Freckle Farm — Local services in Hyde Park

EDIT: It has been a week since I left my review. I awaited their follow up like they said they would and never heard back and that clearly making things right with the customer is far from their list of priorities.

I bought a large expensive pot of Gloriosum from Freckle Farm about 2-3 months ago. The service was initially pretty good. My boyfriend picked up the Gloriosum while I was out of town but I did talk to the worker asking if the Gloriosum had pests or not since my boyfriend would not be able to tell. She assured me, “no pests!” I brought the plant home and had it quarantined for a couple weeks and didn’t notice anything until I saw a leaf dying off and I found aphids! I was mortified since I had never had aphids and like I said I was assured that there were no pests. I researched online what to do and I took those measures of washing off the leaves, spraying with neem oil/alcohol/hydrogen peroxide mixture, etc.

I had multiple friends tell me that I should reach out to Freckle Farm to see if they would make their mistake right before leaving a bad review. I made a phone call and they requested me to send them pictures which I promptly did. They agreed that they would help me make it right by shipping lacewings and ladybugs to help mitigate the aphids. I asked if they could do a partial refund. I was okay spending the amount I did for a healthy and not infested plant. They refused. I was willing to see what would happen with the lacewings and ladybugs that they said they would send.

I never heard back from Lisa for about a week even though I sent her an address to ship the bugs to. I called the following week and talked to Shannon and she said Lisa would have time to get back to me that day. It has been about two weeks and I have still yet to receive a follow up or a shipment of beneficial bugs.

I did not think such a supposedly reputable company would ghost their customer like Freckle Farm has done to me. I have talked to a few plant friends in the community and they said, “Oh yeah, Freckle Farm is notorious for pests and aphids. They don’t care though.”

I am frustrated because it is very apparent to me that they did not take me seriously and treated me poorly. While I was treating the Gloriosum with the neem oil concoction, Lisa came off as fairly condescending that they do not advise these concoctions. And that they are popular on social media and are not proven to help but cause more damage. This was frustrating because I felt like she treated me like a novice. I have experience higher end plants that I know how to care for. I have used a neem oil concoction to get rid of spider mites, mealy bugs, etc. and at this time, what was I supposed to do to get rid of the aphids?

Now, my gloriosum has dropped two leaves and four more have turned yellow without a response from Freckle Farm for a few weeks. Really disappointed since this was my first experience with them. They did offer a full refund if I drove the plant back which is a round trip of 4 hours. There was little to no remorse from their staff that they gave me an infected plant that could have easily infected the rest of my 250-300+ plant collection.

EDIT: One week later, I still have not received a response from Freckle Farm about following up internally on...

Utah plant lovers go absolutely gaga for Freckle Farm, with their extensive offering of trendy and rare houseplants. They have many outdoor plants, trees, bushes, etc, as well, but I made my way here in late Summer, so houseplants were definitely the goal.

The indoor shop is pleasant and open with limited gift items like cards, candles, and prints, plus a variety of planters, but the majority is reserved for (mostly basic) indoor plants, with many more housed in the adjoining greenhouse.

I experienced some serious sticker shock when finding philodendron birkin, million hearts dischidia, and fishbone cactus (along with others) priced over $50. Look, Freckle Farm knows what is trending and are taking advantage of it, and people must be buying these sought after if overpriced beauties, but it leaves a bad taste in my mouth when I've seen the same plants elsewhere for a quarter of the cost. They also have THE plant of the moment, a pink princess philodendron, for the low, low price of $425 (insert eye roll here).

Another frustration: they were recording a video for Instagram, and they are very active on Instagram, so I get it, but also, I kept jumping out of the way and missing things I wanted to look at because of it. I feel like you should pay attention to the customers in front of you, first and foremost, and it just made me feel like a nuisance. Not to mention, none of those participating in the filming bothered to say anything to me once finished. Along those same lines, even though there were several employees milling around, when I was ready to check out, I waited at the register for several minutes. Another patron even entered, stood next to me for some time, then, exasperated, said, "What? Are they really ALL busy?"

On the other hand, I excitedly nabbed a personal wishlist plant: Natal Mohagany, at three feet tall and under $30, along with perfect small neon pothos and N'Joy Pothos to add to a planter. They truly have a lovely mix of goods, and I think I could forgive either the exorbitant prices or poor customer service,...

I don’t know what’s going on with Freckle Farm lately, but I was very disappointed when I stopped by earlier this week. I have a large collection of indoor plants and many have come from Freckle Farm. When I stopped by on Saturday, 80-90% of the plants I saw were badly damaged. So many large, mature peace lillies were right in the walkways, perfect for little kids to step on. The fig leaves were brown, and one tree even had mushrooms growing in the top layer of soil, with a humidifier blowing directly on the plants. HUGE red flag. Tips of the leaves were brown. Every calathea I saw had torn leaves. Outdoors, the snake plants are growing through the bottoms of the nursery pots, badly needing to be replanted. Huge monstera nodes were hanging on by a thread! I understand that it’s difficult to keep all plants looking beautiful when you have a lot of foot traffic, but someone needs to be monitoring and making sure people aren’t touching the leaves. If you’re going to sell damaged plants, at least offer a discount! Anyway… a manager or owner needs to stop by and see what the customer sees: root rot and broken stems. YOU GUYS!!! Train your employees better. Your plants are gross!

I promptly left and bought a gorgeous ficus just down the road at the Garden Gateway. They’re smaller, but take better care of their plants and have...