Gardening Express Reviews

Name: Gardening Express
Address: Gardening Express, Chelmsford, Essex
Rating: 1.16

1.2 Rating 1,790 Reviews

3 %

of reviewers recommend Gardening Express

Company Reviews

Questions

Metrics

1.2

Based on 1,790 reviews

Shipping & Delivery
Delivery Methods	Courier
Average Delivery Time	Over A Month
On-time Delivery	Greater than 16%
Accurate And Undamaged Orders	Greater than 30%
Customer Service
Communication Channels	Email, Live Chat, Telephone
Queries Resolved In	Over A Week
Customer Service	1.1 out of 5
Returns & Refunds
Refunds Process	Difficult
Returns Process	Could Be Better

Phone:

08448 044 253

Location:

Gardening Express, Chelmsford
Essex
CM1 4UA

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Gardening Express 1 star review on 2nd September 2025

Varese

Gardening Express 1 star review on 24th July 2025

Anonymous

Gardening Express 1 star review on 27th June 2025

Anonymous

635

Anonymous

Anonymous // 01/01/2019

Sort by: Most Recent Most Recent Highest Rated Filter: None None 5 Stars 4 Stars 3 Stars 2 Stars 1 Stars Helpful

“Don't buy from this company, they sold me a dead bare rooted tree and now won't respond to the tickets other than to delete them without any contact, the 5 year guarantee is worthless. IMO Scammers, you owe me £45 Garden Express”

Helpful Report

Posted 5 years ago

“Long delivery of 14 days, but my account was debited immediately. Plant is definitely NOT what was described. It was so small I couldn’t stop laughing. I purchased one from my local Home Bargains for £5.00 which is almost as big and didn’t cost over £60.00. Plus it was delivered by our local taxi firm, not Hermes.”

Helpful Report

Posted 5 years ago

“Paid 19.99 for a clematis that should have been supplied attached to a trellis and full of bud, actually supplied with half dead twig. Pair of standard roses were so shocking, really unbelievable. See photos”

Helpful Report

Posted 5 years ago

“Plants arrived looking terrible. Informed them online and am still waiting for an answer. Should have known better as plants ordered last year arrived in very poor condition. Informed and was told they would be fine. One of five has survived. Won't be buying from them again.”

Helpful Report

Posted 5 years ago

“Dreadful condition of plants, not as advertised. Received plants that you wouldn’t look twice at in a garden centre never mind paying full price . 2 of the plants should have been in 2-3 litre pots indicating they would be well established but arrived in pots less than half a litre. Customer service is non existent and patronising. I cannot return the plants for a refund as aI am entitled to do as currently staying at home as per government advice due to Corona. Been advised to return them when lock down finishes. Do not use this company.”

Helpful Report

Posted 5 years ago

“Horrendous from start to finish... however we haven’t finished yet as I’m still waiting for a resolution. Ordered blossom trees which stated 5-6 ft. On measuring from bottom of soil to the top tip it nearly reached 4ft. My skinny twig did not look like any pic! Ordered jap grass. Lovely pic but again didn’t resemble what I received. All 6 were completely dead. I contacted garden express straight away and had shocking customer service’ if you could call it that. Another customer service person took over the ‘chat’ on messagenger abd stated as I still hadn’t received the full order she’d sort it all then but agreed to send me new jap grasses with them clearly being dead. If it allows I’ll attach all photos. Anyway the email address I was given didn’t work. So on faq’s states get a ticket. Did this and still waiting correspondence. I’ve sent them all the details plus order number and photos. All photos with measurements as they were very needy as to how they wanted the photos taken. Spent ages doing everything they requested to hear nothing again. Very expensive for what got delivered. Very deceiving from pics on site as to what arrives. My little twigs probably won’t get to the size on the photo in at least 10yrs! I made a massive mistake trusting this company. Learn from my very costly mistake and go to a different company or local nursery. If anyone wants to contact me I’ll be putting this review on a few sites as I don’t like to see anyone ripped off and I’ll place the photos on the sites that will allow me to attach so you can see. I’ll add the twig and what it’s supposed to be asap”

Helpful Report

Posted 5 years ago

“I have used garden express many times. The last order was last week. I have always found the plants to be in very good condition and delivery always on time. The price has been really good. Will continue to use this company. Xx”

Helpful Report

Posted 5 years ago

“Ordered 6 x bamboo plants, 5 delivered in good shape, 1 was clearly not well, pot very dry, brown leaves which were falling off, it was dead no other way of describing it. Emailed them and was told to plant it out and it will get better after 1 month which it didnt... not hard to tell a dead plant from a good one. After getting hold of them again and waiting 4 days for a response was told that i would need to send the plant back for them to look at it to work out if its dead or not. They are doing this as a tactic to get you not to bother, its a faff i just cant be bothered with. Shocking customer services, all the reviews you see on here and gardening express will reply and pretend to care, but honestly they dont. Im sure its procedure for them to send one bad plant with each order. They dont care about there customers, they make it as hard as possible to contact them, then the return process is just the cherry on the cake. Ive never ever dealt with a company so bad!! Whats the point in sending a dead plant back lol they can see its dead from pictures. DONT USE THIS COMPANY YOU'VE BEEN WARNED (well use them if you want dead plants and to be messed about for a few months. Over to primrose i go to get a new bamboo to replace the mess of a plant they sent me. ZERO STARS”

