Mail-order mistakes --- grrrr!

For the last five years or so, I’ve been ordering many daylilies by mail. Of course I love to visit other daylily farms in person, too, and purchase some that way as well; but I don’t want my collection to be simply a repeat of what the other area nurseries offer. Many of my cultivars have come from farms in Wisconsin, Oklahoma, Illinois, Virginia, New York – you get the idea.

But oh, how frustrating it is to me when, after waiting a year for a new-to-me plant to bloom, it turns out to be NOT what I ordered. And it’s amazing to me how often this happens.

Just this morning, the long-awaited first bloom of Lady Neva opened. I was eager to see this “tall, soft buff yellow with rose eyezone” spider at last. But what I got was a short, bright yellow-orange self, and not a spider. Obviously, the wrong daylily – again.

Sometimes I’m delighted with the “wrong” daylily, and just keep it (actually, only once! – that one became Maison Rouge, a deep coral/red beauty, in the photo here). Usually I notify the seller that they made a mistake, and I’d like what I paid for, and offer to send back the mislabeled fans. Most of the time the sellers rectify the situation – some begrudgingly, some with sincere apologies. One seller never responded at all. (Makes it easier to know who NOT to buy from next time!)

Certainly it’s challenging when you’re digging daylilies for customers, and not all of the scapes have open blossoms; it’s important to tag each plant as you dig it, and to pay attention to make sure you’re packing up the right order. Being human, we all make mistakes. But also having been on the customer side of this situation many times, I am pretty persnickety about making sure my customers get what they ordered.

Since I’m kvetching about mail-order, I’ll add one more pet peeve: sellers who alter their photos via Photoshop to the point that it’s no longer “what you see is what you get.” For example, I ordered an Oliver Dragon Tooth awhile back, admiring the lovely white-and-purple blossom in the photo; the real-life Oliver is actually mauve and purple. Now I know to do a Google image search first, and see what shades predominate in the results.