Mother’s Day Disappointment

Every Mother’s Day our daughter and I take my mother to Dewald Gardens purchase plants for her Mother’s Day present. Dewald’s was my favorite place to go for plants, so naturally last year when we decided to put in the rain garden, I went to Dewald’s to purchase the plants. We also had agreed to participate in the home and garden tour for the neighborhood association, so we purchased many more plants from Dewald’s to redo an area of the back yard. During many discussions with Rhea, we were led to believe they would stand behind their plants and at one point when we thought the milkweed was dying; they had offered to replace it. We gave Dewald Garden a lot of free publicity, our rain garden was featured in the newspaper and now on public access and we always mentioned Dewald’s. We even put a small sign in the rain garden advertising for them during the home tour along with telling everyone how they were a great place to go and they would stand behind their plants. We believe this is part of the reason Dewald’s is one of the city’s selected gardens to purchase plants for the city’s rain garden program.

Imagine my surprise when on Mother’s Day I spoke with Rhea about several of the plants that did not make it over the winter I was told “We don’t do that.” with a shrug. My heart sank. We lost all six of the Cardinal Flowers they recommended for our garden, I had even mentioned I have had problems with Cardinal Flower in the past and was told I should have no problem with these. We lost about 14 plants in all. Anyone who shops at Dewald’s knows these plant were not cheap and some of the plants we could have purchased at Lowes, (they stand behind their plants.) for less money. Our mistake, trying to support this local business.