Disgruntled with QVC re lemon & orange plants dying

[backstreetgirl]

I'm very disappointed as the three orange and lemon trees I purchased last year seem to have died. There is no green showing, they are just twigs and I have looked right at the bottom of these twigs, but there is no life. I have never had lemons or oranges on them and I took them in over the winter, so I have really looked after them and fed them weekly with the correct citrus feed.

Do you think I should contact QVC and ask for my money back? What with those and the fact that my Swivel Sweeper soon gave up the ghost (along with other people's according to posts I have read on here) I am feeling a bit disgruntled with QVC at the moment.

 

[boffy]

a little known fact is that plants are covered by a two year guarantee i am sure that qvc will honour this...
iwish though they wouldnt sell these difficult plants and try to tell folks that they are easy when they are not....

 

[petpixie]

That's rotten luck BSG. It's upsetting to shell out money on plants only for them to give up the ghost! Personally I would get in touch with QVC and ask for a refund.
I've never had citrus trees so I'm not sure if they'll maybe pop back to life again! Hopefully someone more knowledgable will be along soon.

 

[backstreetgirl]

Thankyou for your quick replies boffy and petpixie. I didn't know there was a two year guarantee on plants, boffy, that's interesting. I will definitely contact QVC and tell them what's happened with their 'easy to grow lemon and orange trees.' :31:

Now if only there was a longer guarantee with their Swivel Sweepers! From what I understand, reading other posts on here, I'm not the only one who has found that the battery no longer keeps the charge and it's not cost effective to buy another battery.

 

[sublime]

I wrote this earlier today in the thread about fuchsias, bsg, but ...

Try scraping off a little bit of the bark with your thumbnail - if the wood underneath is green, your plants are still alive.
If that's the case, try putting them in plant hospital ie, your bathroom, where it's warm and the air's more moist.
With any luck, that should be enough to get them to sprout leaves.
Be careful about not watering too much, too - if there's little leaf growth they won't be taking up much water, and sitting in wet compost will cause the roots to rot.

Sorry, I can't advise about a refund from QVC!

I do agree with Boffy about QVC over-egging their sales patter with tales of how you can pick your own lemons for your G&T - citrus trees are notoriously difficult to grow properly in the UK.

 

[kitten_with_claws]

Sorry to hear about your citrus trees backstreetgirl, no doubt the over-enthusiastic Richard Jackson gave a very simplistic account of the care involved & just kept banging on about how easy they are to grow?
I thought they were a bit on the tricky side myself & I had a bit of a google & the link below would seem to confirm this, suggesting at least a dozen ways you can make 'em miserable or kill 'em off:

http://www.gardenadvice.co.uk/advisor/gardening-tips/?p=98

No doubt the QVC description also consisted of about five lines of info, if you were lucky!

 

[ERICS MUM]

Most plants that are kept or spend some time indoors are very prone to red spider mite which can soon kill. I don't think RJ emphasises enough that they need to be kept in a humid atmosphere, by regularly spraying plants with a fine mist of water, plus standing them on pebbles or that black matting stuff in a small amount of water.

The little busy lizzie plugs are particularly vulnerable to red spider and can die in days with it, while spending time on your extensive window sills.

Re the Angels Trumpets being poisonous, there have been other threads on here about RJ's continuing failure to tell us that lilly pollen is poisonous to cats.

As someone else said, its not worth buying any of their sets of plants that come with hanging baskets, such as todays strawberries and and the sweetpeas - a TSV from the beginning of the year. Both need a lot of root room plus a lot of water and the supplied baskets are far too small for success.

I watch the gardening shows in the hope that one day I will pick up a useful gardening tip, but no luck so far.

Linda

 

[kitten_with_claws]

I watch the gardening shows in the hope that one day I will pick up a useful gardening tip, but no luck so far.

I don't think the irritating little gnome has ever graced up with a 'useful gardening tip'! I really don't know why they bother with him, anybody could present the gardening hours the way he does, he has to be the dullest, most repetitive presenter on QVC!

'.....but look at the flowers Charlie/Dale/Julian/whoever........300 flowers this year, 3,000 flowers next year, then 6,580,999 the next year........& they're so easy to grow........& hardy.........& look at the flowers.......'! :25:

 

[sublime]

'.....but look at the flowers Charlie/Dale/Julian/whoever........300 flowers this year, 3,000 flowers next year, then 6,580,999 the next year........& they're so easy to grow........& hardy.........& look at the flowers.......'! :25:

Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You're so right! :32::32::32:

 

[Rudolf]

Citrus palnts are not easy. We have had a lemon tree in the garden for the last three years. Only had lemons on when we bought. Never since, although we do get some blooms. It survived two winters outside but the third one was a bad one and killed it. It used to lose its leaves in the winter - although they are meant to be evergreen - and wuld not start to grow again until late in May - so don't give up just yet.

I bought the 'super' poppies a few weeks ago. They are just about dead and I have taken care of them. I just can't be bothered to send them back. Not sure how you do - in all the 10 pots RJ told us to plant them up in?

 

[boffy]

there is no way you would get good results from the tsv sold with baskets i.e the strawberry plants and the sweet peas supplied by hayloft last year ...
these plants in paticular need a good rootrun and oodles of watering qvc just go for the selling to people who trust them too much factor.


they get a resident expert who spouts absolute tosh to the unsuspecting qvc viewer who buys as one viewer did 5 sets of frozen strawberry plants to send away to friends and family ! oh and she was a viewer that was invited to kew gardens i wonder what her annual spend is.....it saddens me to say this but i am getting less and less impressed with some of the not so good quality stuff that qvc use hard sell to sell..

