Gardening Express Reviews

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

1.2 Rating 1,799 Reviews

3 %

of reviewers recommend Gardening Express

Company Reviews

Questions

Metrics

1.2

Based on 1,799 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

Write Your review

Tell us how Gardening Express made you happy

Minimum 10 characters

Would you like to add a photos or videos?

Strengthen your review by uploading photos & videos.

Drag files here or browse

(Supported files: jpg, png, mpeg, ogg, mp4 & webm)

What's your name?

Leave this blank if you'd like to publish your review anonymously.

(Optional)

Whats your email?

We need your email address to verify that your review is genuine

Please note that we may share your email with the company to verify your order.

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

Filter: Rated 1 None 5 Stars 4 Stars 3 Stars 2 Stars 1 Stars Helpful

“Never received order contacted so many times about refund but never receive any replies”

Helpful Report

Posted 5 years ago

“Ordered an acer which shows a bright red healthy plant in a pot and what was delivered bears no resemblance to the photo. Have emailed them but have not had a response. What’s my next step. Has anyone taken action against them”

Helpful Report

Posted 5 years ago

“plants ordered early may never arrived emailed raised tickets since, still waiting for the plants or a refund that i have continually asked for. cannot believe this company is allowed to treat people like this and there is nothing i can do about it .”

Helpful Report

Posted 5 years ago

“Dead tree - a complete rip-off and no customer service whatsoever - should be prosecuted”

Helpful Report

Posted 5 years ago

“Received my final order from Gardening Express and the plants were an absolute disgrace and nothing like the photo they show on their website. Many of the leaves had dropped (due to being over watered), I guess because they 'hope' they survive the cheap deliver company they use as they know it will take at least a week to arrive. I am fed up with trying to get an answer from them and the tickets I have submitted are being deleted, one by one. After each order has been delivered, I've received a request to give them a review on their website. I have no doubt that these reviews are deleted too. My advice to you is don't be suckered by their website showing beautiful pictures of healthy plants. This is NOT what arrives. I will be reporting them to the trading standards.”

Gardening Express 1 star review on 15th September 2020

Helpful Report

Posted 5 years ago

“The most shocking customer services I have ever experienced. Beware of this company. I am out of pocket for a failed delivery that will not accept responsibility for. Avoid at all costs.”

Helpful Report

Posted 5 years ago

“The plants were excellently packaged. Hence 1 star. First order wonderful service wonderful plants. Wrote 5 star review I was so impressed. Not so second delivery. Took three months to deliver partial order, rubbish plants, only after brought in credit card company. Failed to reply with focussed response. Cannot ring!! Absolutely appalling. Got credit card refund in end and some dead and dying plants.”

Helpful Report

Posted 5 years ago

“I placed several orders in August with Gardening Express. One of them was duplicated and I tried contacting them to let them know and to have one of them cancelled but there is no telephone number and no email address. You have to raise a ticket and then wait and wait and wait. After several 'conversations' with several GE employees over a period of 10 days (plenty time to cancel the duplicated order) I was told that the window for cancelling orders was 24 hours and so I received a duplicate order. I now have 16 waterlogged hebes with a fungal spot disease (8 of which I don't need nor have the space for) and 18 Vinca minors (again, 9 I don't have room for). I spent over £500 with this company during August. Some of the plants were healthy, however many were in a disgraceful condition. I currently have 5 complaint tickets in with GE and they are generally being ignored. I was promised a refund for some plants but that was a month ago. One ticket was even closed without giving any reason why. I have included one or two photos to show the condition of these plants so that others won't make the same mistake that I made.”

Gardening Express 1 star review on 10th September 2020

Helpful Report

Posted 5 years ago

“I waited weekend to receive an order and when it arrived I received the wrong tree. This was a very bare tree and no the £60 tree I ordered, it was a different tree altogether. They told me they would send me the correct tree in 2-3 days but they have not sent me the order and this is 3 months on now. I asked for a refund multiple times and still not heard anything.”

Helpful Report

Posted 5 years ago

“Totally useless, dishonest company, need shutting down. AWFUL STAY AWAY don't believe the good reviews. Took 7 weeks to receive order, no communication, plant quality is subpar, received a dead houseleek and my Acer, though it says as pictured, arrived looking sad, sorry for itself, with barely any leaves and the box was wrecked. Totally useless company deserve to be shut down. Very dishonest. they have now deleted my complaints 3 times, after I've been waiting for a response for 3 months! And lied on Facebook with an updated post saying they're responding to tickets within 24hrs. They're just looking for business after bad press. They've also blocked me from Facebook so I cant comment or tell people the truth. They've completely refused to deal with me at all and are just pretending I don't exist.”

