RHS Reviews 259

We booked RHS Wisley night glow for 7th December. Reference 1339180. This was a stormy day and the event was cancelled. Not the fault of Wisley. We were told we would received a full refund. The next working day to process this was 9th December. We still had no refund and wished to rebook, waiting for the money to come back so that we could do so. We had to ring Wisley on Friday 20th as still no refund. We were told that Wisley could not rebook is any alternative tickets as the refund was being processed and this takes 7 working days. 7 working days from 9th takes us to 18th December. Clearly the company did not process the refund on 9th. It is now Christmas Eve ans no refund - still nearly £50 down and still cannot rebook. Disappointed children and when emailed - Wisley are unable to ring the booker back due to GDPR laws and not being able to ring back the customer by using the number used to book. It is expected we have to ring again. Very poor - and we are members !

Unbelievably RHS don't allow dogs - we visited or tried to with our dog and was told no dogs allowed. So a mainly outside venue does not allow dogs - how archaic is that!
After spending several weeks in the Lake District and visiting lots of places I.e. outdoor gardens ...indoor cafes / restaurants where dogs are welcome everywhere I am totally bamboozled by this policy - as were the staff who worked there. Really poor show RHS - it's a definite no to visiting from us!

Not dog friendly, therefore the membership totally useless to us.

I have been harassed by constant phone calls by the RHS to renew my membership. My membership was a gift, if the RHS was the only company in the world I wouldn't be a member! We were informed they were dog friendly, yes 3 days a year if you book a spot. Constant phone calls, renew or gift aid etc. 7 times being told I'm off the call list to continue to receive calls. A total shambles. My daughter's very thoughtful gift has proved a nightmare which I am now reporting to the police due to the constant phone calls even after being told 7 times my number is off the list and 3 emails instructing my numbers removal. If I could give the RHS a negative number of stars I would.

We went to RHS Wisley Yesterday and had a very enjoyable day out. We went into the terrace restaurant and were served byTheres and Zoe. It was the first day of the new menu and we were advised that there may be a delay in the service. This was not the case the service we received was outstanding ! The food and presentation were 10 out of 10 compliments to the chef, the only criticism we had which we mentioned was the vegetables could’ve done with a little bit of extra cooking as they were more than crunchy! We don’t like soggy vegetables but a few more minutes would’ve made the difference!
There is a service charge, which We felt excessive. To pay over £10 when there were only two of us is steep! Wisley we should not have to pay a service charge you should be paying your staff their worth, we should be allowed to tip accordingly for good service! Having said that, we understand the service charge is optional And we could’ve declined to pay it, but we feel that doing so Is embarrassing and distasteful! We feel you should go back to allowing customers to give tips accordingly as to add an extra £10 on the bill is making it price prohibitive and we should not be subsidising your employees wages!

The RHS Garden magazine is very poor quality now. I have subscribed to it for over 20 years and it is no longer the excellent gardening magazine that it originally was. Less than 50% of the content is worth reading - it is just a rubbishy cheap magazine full of advertisements some of which have nothing remotely to do with gardens. Therefore I will not be renewing my annual membership when next due.

Begging phone call from third party company. RHS have given my details to a third party company who phone asking me to add gift aid.
On the strength of this alone I have cancelled my membership.
They sound more and more like a scam company every year.

Visited for the autumn colours. As usual immaculate display and such evidence of hard work along the stream in particular. Well worth a visit. Not the same in the Harrogate Arms. It was lunchtime admittedly but service was so slow we walked out after waiting 15 minutes in the queue that never moved. Three staff behind the counter. One who just delivered clean cups and then stood back. One tried up with coffee maker and one serving
Left to go to Betty's cafe in the grounds. Four servers at two serving hatches. Served in give minutes. Second time this has happened . We expected the Arms to have learned how to serve but no.

As a member tried to book for Chelsea Flower Show - you can only book if you have a smart phone. Like many disabled pensioners, I don't - deaf and couldn't hear one. Spoke on an adapted landline to RHS. Gave me a number to help through the usually excellent Access system for the hearing impaired. Except they couldn't sell me a ticket. Extraordinarily, this issue was flagged up by Angela Chevalier within RHS (credit to her) - but the show organisers, "A different part of the organisation", would not listen and couldn't care less. This is discriminating by age and disability. I suspect this is illegal under the Disability Discrimination Act 1995.

I wish I could rate RHS plants as zero stars or negative!
Do not buy Plants from them they are terrible quality and not worthy of the effort of planting.
When you complain, they dispute the the fact with RHS jargon about growing in an environmentally friendly way.
I have purchased from 4 other supplies this season and had beautiful plants. One Click Plants have been fantastic!
I’m hopeful that they will sort out the problem.
A very dissatisfied customer

no reminder received for a yearly subscription which was then taken from my account despite me cancelling a year prior. Promised a refund within 21 days - never came, called again promised a BACs payment within 72 hours - never came, called up and was promised a call back within 24 hours as they apparently didn't know what BACs was - call never came, sent an email asking for clarification on why they were not paying me back - has so far not been responded to... what a joke of a company, not only helping themselves to my £96 despite being cancelled but the refusal to assist in returning the money. Avoid

The gardens were lovely. However, I took 3 year old granddaughter to the glasshouse kitchen and bought a children's pasta penne for £6.50. The dish contained about 25 to 30 pieces of pasta penne and about 2 to 3 tablespoons of tomato passata. The taste was pretty poor. In all, less than 50p worth of food....heated up. Daylight robbery. Never again. Shame on Wisley. I have been a member for several years and the price of food, the quality overall has been dreadful. It shades the gardens completely.

