Two orders with china-plants.com and
both were a headache.

This company mixed
up orders and my small order was sent to another buyer, while I received
someone’s else order. As far as I know, there were three people involved in this
mix up and we had to reship packages to each other. The person who received my
order, at first, refused to reship it to me, and I spent a week emailing back and
forth until he finally forwarded me my order.

My larger order of
twenty varieties arrived past Christmas holiday.

I placed my order
in October and expected it to arrive within one month, as was promised. After my payment was sent, I found
out that this large order required an import permit. China-plants.com claims to be a
large company supplying plants around the word and, if this was the case, they
should have known that my order required an import permit. Before placing my order
I asked them about the permit and was told that I don’t need one! Another month was
spent applying and waiting for this import permit, then sending it and waiting for it to
arrive to China (as the permit had to be attached to the packages). As time went
on, I
asked a china-plants representative
to move the shipping date to early March, since it was already December
and too late to plant peonies. Instead, I was given ‘advice’ to plant
the peonies
in pots as soon as they arrive. My order finally arrived during the last
days of
December when the ground was completely frozen and there was at least a
foot of snow on the
ground. But my biggest disappointment was still to come. When my peonies
bloomed, I realized that at least four of the varieties were not true to name as
their
blooms looked absolutely different (in both color and form). Of course
they
were the most expensive rockii peonies. I sent an email to china-plants
along
with pictures of the blooms, but their response was very simple: “For more than 23 years of business, this kind of situation has never happened.” I have a
hard time believing it after all the problems I had with this company.

If you would like to know how the issue with my last order ended: Elena, a china-plants.com
representative, simply decided to assign names to the peonies that bloomed with
wrong flowers using just the pictures I provided. Individuals who are familiar with
peonies know that there are so many similar looking peonies and, unless it’s a
distinctive variety, like peony Kinkaku, you cannot assign name to plant just by using a photo.

There are still a few varieties from that order that have yet to bloom and I am now not so sure that
they will be true to name either.

Want
to place an
order with china-plants.com? Think twice. You will probably receive nice
peony roots, but there is also a very big chance that you might get
something
else other than the varieties you purchased so think carefully when
placing plants in your cart to make
your purchase. This experience was both a waste of my time and money and
I would not want other buyers to experience the same headache.