City Escape Garden Center and Design Studio — Local services in West Chicago Township

Expect to be gouged at City Escape Garden Center.

I’ve been looking for some plants to complete our garden, Graceful Grasses “Fireworks” in 4 inch pots, to be exact. We’d purchased them at Home Depot, but came up 2 plants short. I looked at 4 different Home Depots this week but couldn’t find them. I’d seen them at one Home Depot in 8 inch pots, but I was concerned about the size of the pot and the size of the container. They were $8.95 at Home Depot. I decided to wait hoping that Home Depot would restock them.

This morning on the advice of a friend I went to City Escape. I found the same plants, Fireworks, from the same supplier, Proven Winners, in 8 inch pots, so figuring a bird in the hand, I purchased two plants. I was surprised to see that City Escape was charging $14.99 each, which I learned when they were rung up. No, the individual pots were not marked. “What the heck,” I thought “a bird in hand ....”

On the way home I passed a Home Depot (one of the 4 I had checked during the week) to see if it had been restocked. It had. The plants I wanted were there. I decided to buy 2 plants in the 4 inch pots. After my purchase I took my plants from City Escape to the return desk and told the clerk I had not purchased these plants at Home Depot, and showed her that they were from the same supplier Home Depot uses. The clerk said “I’ll try” and scanned the bar code. She was unable to accommodate me only because that store did not stock that plant in an 8 inch pot.

I decided to return the plants to City Escape and arrived there within in 2 hours after having made my original purchase. They refused to do so saying that “plant material” cannot be returned. I spoke with a manager and pointed out that I ad the receipt and the short time after the purchase. He also refused.

I had not seen a single sign about this at City Escape, and there wasn’t one at the counter. Checking the sales slip I did see that at the bottom, the sales receipt I received AFTER they had taken my money. Otherwise there was no indication that plants could not be returned.

So, based on this I strongly advise you to skip City Escape and shop at Home Depot. Their prices are lower, and if you need to make a return, you can,

Expect to be gouged at City Escape and to remain gouged.

NOTE: AFTER I wrote a review on their Facebook page I received a call and was told my money would be...

Do not be fooled by the positive reviews of this place! It is indeed a nice place to walk around but the charm ends there. ALL OF THEIR PLANTS develop diseases and die within two weeks of purchase. I've tried multiple times thinking it must be me but I am a successful gardener and indoor plant dad and no matter what I buy from this place it dies within two weeks. I'm finally writing this review after trying once more and purchasing 2 separate honeysuckle vines worth $200. Within a few days I noticed spots and some leaf yellowing. I had not removed the plants from their pot, giving them time to acclimate to one thing at a time starting with their location. A few days later I found several massive spiders amongst the plants! I went back to speak with the folks at City Escape to see if they could diagnose the problem and or replace the plants. They convinced me it was just adjusting to a new environment and that i shouldn't worry about it, the plant would bounce back. By the following week the yellow spotting had turned black and the leaves were shriveling and dying! Nothing I did worked and within two weeks both plants were completely dead.

This place is a total scam! My guess is they HEAVILY spray their plants with pesticides at the nursery and are diligent about rotating out anything that doesn't look healthy but everything is infected and you'll discover this as soon as you bring these overpriced plants home. Of course there is no return policy, no compensation for plants that are clearly diseased, if I could give this 0 stars I would. It's such a bummer cause you want to see a local place like this run a good business with quality products and service but they are just like any big company trying to make money and willing to swindle or cut corners on quality just so protect their margins.

I highly discourage anyone from flushing their money down this local toilet. Head over to Christy Weber just up the street instead, at least they take returns on plants that clearly...

We’ve been coming to City Escape for a couple years for both our indoor and outdoor plants as well as for pottery (they do have a great selection of pots).

We’ve decided to stop buying our house plants from there after our Natal Mahogany tree we purchased from there had a disease called scale (tree bugs that leave a sap like residue everywhere, which eventually went onto a chair sitting next to the tree in our condo). We went in and showed photos to their management and explained how we had been trying to treat it for months (and this was direction they gave to us), and none of our other plants had this issue. They told us there’s nothing they could do.

We ended up giving them a second chance and replaced the tree with a Dracena, it unknowingly had gnats in the soil which hatched days after bringing it home. We called and asked if they could potentially give a discount or any level of service to compensate for the second large plant we took into our home from this business which came with bugs. They said again they can’t help us or offer anything for the issues we experienced.

We want to support this store and local business but in a case like this where the level of customer service doesn’t justify their price tags, quality of products (faulty in fact), or time we’ve had to invest in plant treatment and cleanup we’ve experienced, it leaves us not much choice but to do our plant shopping elsewhere.

I would still recommend them for pottery and outdoor plants, but I would not chance bringing any of their indoor plants into...