I find the RHS website pretty poor and hard to navigate and the new RHS Grow app is just as bad. I understand the RHS is trying to make money by charging for the new app, but we're assured we can still access our plant lists/wishlists. What isn't clear is that not all browsers are fully compatible with the website and app. I tried Google Chrome and Firefox, neither worked properly. I then tried Brave browser and the problem was solved.
It's frustrating that when I contacted RHS help about this problem, the reply just told me how to navigate to My Wishlist and didn't solve the issue.
I'm on a free trial of the new app, but based on my experience I won't pay for it. And when my membership renewal comes up next year, I may very well decide to save my money and cancel.

Booking advance tickets for garden visits.
When RHS Bridgewater first opened I persuaded my husband to visit as we were so close. Unfortunately we couldn’t book tickets as there were only 200 available.
Yes the system showed availability but it wasn’t possible to book them! So my husband refused to go on the off chance we could get in.
Guess what? Yes tried to book tickets in 2024 and despite over 1800 tickets being available, I still can’t.
Obviously the lovely email of apology we got all those years ago meant nothing.
Really the RHS has the most awful websites, slow, doddery and disfunctional.
They haven’t even claimed this site on Trustpilot as their own.
My advice, go without tickets, booking is only to help them plan so I was told.

Had a lovely day today. The gardens are beautiful. We ate in the cafe in near the walled gardens. The staff, Gill, Mick and the waiting staff were so friendly and helpful. The pizza and tomato and mozzarella salad was so tasty. We will definitely be back⭐️⭐️⭐️

I bought a Tulip shaped wind spinner for my wife. The first one arrived broken. The customer service was very good and dispatched a replacement one quickly. The problem is - IT DOES NOT SPIN. I have tried everything: It is exactly plumb, I have used oil, WD40 and even supported the metal support with steel tubing so it does not flex in the wind. Nothing works - I think it is just aerodynamically poor. Very disappointed.

So, you want plants or gardening tools. You are of a certain age? The RHS? It conjures up stability and Monty Don. It sounds right. It seems to bypass Search Engine Optimisation, because that is what you want.
I made two orders. Both were damaged on delivery. I contacted customer services. So ok, they will collect the rotten stuff, but how come they cannot get it right?
First, they have a customer services department with people who cannot understand or write English. My correspondence with them was like talking with a demented robot. Secondly, they obviously do not keep stock in hand. In effect, they are drop shippers. Google it if you don't know what a drop shipper is.

All in all, a once great British Institution does not give a FF about its customers. Avoid like a bad case of Phylloxera

Went to the flower show at Hyde Hall and purchased some Mr Fothergill seeds for £2.69. When I opened the seeds the following day I noticed a white sticker on the price and when I peeled off the sticker the price was £2.15. It's not the 54p difference but the fact I was been charged more than I should have been and feel cheated. As a matter of principle, I have also contacted Mr Fothergill.
I agree with other reviews that the RHS is not what it was 20 years ago. It's turned into a corporate instead of a charity. The restaurant at Hyde Hall used to be fantastic and now it's like a great big cafeteria. Long queues and expensive.
I will not be renewing my membership next year.
Don't suppose they'll care.

Coffee on the Hill is no longer a pleasant experience. The queue has been moved from the paying area to the dispensing area where people are standing waiting for their number to show on the small screen on the counter. There are more people standing than sitting. A bit like a railway station. A small improvement would be to move the screen to the ceiling so customers could sit down whilst waiting. A large improvement would be to revert to previous system where the queue didn’t affect the sitting area.

I have bought plants from RHS in the past, and have been very happy, their plants are good quality and not expensive. However, my recent experience was not a good one, and I definitely wont be buying from them again. I bought my plants online on July 12, and heard absolutely nothing from them about the despatch or expected delivery of the plants for 6 days, so decided to send Customer Services an email on July 18, asking when I was likely to expect delivery of the plants. I did get a prompt reply but it just spelt out their policy on despatching and delivery and suggested it would have been better to use their Named Day delivery service option, which of course is more expensive than the normal delivery service. Not very helpful! I left it a further 6days and contacted them again on July 24, again asking when they would despatch and deliver the plants. I did not get a response this time, so after a lot of searching on the web found a telephone number to contact Customer Services, their own website gives only an email and form to contact them. I rang today, July 29, and a very helpful young lady answered. I told her the problem, she looked into it and said the plants had been despatched July 22, but they had no record of which courier had picked them up, so said she would call me back in 5 mins after she had found out exactly what had gone wrong. She did call me back only to tell me she needed longer time to find out where the plants were. I told her I didn't like to imagine what state the plants were in now, and unless she could guarantee that she would have more plants despatched, preferably today, I wanted to cancel the order and have a refund. She checked availability and told me unfortunately they were now not in stock and wouldn't be available until the Autumn. I then obviously opted for a refund, which of course, she told me could take up to 5 days to reach me! I haven't had a confirmation of refund email either, so fingers crossed I get it! All I can say is what a complete waste of everyone's time that was. What useless after sales service RHS provides. They really should improve and update their after sales policies, and should put the customer first as do most companies with good after sales services. No, I do not recommend using the RHS online service to buy your plants, don't waste your time.