In late January, I ordered a DA rose for my daughter in law's birthday March 16. I arranged for the rose to be shipped to her in Washington State in late February, early March. As of Sunday, the rose had not arrived so on Monday I called. After 2 days of back and forth calls, I find that the rose cannot be shipped to her in WA until May. They could ship it to me but then I would have to pay to ship it to WA. Shipping is not cheap. And it would not arrive in time for her birthday. DA just called me to inform me that they would not compensate me for my shipping expenses, in spite of the fact that this was all their fault. They were happy to take my money and order, I do pla but never mentioned the shipping discrepancy. Had they informed me they couldnt ship til May, I would have made other arrangements.

Then, asking about my own shipment, they said my roses werent due to be shipped for another 2 weeks and I am 2 hours from Tyler, Tx where they are located. All my other bare roots that I ordered are in the ground and leafing out. DA normally ships to me in February.

I canceled the order on my daughter in law's rose. If they have already shipped it - if they want it back they can pay me to ship it. The service since the passing of David Austin, from what I have read, has been all about the almighty buck and not about customer satisfaction. This is my first bad experience with them. I do like their roses but when a customer has spent as much as I have spent over the years and they cannot correct a mistake they made.......it makes me wonder how badly I want to grow DA roses in the future. I normally have few complaints and do not like to complain on a public forum, but perhaps this can be a heads up for others wanting a rose by a certain date from DA.

I do plan to write a letter to DA concerning this matter - I am sure it will go unheeded, but I feel this should be brought to their attention.

Judith