Buying Plants and Seeds Online – If it Seems too Good to be True, it Probably is

By Terry Aley, Editor

I'm always looking for a new plant variety or seeds for something I can't easily buy locally. And many of us want very unique plants that are rare, and possibly not available (or may not even exist). As I've searched online for these varieties, I regularly see flowers that can't possibly be real. For example, if there is no true blue dahlia in existence, and someone is selling one on eBay with a photo of a bright blue flower, it's likely not going to actually be a blue dahlia. There are some dahlias like Blue Boy that are "kind of but not really" blu-"ish" under the right lighting, but it's not a true blue. While eventually there might be a way to put the blue genes from another flower into a dahlia to get an unnatural blue dahlia, we don't have anything like this currently available. And it's not clear that it's possible to selective breed a blue dahlia because that's just not a color the flowers are capable of achieving. Same thing with roses, they don't have blue flowers.

There are many other types of flowers that have similar issues. Like you really can't find a yellow pelargonium in the US. But you can find them in the UK. If someone in the US is selling a yellow pelargonium, you should be very suspicious.

What is happening is that certain sellers will list an item for sale that is unavailable for whatever reason, like a rose with rainbow colors. And if someone were to purchase the seeds, germinate them and get them to bloom, it might be months or years later. By then, the seller has long disappeared with your money and moved on to a new scam.

There are a couple things you can do to protect yourself. You can start by just realizing that if something doesn't exist, a random seller you find on Google isn't going to be a real legitimate supplier. Now, there is an off chance that you might want something that is simply rare, rather than doesn't exist. That's a bit different. In that case, you can spend a little time confirming a seller or business is legit and making sure you'll be getting what you think you're ordering.

I see listings all the time on places like Etsy and eBay with plants I'm sure do not exist. One advantage with these places is that you can analyze things like their feedback and how long they've been sellers on the platform. If someone doesn't have a high feedback rating, then you can be sure there is a problem. If someone has sold hundreds or thousands of items and has only a few negative reviews, often those negative reviews are just buyers who aren't good at keeping plants alive or the post office did a terrible job with the shipping. You can be more sure of a seller like this. But again, keep in mind with seeds, you might not know for months or longer that what you ordered isn't what you received.

I've also noticed a lot of sellers from China being involved in this kind of a scam. They throw up an amazing Photoshopped flower photo, sell as many as they can, then once they start getting negative feedback, they close their account and open a new one.

Btw, if you are importing plants from other countries, and don't have all the right phytosanitary documents, it's likely (if not certain) that your plants will be destroyed by customs when entering the country. Not only will you not receive your plants, they wouldn't be what you expected regardless.

Sometimes there is relatively minor Photoshop enhancement done to flower images, mainly to show a couple colors of the same thing or remove an insect. What I'm talking about are things that are intentionally scamming and misleading buyers. My main advice is to expect the worst if it seems too good to be true. And spending a little time checking out the seller's credentials can also be helpful, especially if it's questionable.