Great thread. Hello Mike. You are everywhere. The LA looks great these days. Love the new changes.
I am a full time user of the LA for both seeds and plants. I buy all my plants and seeds from the wonderful vendors who sell there products on this site. I usually have wonderful communication with the sellers either by email or snail mail. As soon as I win an auction I toggle the pink button under
'closed auctions' to PAID. The button then turns to GREEN, and states PAID. I do not leave feedback until the plant has arrived here in Vermont. That way, I know how many plants I have ordered during the course of the Winter. I also email the vendor a week or so before I want the plants sent to me as a reminder to the date I gave them to ship plants to me. For seeds won, I leave feedback immediately after I receive them in the mail. James Hall (Mljomo) specifically asks for a reminder email from the buyer to SHIP NOW. That is a curtesy to the buyer just in case we may have horrible weather like a Spring snowfall or other foul weather. I have 10+ daylilies coming from James. As for Mark Sattelmeir (Abundant Daylilies) I have never had a problem. I think I may have 6 plants coming from him this Spring. His plants are healthy and vibrant. Both of these vendors usually leave me FEEDBACK as soon as they receive my checks. If they don't after a month, I will email them respectfully and remind them. TINK is great for leaving both feedback and shipping date marked on the LA 'closed auction' page. So is DOT.
Each vendor is different in how they handle their accounting load. It's also up to the buyer to communicate successfully with the seller. Last year I had a bit of a problem with Pete Harry. Other buyers were having problems receiving there purchases as well. We all contacted Mike, and eventually it was straightened out. Pete was busy moving plants to his new nursery after buying out Frank Smith's business...an awesome task. He was just overwhelmed with work. Mike straightened it all out, and we all received our plants a few weeks later than we expected. All Pete's plants were HUGE, double and triple fans, in 'amazing' condition.
I love the Lily Auction, and Mike does a super job, as administrator, in keeping the site maintained in a very professional and easy to use online site.