 

[Tricia ^^]

Snuffles, I am with you on the 'can't be bothered to send plants back'.

I bet QVC towers love the plant items.... they would hardly ever get them back. People will think they have killed the item, it would be very difficult to prove otherwise.

Sublimes post sounds a very good idea, if they are dead then I would pick up the phone, especially as you have looked after them.

On a different topic... when they say to bring the plants/ornamental trees into the house ~ because of frost etc... am I the only one who doesn't fancy all those creepy crawly and ants from my patio in my house? Or am I missing something?

 

[concordia]

Wish you folks had been around yesterday....I fell for it and bought the strawberries :34:

 

[aragorn0130]

I'm very disappointed as the three orange and lemon trees I purchased last year seem to have died. There is no green showing, they are just twigs and I have looked right at the bottom of these twigs, but there is no life. I have never had lemons or oranges on them and I took them in over the winter, so I have really looked after them and fed them weekly with the correct citrus feed.

Do you think I should contact QVC and ask for my money back? What with those and the fact that my Swivel Sweeper soon gave up the ghost (along with other people's according to posts I have read on here) I am feeling a bit disgruntled with QVC at the moment.

I'm glad you've said - I thought it was me! Mine didn't do anything either and now are just twigs in a pot. I'm ever hopeful that they spring to life but I think the time has come to bin them...... When I got them, they had a few leaves but they soon went even though I did what I was supposed to with them. I didn't buy the tree lillies TSV because my garden centre practically rolled about in laughter when I suggested I could grow them here in the North East. They said for the height QVC say they grown to, the stems are too thin and the slightest bit of wind would snap them. Didn't say that though did they? Although that may have been obvious to some... But no - you don't get the full story with some of these plants, definitely not.

 

[GenieDi]

Wish you folks had been around yesterday....I fell for it and bought the strawberries :34:

When they arrive just refuse delivery and they will be sent back and you will get a refund.

 

[backstreetgirl]

I wrote this earlier today in the thread about fuchsias, bsg, but ...

Try scraping off a little bit of the bark with your thumbnail - if the wood underneath is green, your plants are still alive.
If that's the case, try putting them in plant hospital ie, your bathroom, where it's warm and the air's more moist.
With any luck, that should be enough to get them to sprout leaves.
Be careful about not watering too much, too - if there's little leaf growth they won't be taking up much water, and sitting in wet compost will cause the roots to rot.

Sorry, I can't advise about a refund from QVC!

I do agree with Boffy about QVC over-egging their sales patter with tales of how you can pick your own lemons for your G&T - citrus trees are notoriously difficult to grow properly in the UK.

Hi sublime, yes I did see your other post and did just that with the citrus plants, but the 'twigs' are brown through and through. :17:

 

[backstreetgirl]

Sorry to hear about your citrus trees backstreetgirl, no doubt the over-enthusiastic Richard Jackson gave a very simplistic account of the care involved & just kept banging on about how easy they are to grow?
I thought they were a bit on the tricky side myself & I had a bit of a google & the link below would seem to confirm this, suggesting at least a dozen ways you can make 'em miserable or kill 'em off:

http://www.gardenadvice.co.uk/advisor/gardening-tips/?p=98

No doubt the QVC description also consisted of about five lines of info, if you were lucky!

Thankyou for the link, I will have a look at that today. Oh yes, RJ did just that, soooo easy to grow, just feed every week with citrus feed, sooo easy to grow, just feed every week, lemons and oranges galore, just feed, so easy, zzzzz etc.

 

[backstreetgirl]

I don't think the irritating little gnome has ever graced up with a 'useful gardening tip'! I really don't know why they bother with him, anybody could present the gardening hours the way he does, he has to be the dullest, most repetitive presenter on QVC!

'.....but look at the flowers Charlie/Dale/Julian/whoever........300 flowers this year, 3,000 flowers next year, then 6,580,999 the next year........& they're so easy to grow........& hardy.........& look at the flowers.......'! :25:

Your post made me laugh, that's a brilliant impression of RJ! :35:

 

[backstreetgirl]

Citrus palnts are not easy. We have had a lemon tree in the garden for the last three years. Only had lemons on when we bought. Never since, although we do get some blooms. It survived two winters outside but the third one was a bad one and killed it. It used to lose its leaves in the winter - although they are meant to be evergreen - and wuld not start to grow again until late in May - so don't give up just yet.

I bought the 'super' poppies a few weeks ago. They are just about dead and I have taken care of them. I just can't be bothered to send them back. Not sure how you do - in all the 10 pots RJ told us to plant them up in?

Hi Snuffles, hmm, the twigs are brown throughout so no hope for them, I'm afraid.

 

[backstreetgirl]

I'm glad you've said - I thought it was me! Mine didn't do anything either and now are just twigs in a pot. I'm ever hopeful that they spring to life but I think the time has come to bin them...... When I got them, they had a few leaves but they soon went even though I did what I was supposed to with them. I didn't buy the tree lillies TSV because my garden centre practically rolled about in laughter when I suggested I could grow them here in the North East. They said for the height QVC say they grown to, the stems are too thin and the slightest bit of wind would snap them. Didn't say that though did they? Although that may have been obvious to some... But no - you don't get the full story with some of these plants, definitely not.

Join, the club aragorn, twigs in a pot exactly! I will be phoning QVC though, and I will let you know what they say.