- Fri Oct 08, 2021 3:42 am
#389875
I know John Ende has been a bit of a controversial figure recently, but with the free shipping promo and him having D. graomogolensis in stock I decided to give it a shot. I haven't found any actual reviews about his plants or shop, so I was curious to see how things would look. In the end, I was pretty thoroughly whelmed. The plants were okayish for the most part, but the packaging was pretty lackluster. There was no indication whether they would ship potted or bare root, but as it turns out they were surprisingly potted. The issue? Other than the grao, the tops of the pots weren't taped over to contain the soil like every single other potted plant I've received, meaning the dirt was various levels of scattered on all of them. The U. fulva was half buried because the soil was almost totally dry (???), and the D. natalensis had soil all over its leaves. In the end, I decided to just repot the three Utrics into bigger 3.5in pots as well as washing the natalensis down to bare root and repotting it. Another little more nitpicky thing I noticed is that the U. longifolia was just potted in a standard peat/perlite mix, when I was expecting to see at least some amount of lfs being epiphytic and all. Finally, I had the wrong person's invoice in my box, including their name and address, meaning more than likely they or someone else got my invoice with my personal information on it as well, which while fairly harmless is still a little annoying. However, I will at least give credit for getting a pot that included two graomogolensis when I only ordered one.
There were a couple more nitpicky things I wouldn't have even pointed out had it not been for the other issues. First was the tags were pretty terrible and didn't match. 3 were on actual good rigid tags but the handwritten green sharpie made it hard to read, while the other two were just printed on something like cardstock. I ended up just having to make new tags for them all. Also oddly enough, even the 2.5in pots didn't match each other either, but that's whatever. Just seemed a little strange they wouldn't be uniform. Also, I think this may be the only website I've ordered from that didn't have any review or account system, meaning there's no way to see reviews from other people or to find your order again after placing it other than through email.
In summary, the plants themselves seemed mostly okay and I expect them to survive (really glad I got mostly utrics), but while the packaging was *almost* there, it fell on its face at the last step. That combined with the almost completely dry soil in one pot, a potentially questionable choice of soil mix for another plant, and a lapse in care for at least 2 customers' personal information means I likely won't order here again. At least, not for quite a while.
There were a couple more nitpicky things I wouldn't have even pointed out had it not been for the other issues. First was the tags were pretty terrible and didn't match. 3 were on actual good rigid tags but the handwritten green sharpie made it hard to read, while the other two were just printed on something like cardstock. I ended up just having to make new tags for them all. Also oddly enough, even the 2.5in pots didn't match each other either, but that's whatever. Just seemed a little strange they wouldn't be uniform. Also, I think this may be the only website I've ordered from that didn't have any review or account system, meaning there's no way to see reviews from other people or to find your order again after placing it other than through email.
In summary, the plants themselves seemed mostly okay and I expect them to survive (really glad I got mostly utrics), but while the packaging was *almost* there, it fell on its face at the last step. That combined with the almost completely dry soil in one pot, a potentially questionable choice of soil mix for another plant, and a lapse in care for at least 2 customers' personal information means I likely won't order here again. At least, not for quite a while.
Attachments:
JCP.jpg (794.89 KiB) Viewed 8660 times
JCP_2.jpg (713.45 KiB) Viewed 8660 times
JCP_3.jpg (744.26 KiB) Viewed 8660 times
Half buried in dry soil
fulva.jpg (538.31 KiB) Viewed 8660 times
fulva.jpg (538.31 KiB) Viewed 8660 times
Thought it was sideways in the pot at first with how much of it was covered in soil.
natalensis.jpg (527.2 KiB) Viewed 8660 times
natalensis.jpg (527.2 KiB) Viewed 8660 times
The one pot that actually looked pretty professional
graomogolensis.jpg (554.35 KiB) Viewed 8660 times
graomogolensis.jpg (554.35 KiB) Viewed 8660 times
Nepenthes0260 liked this