I recieved these today from a vendor. I was disappointed when I picked up my package and could feel plants sliding around in the box, but I was more disappointed when I saw the roots, which appeared very dry and shriveled.

I am asking for advice because I'm fairly new to this. I don't have much sending experience, but I've added many cultivars to my garden over the last couple of years. None of my orders looked this bad, especially knowing that one of these was priced at $20 and the other at $30. I will concede that the bonus plants look better than the ones I paid for.

So my question is: If you received these plants, would you keep them or would you send them back? Am I being too fussy?

Plant 1:


Plant 2:


Bonus plants (2 sent):


All plants together:

I would return them and ask for a full refund.

Well, I'm a newbie as well and I would be disappointed too if I received plants this way

I think the vendor should have at least have tried to keep the roots damp by wrapping them in wet paper or tissue,
or should have left some ground around the roots..
(But perhaps they come from a state that requires plants to be send with bare roots?)

For starters I think you should put them in water for at least 24 hours.
The leaves are looking ok, so I don't think they have been dry for very long?

I can't see if the plants are very small... How big is the label on the bonus plant?

I must say that I received some very puny plants as well last summer:




I potted them up and they survived (a very mild) winter, but I'm sure they will need at least another year or 2 before they will give me any flowers

Perhaps you can contact the vendor to tell them about your concerns?
Mine agreed that these plants didn't look too well and returned my money.


Mayo

If you decide to keep them, I would shorten the leaves so that what root system there is doesn't have to try and supply water to a disproportionate amount of leaf area.

What Spunk said....I would contact the vendor and return for a refund.

I would be extremely disappointed if I paid $20-$30 and the roots looked like that. I would email the pics and request full refund. So it makes me wonder who pays return shipping?

I would ask for replacements. Or a refund.

scflowers
I have been looking at those photos of your plants trying to figure out if they were diseased or pest damaged. At first I thought maybe the plants were growing in hard clay and they broke off the roots digging them up, But it looks more like some borer of some type might have been eating the roots. I would for sure ask to send them back, and if they do not replace them or give you your money back, post their name here so the rest of us can avoid them in the future. If you don't feel ok with that, at least t-mail me so I can avoid them.

Mayo62,
Those are the tiniest plants I have ever seen shipped, maybe they have different expectations over there, it should keep shipping costs down for sure.

I noticed the tag on one of these plants said Heavenly Angel Ice. If a lot of these were spiders/ufo's and were purchased in the north, you are not going to get huge plants like you do in the south, but, the vendor should have mentioned that in their listing. If the plants I sent were that small, I definitely would have sent the customer some extra fans of each cultivar to make up for the small fans.

I think small healthy plants with a good root system would be perfectly acceptable, but those plants roots look almost totally missing.

and I wasn't implying that. I once got a single fan of Emerald Starburst several years ago that had 1 root barely hanging from it and I was very angry over that since I paid $l00 for it. I did contact the seller and voiced my displeasure and I was told that they would refund my money if the plant died. I potted up the plant and it survived. The plant of Emerald Starburst I received looked l0 times worse than these small plants.

Looking at the roots, some look okay to me, but there is one maybe two fans that I would be concerned about because they look like they have very little roots and look a bit dried out to the point of death. Roots looked chopped off on at least one of them. Especially the smaller fan in plant 1. I think the rest could be salvaged, but I would let the seller know and tell them you want a refund for any that die. (I know there may not be much you can do about a bonus plant.)

Thank you everyone for your input. I have contacted the seller with the photos to see if something can be worked out. If the roots looked viable, even with wilted plants, I wouldn't be so worried. I am afraid that the root is broken and shriveled in such a way that the 2 original plants I ordered won't survive. The bonuses should make it, but they aren't what I would buy for myself.

Btw, the plants involved did not include Heavenly Angel Ice (good try Cindy ); I bought that in December from Tom Bruce's Carolina Daylilies for just $12, along with H. United We Stand (6 fans, also just $12) and it looked nothing like these two.