Gardening Express 1 star review on 9th September 2020

Helpful Report

Posted 5 years ago

“Snapped a stem off and called it a plant and charged me £7.00”

Helpful Report

Posted 5 years ago

“Still waiting for an order placed 4 months ago when delivery should have been 2-4 weeks. No response when refund requested.”

Helpful Report

Posted 5 years ago

“Never ever buy anything from this company! I ordered plants back in April, which never arrived. I emailed several times requesting to cancel the order. Suddenly some beaten up plants arrive on my doorstep 3 months later. No customer service. No refund. All my raised tickets deleted. I can’t believe they are still in operation.”

Helpful Report

Posted 5 years ago

“They have refused to give me a refund for a dead plant delivered. DO NOT buy from this company - there are much better and more professional companies out there”

Gardening Express 1 star review on 8th September 2020

Helpful Report

Posted 5 years ago

“Would give zero stars if I could. Ordered large Umbrella plant. What arrived was a 6ft high stick with only a few leaves at the top. No resemblance to what was ordered. No customer service. No contact details. Now they have just deleted my support ticket for the complaint. Only way to get refund is a well documented trail to get a dispute for credit card transaction. NEVER USE THIS COMPANY”

Helpful Report

Posted 5 years ago

“Absolutely dreadful. They have had my money for over 3 months and only supplied a partial order. I'm still out of pocket £50+. Customer service is non-existent. I've even written a letter and posted it to the head office. There's no telephone support either. I'm so cross that customers can be treated in this way”

Helpful Report

Posted 5 years ago

“Gosh I wish I had seen all of these reviews before I purchased from Gardening Express - never, ever again would I deal with this company. Terrible plants - inferior, weak specimens and not as described. Despite contacting them immediately I have not received a reply and it is not possible to speak to any body. DO NOT PURCHASE ANYTHING FROM THIS COMPANY”

Helpful Report

Posted 5 years ago

“I ordered three ceanothus and they arrived weeks late I was disgusted how dead they were upon arrival.I sent photographs of them and they replied that I should have put them in the ground with a feed! Which I would of done straight away if they were worthy of this and plus the fact I had only just received them! I wasted £29 on twigs I have sent numerous emails since and have had no reply I wish I had read the reviews from this company but I naively put my trust in them especially them stating a guarantee with them I never had to make a complaint regarding plants before and I have been gardening for45 years now so I am pretty accomplished regarding plants. Would like to take this further as I can I'll afford to loose this money I have never also wrote a bad review about anything before I am so angry!! Please do not order from this company!!!!”

Helpful Report

Posted 5 years ago

“AVOID GARDENING EXPRESS AT ALL COSTS....DONT KNOW HOW THEY ARE STILL IN BUSINESS. AFTER NUMEROUS EMAILS COMPLAINING ABOUT THE DREADFUL QUALITY OF TWO STANDARD ROSE TREES ..... LOOKED TOTALLY DEAD ON ARRIVAL BUT BOUGHT NEW COMPOST AND PLANTED WITH FINGERS CROSSED. FAILED WITH EVEN THE GRAFT JUST SPLITTING AND BLOWN AWAY. STANDARD EMAIL REPLIES FROM THEM SAYING THEY WERE PASSING COMPLAINT ONTO RELEVANT DEPARTMENT. THIS HAS GONE ON FOR NEARLY 6 MONTHS !!!! SENT EMAIL COUPLE OF WEEKS AGO ASKING HOW, AS A COMPANY, THEY CAN SLEEP AT NIGHT....... NATURALLY NO REPLY AND HAVE JUST GONE INTO MY ACCOUNT WITH THEM WHERE I CAN VIEW ALL THE EMAILS AND GUESS WHAT ........ THEY HAVE DELETED THEM ALL. HOW IS A COMPANY ALLOWED TO TRADE JUST KEEPING CUSTOMERS MONEY ????? HEARTBREAKING TO HEAR OF SO MANY LEGAL, HARD WORKING BUSINESSES HAVING TO CLOSE BUT THEY CAN KEEP ON TRADING ??????”

Helpful Report

Posted 5 years ago

“Zero customer service years before COVID and then recently in September 2020. Ordered twice from this company but several years apart. Both orders were for what they were selling as established shrubs. Both orders arrived in a very poor state and it was clear that they the plants hadn’t been looked after whilst they were maturing. Not only were they poorly but they had hardly any leaves in them (both bought in season) and looked like someone had dumped twigs in a pot and added a bit of soil. The packaging was below standard - pots were in carrier bags and then put in boxes which were too big for the plant so there was movement and therefore damage in transit resulting in snapped twigs. Not impressed”

Gardening Express 1 star review on 5th September 2020

Helpful Report

Posted 5 years ago

Gardening Express is rated 1.2 based on 1,799 reviews