Helpful Report

Posted 5 years ago

“The oleaster limelight that I ordered arrived on the due date. However, it is extremely small and a good part of the plant has already reverted, i.e. bears just green leaves, when it should be gold and green. This reversion should have already been cut back and a decent green and gold plant sent as a priority. I have bought plants online before and never been disappointed but I will not be using this company again”

Helpful Report

Posted 5 years ago

“I have had awful trouble dealing with this company regarding a plant, not what it said on the website' You cannot phone them they will not reply to a request to phone me, so beware keep as far away as you can from this company we received two sticks and a cane see pic”

Helpful Report

Posted 5 years ago

“DO NOT ORDER FROM THIS COMPANY! I ordered a Large Acer tree that had been grafted to form a willow shape. I didn’t expect it to look like the fully nature version illustrated on their website but they showed some younger trees that would resemble the 4yr old tree I was purchasing. When it arrived it had 3 twigs on it, I was massively disappointed. It took customer service (and I use that term very loosely) a week to respond after I’d chased them. There’s no phone number so you can’t actually rationalise the situation with anybody. I was told the tree would grow, but I’d paid a premium for a mature tree so that’s besides the point. Don’t waste your time and money dealing with this company. I honestly don’t know how there still allowed to trade!”

Helpful Report

Posted 5 years ago

“Very poor customer service. Plant arrived with the stem snapped. Was advertised at 80cm but was barely 10cm after it was snapped. Even if it wasn't snapped it would have barely 40cm. Customer service team told me that they measure from the base of the pot and to allow 20% tolerance to the size stated in the ad. They also said the plant would probably grow, which is not really the point as I had paid for a larger more mature plant. They said I could return the item but at my cost, which is I wasn't happy with as either they or their shipping company broke it. I'd recommend to avoid and go to a company that cares about their customers”

Helpful Report

Posted 5 years ago

“Different excuses with standard replies”

Helpful Report

Posted 5 years ago

“I was disappointed with the quality of the Michelia Magnolia Fairy White which had obviously had it's main stem snapped off before dispatch, had few leaves for an evergreen on a straggly bare stem with a some sickly yellowish/green leaves on the end, some of which had insect damage.. Very poor quality for £14.97 and no one would have bought it at a garden centre. Their response to my complaint? "I can assure you that your Magnolia is very much alive...." so being alive is their plant quality standard! Avoid.”

Helpful Report

Posted 5 years ago

“Appalling company to deal with. Don’t believe positive reviews. I didn’t loose out to much by the value of the dead plants that i ordered. I would never fall for this again.”

Helpful Report

Posted 5 years ago

“Some exceptional prices on bulbs in the winter sales. I've ordered plenty to stock up. A couple of items were missing from the first order but that was swiftly resolved, with a second order. I would buy again.”

Helpful Report

Posted 5 years ago

“I wish I could say something positive, but all the negative reviews below, have been confirmed. I ordered a big quantity of their special sale items. I was all excited to open the boxes when they arrived 9 days later (it took 2 days for similar items to arrive from Netherlands with free delivery! go figure). Just by lifting them I understood there was something wrong, they were too light. Unfortunately the main bulk of my order was missing. I opened a support ticket (no phone number to call, big red flag I ignored) and it was resolved after 48 hours saying my order had been delivered, whoever handles the complaint section (clearly not a full time dedicated person for this) didn't even bother reading the problem or even worse sneakily pretended not to understand. All I can say is if you really want to buy from this company, go and VISIT THEM DIRECTLY at least you'll see what you get. I forgot to say, the items that were actually in the boxes delivered smelled so much of mould I had to take the boxes out of the house as soon as I opened them, maybe it was a one OFF, no pun intended but some of the items had gone off.”

Helpful Report

Posted 5 years ago

“Awful company, had been sent not only some wrong items, the plants I had ordered were damaged and very unhealthy, I sent photos of the damaged parcel and they wouldn’t except the photos (you can clearly see the plants upside down and smashed up in the box in the photographs provided) Terrible products & customer service”

Helpful Report

Posted 5 years ago

“Bought 2 Venus fly traps and 2 Pitcher plant fly traps. All 4 plants came well packaged and was as described in description. Excellent price. This is the 2nd time I’ve bought from gardening express and both times had no issues, will use again.”

Helpful Report

Posted 5 years ago

“After placing an order, I immediately noticed it defaulted to my old address and emailed immediately. Then the saga starts, notifications of attempted deliveries at my old Address, bearing in mind Gardening Express had delivered to my new address. There is no telephone number for Gardening Express, it's a live chat, they told me to get in touch with the delivery company Hermes and washed their hands of me. There is no way of contacting Hermes. All I wanted was my parcel diverting, that is all. So now I have lost nearly £40.00. Hermes have had my parcel since 7th December today is the 20th. I have never written a bad review about any company. I shall continue to do so with this company. This is Customer Service at its worst”

Helpful Report

Posted 5 years ago

Gardening Express is rated 1.2 based on 1,790 reviews