I just received my first (and only) order from this vendor.

Seeds were $2.00 per packet and an additional .60 cents per packet for shipping. I wrote the man an email after receiving the seeds. To make it easy on me here is a copy of that email - it details all the problems:

Dear Native Ventures of Pitkin, Lousiana

I ordered seeds from you on the 12th of January, 2008. Since you had no ratings at any of the gardening communities yet I thought I would give you a try and rate you at the garden web and Daves Garden. I must tell you that I am very disappointed in the quality of your products. Here are the problems and they far outweigh any positives.

You charge way to much for shipping forb seeds. 60 cents per packet? There was no need to send them in the giant sized envelope. A 6 x 9 bubble mailer would have been more than sufficient and would have cost .80 cents at most to send. Anyway, I received them this morning. Nice quick shipping. Positive thing. I opened the envelope. Five packets of seed enclosed as ordered, no receipt, nothing  just the seeds.

Then I opened up the seed packets  what a disappointment and waste of $13.00. Your site does not indicate that the seeds will not be cleaned so that was surprise number one. For the price you are charging for shipping  cleaning was expected.

So I cleaned them myself and here are the results.

1. Lobelia puberula  Seeds picked too green and most are not viable, but I was happier with this one that the rest. There are about 100 viable seeds in this packet. Of course the last time I bought forb Lobelias from Bluestem Prairie Nursery or Prairie Moon (for the same $2.00 per packet by the way) I received a several hundred and they were cleaned and ripe.

2. Erythrina herbacea  No chaff at least, but the berries have not been fermented and there were only 5. For 2 bucks  5 uncleaned seeds? That is 40 cents each. That is out of this solar system for uncleaned, wild collected seeds.

3. Hibiscus aculeatus  Lots of chaff  empty seed pods. A great deal of seed damaging leaf rubble and dust that should never have been collected in the first place. Quite a few seeds with bug holes. After cleaning  37 seeds that appear viable.

4. Baptisia sphaerocarpa  Over half a dozen large empty seed pods  22 seeds lying loose in the bottom of the pack. Two of those have bug holes so 20 viable ones. These are so easy to clean I cannot believe you sent the empty husks. I am assuming it was to make it look like there were more seeds.

5. Amsonia rigida  Picked way too green  after cleaning there is not one single viable seed in this packet. They are all immature embryos. A total rip off of my money.

So in summation, I got an almost fair deal on the Lobelia. I would have expected a few more and better quality, but it is a rare seed  I can live with just a few seeds. That accounts for $2.60 of my order. The rest of my order cost me $10.40 for exactly 64 seeds of fair to poor quality. What does that work out to per seed  something like 15 cents each?

I am afraid I am not going to be leaving good ratings for you and I wonÂt be ordering again. Too bad too as you had some other neat stuff. If you want to stay in this business I suggest you get your act together.

Jase Connor

Greenville, GA