I am not naming the plants involved because I don't want to name something that can lead back in a negative way without giving the vendor a chance to explain.

I will say that these plants DID NOT come from a northern vendor. Also, I've had two DL shipments in the past couple of weeks, and all of those plants look great (thanks spunky1 [Fred] and Kidfishing [Ashton & Terry] for sending great plants).

I just wanted a second, or more, opinion as to what is expected. I hope that I'll hear back soon and I will share the outcome.

Thank you to everyone for your input.

Something to bear in mind, if you can't work something out and you decide to keep them, is that a daylily can survive having hardly any roots as long as the crown is intact. It would need for the leaves to be cut back and some TLC in the shade, but they grow new roots from the crown.

Thanks for clarifying that Regina. A southern vendor should have had plants with very good root systems and it is very obvious these did not.

I agree Sue. I had to baby the fan of Emerald Starburst I received and I wasn't sure it would make it but it did and now I have a lovely clump of 3 to 4 fans.

@Mayo62: I have seedlings bigger than those! Only positive I can tell is that yours has a good root system. I had to enlarge the pic to see that one fan (it's funny because it wasn't mine..j/k)

I was new to buying daylilies in the mail, but I've had nursery-bought named cultivars for at least 10 years. I've been a full blown fanatic for 3 years. I've ordered probably 15 times in the mail, and have seen my share of small plants. I guess I hoped that for the money being spent that I would receive a plant that would look healthier than these. Maybe I've been spoiled since my plants I've received this year have been amazing...

On a positive note, I've been gardening my whole life and if they can be salvaged, I can probably save them. Thank goodness for a green thumb!

Regina, I have written off many of my expenses to experience and learned better but $50 of plants should not look like those. I had a lady give me some daylilies that had been in a grocery bag for 6 months and I managed to get some of them to grow and they were brown and stiff. I am sure you can get them growing with some care. I have taken chances on buying from sellers I knew nothing about but now have a growing list of sellers who I know will send good plants and I go back to them.
As a collector and hybridizer who does not depend on daylilies for income, I am most concerned about any customer being satisfied. I don't mind small plants as long as they are blooming size but they have to be healthy with good freshly dug roots. I am working on teaching my son Ashton about customer service, communication, and becoming a good business person. I understand the collecting, I search for certain plants and that is one way you end up trying a new seller.

I really hope the seller does the right thing, but it makes me wonder why he would even send those.

I hope so, too Fred. I still don't want to name anything concerning the plants I purchased, but will say that they came from a Lily Auction seller that has thousands of positive reviews...no negatives or neutrals.

I don't like to be a Negative Nellie, and I usually am willing to give people a chance. I usually do my homework, and even went through many posts here on ATP for recommended sellers and positive reviews that were posted in forums here , as well as on the green pages because I know they're from people that share my daylily passion.

Lessons like this make we wiser, but I do believe that even beginners have to start with someone being the first to buy from them and post a review. All the first time buyers build the foundation and trust that others will go by to make their purchases from a particular seller.

I have hopes that this seller will make it right, or how else would they get thousands of positive reviews? Maybe someone else was helping them and they didn't know what was being sent out.

Plus...if I was never willing to take a chance, I wouldn't have bought the wonderful plants that I received from Ashton & Terry and Fred Not that any of you are new sellers, but that I took a chance buying from somewhere I had not done business with before. I guess seeing you guys post here also makes me feel like I already knew you...or at least some of your thoughts and beliefs concerning the many topics that arise here.

@Spunky1: Ironically, one of the bonus plants was Lillian's Alabama Sunrise, which I really do like and had put on my 'to buy in the future' list.

@kidfishing: Terry, my interactions with Ashton have been all positive; I think he's emulating what he's leaning from you and that he'll certainly make his mark in the daylily world.

For anyone that hasn't done so, I encourage you to add comments to the daylily greenpages here to recommend the people you love to do business with; other people do read your reviews and make decisions based on them