early April and finally arrived in June!!!!! I gave them one last chance. I placed orders in November and December 2015 for plants to arrive early April 2016 for a landscaping job. No plants and more excuses. This year the east coast experienced an extremely mild winter so storm damage doesn't fly. It appears this company takes your money but has no one to fill the orders. Sounds like greed has gotten the best of them. They refuse to hire anyone to fill orders because it takes money out of their pocket. I had asked for a refund several times but was informed by Greg that the plants had shipped. In fact, they had not. I guess Greg was hired on to the company in Kevin's place as the new company liar. The plants are somewhat expensive for the size but actually in good health and a good selection of varieties, which is why I gave them a last chance. If they hired some help, sent out the orders on time, filled them correctly, and stopped lying, this company would flourish. Instead they rack up dozens of negative comments for poor business practices and therefore rely on unsuspecting new customers. It would be to their benefit to retain repeat customers.

Sorry to hear about another of the many customers burned by The Hosta Farm in Coeburn, Va. They've been using that "storm damage" line as an excuse forever. If you read between the lines of their frequent sales pitches it sounds like they might have half an idiot working there at most. Thanks for sharing your experience as it may help prevent unwary customers from losing their money to the Hosta Farm thieves.

So...You guys are suggesting that this Hosta Farm retailer is NOT a good place to shop?

Correct - The Hosta Farm in Coeburn is among the worst businesses I have ever had the misfortune to deal with.

Good to know what the Fus is all about.

tj