Maple Leaf Farms — Attraction in Manalapan Township

I wasn't going to leave a bad review on this farm, but felt the need to after this farm went on a rant on Instagram because someone else left a review they didn't like on google. First, take a look at how poorly and insulting they speak to paying customers who do not leave reviews in their favor. This is a chop shop. For 1, they do not do refunds or warranty their plants (not that I ever wanted one). Could it be because they get a lot of bad feedback of their plants dying? Could it be because they know they are selling trash??? Hmmm. I bought 16 evergreens from them. 11 of them died! The 5 that still had a little bit of green on them took so much TLC to get back to looking decent. They are mostly bare stems, but I managed to revive them and get new growth on the bare sticks. I take great care and pride in my home's landscaping, and I have a beautiful thriving garden. We wanted to add skip laurels for hedging in the front. The guy at the farm suggested the volcano laurels to us over the skips and said they were beautiful and the leaves turn red! I asked the guy at the farm about the holes on the leaves, and the discoloration on the leaves. He said the holes were nothing and it would recover. The discoloration on the leaves were because they were new leaves and will turn green. My internet wasn't working at the time, so I couldn't do a search on that variety and took their advice. Well, the leaves turned more and more brown - never turning green. Within 2 days, the discoloration took over the whole plant. We prepped our bed and planted them anyway. After 1 week, they all looked completely and embarrassingly dead. We were hoping it was transplant shock and they would recover. According to more research, they were diseased. We asked the landscapers for their input and advise, and they said we bought sick plants. The plants at their farm are all bunched together and packed tight together on the lot. There isn't any air circulation for them. That's where the problems start - before you bring them home and before the plants leave their lot. I replied to their nasty post on IG and simply said I purchased plants that died from there. They replied back a bit sarcastically. For the record, a plant is not established in their nursery pot. Nursery pots are temporary homes. You need to make sure the plants will thrive outside of their nursery pots.... back all that alleged hard farmers work. Back that you have healthy plants. This farm tends to argue with customers posting reviews that are not in their favor. That should tell you a lot of them. Their crap attitude reflects in their chop shop plants too. Don't buy evergreens from this farm. Stick to annuals if you must buy from them. I surely didn't ignore proper care (btw guides and tips were not provided by them), I didn't mishandle nor neglect the plants. It wasn't lack of care or mistakes made. They should take accountability and understand every plant they grow isn't guaranteed to be healthy, and if so, back your products when a customer is having issues with the plants - very shortly after purchasing. Don't blame customers for them taking a plant home from the farm and it dying very shortly after. And surely don't belittle people and act like you are producing gold. Your attitude stinks, your customer service and customer appreciation lacks, and your plants are garbage. Consumers, please go to a reputable nursery or garden center who back their goods and treat you with respect. There are plenty of nurseries that back their products with guarantee and pride, and are delights to speak with. I'd rather pay more than to save a few dollars and have healthy plants that are backed by the nursery than to deal with a farm like them.

Response to reply: you weren't bashed on SM - I said my plants died - facts. That's giving feedback to your insane rant on SM because another customer had issues with your goods. No one is crying... You have no respect for your customers. Nor your evergreens. And you should read customer reviews, not just the fake ones giving positive...

I bought 2 tons of red rock two weeks ago. I went back in a week ago. The woman in her 50-60's at the register helped me. She took my name, address, and cell number and wrote 4 tons of 3/4 red rock. I asked if it could be a Friday afternoon delivery, which was yesterday. She goes to the phone to ask someone, and said, between 1-4 next Friday is okay? I said perfect. I'm going to take a half day of work to start moving the rock when they drop it. She said, wow that's a lot of work. I said, I'll get a start on the weekend. We had a funny conversation about my credit card, I paid for it and left. Yesterday, rock delivery day, I got home from work around 12:30. So 4pm comes and goes and no stone. I figured maybe they are behind. I call it 5pm, and it only allows me to leave a message. I tried three times. I look on their website, and they closed at 5pm. Now I'm mad. So I remember when the gentleman delivered the two tons, he called me. So I go back to that day, and call the number. This guy answers, I tell him my deal. He said they made the last delivery an hour ago. He said call tomorrow. I said ,hold on. I lost a half day of work now, and didn't get my delivery? He asks me to text him my information, and he will get back to me. Shortly, after he calls, he said they did not have your cell number, as when the order was written, it just said 4 tons of red stone. There was no way to contact you. I live like 5 minutes from the farm. You had my address. Have a driver stop by? He said nothing I can do. You need to call tomorrow. So I leave a message saying, I'm mad, I expect someone to call me with a reason or possibly giving me back the delivery charge. Now this guy with no people skills, wakes me at 7:14am and just says my name, and which red rock do you want? I said 3/4. All he says is, okay, it should be there shortly. No sorry, for the mix-up, no we listened to your message, we messed up, and we can do this for you..... Nothing. He just hangs up. I know this guys voice, he's probably the owner, because I think he took my order of two tons in person. I was wearing my EMS shirt and he asked me where I worked. I've read some of the other reviews with rude people. It's not hard to have people skills. Plus, you should have whoever is in charge of deliveries have them check the messages frequently, because what nursery closes at 5pm. I would have had someone follow up and say, we are so sorry for the mix up. We have lived here for 20 years, and always shopped at Brock Farms. We thought, let's give these guys a try. They are local as well. Well, because no one delivered my order, I took a day off for this. I usually only give someone, one chance. Well you lost your shot. Will never stop...

After spending over $300 on plants, the store had given the notification that they were closing (due to Memorial Day Holiday hours), we were heading out to leave and my father noticed that his key fob for his car had fallen off of his keychain. He ran back in to look and was only able to briefly before the workers began closing the doors on him even though they were well aware that we had possibly lost our only way home. Not one worker offered to help and they continued to close the store on my father and kick him out knowing full well they were leaving us stranded. They said “call back tomorrow”. Luckily my father had a spare set of keys at home and my sister was able to drive to us and give it to us after nearly an hour of sitting stuck in the parking lot. It is sad that people will value their time over helping someone, knowing full well that person may have no other options. We were simply lucky that we did have another option, if we didn’t they would have left us there with not a care in the world. I could never run a business with workers who don’t value their customers at all. If I could leave less stars I would.

5/29/23

Editing to respond to owner response on 6/1/23:

Apologies and with all due respect, that simply is false. That is not what happened at all. My father briefly checked the greenhouse room and did not find his keys immediately. He then thought that perhaps someone returned them to the cashier at the register. He went up and asked and they informed him that no one had brought up a set of keys. He then went to return to the greenhouse room to resume his search where he was “greeted” by workers closing the doors. He made them aware of the situation and told him that there’s nothing they can do and they continued to close the doors on my father. Also, they did in fact find the keys, they called us the next day and my father went to pick them up. Quite nice except for the fact that they knowingly left us stranded the day before. It’s only fair to admit that the staff cared more about their schedules than helping a stranded customer, any other story with different events is simply fabricated. I in no means mean to be nasty, I’m just stating the truth of what happened and my (fair) reaction...