FastGrowingTrees.com Review – 2 Trees Ordered & Planted!

Let’s get started.

Pros

• Price feels like a good value for the size of tree that you receive in the mail
• We received trees that were healthy and the size was as anticipated
• Planting was easy and process was outlined + easy to follow
• Limited warranty protects your purchase in the short term

Cons

• You have to do the labor yourself.
• Pictures online show full-grown trees, could be misleading when small trees arrive (ex: an apple tree may take 2-8 years before it bears fruit from the time it is planted)
• If you take advantage of the warranty, you’ll likley still need to pay shipping costs.

Overview

FastGrowingTrees.com is a company that offers a wide variety of mail-order landscaping items.

They offer a wide variety of trees, shrubs, flowering perennials, and a huge resource library of content to help support your new plants and give you ideas for the future.

Some of the categories at FastGrowingTrees.com include:

• Fruit Trees
• Evergreen Trees
• Flowering Trees
• Shrubs + Hedges
• Shade Trees
• Privacy Trees
• House + Patio
• Palm Trees
• Perrinials
• Groundcover + Vines
• Gardening Supplies
• Grass Seed
• Gift Trees

How to Order

You can pick plants you want to order directly from their online storefront.

NOTE: The most important thing to consider is your Growing Zone. Plants not approved for your climate are not likely to grow well.

Based on your IP address location, the website automatically determines your appropriate growing zone, which makes it easier to select plants that will thrive.

From there, it’s a simple three-step process to go from picking to planted.

1. Select A Plant.
2. Plant or Tree Is Delivered.
3. Put It In The Ground.

Step 1: Select A Tree or Plant.

There are hundreds of different kinds of plants offered by this service. And each plant typically has a range of sizes that you can pick from.

For the best experience, first, select your planting zone. this will tell you what plants are most likely to grow well in your area.

There are question prompts along the way to make sure that the website understands where this plant will be growing.

FGT Plant Finder

Beyond knowing the zone you live in, there are a number of other questions that you’ll need to answer before selecting the best plants for your need.

You can search the plant inventory on your own or you can use the FGT Plant Finder Tool.

This guide will lead you through a series of questions to help decide which plants are best for your needs.

The questions consider factors like:

• Plant type
• Mature plant height
• Planting zone
• Special factors (like deer-deterrant or cold hardiness)

Placing Your Order

After you select your plants and desired size, simply confirm the order and they’re on the way.

Orders typically take between 1-2 days to ship and then an additional 1-5 days in transit, depending on where you are planting.

Step 2: Tree is Delivered.

Your tree and/or plants will be mailed directly to your doorstep.

In this guide, we received two plants for review— Multiplex Bamboo and a White Kausa Dogwood tree.

Although I was initially cautious about this strategy, the quality of the trees that arrived was great.

The box arrived quickly and the exterior was in good shape. Zip ties from the inside of the box penetrate through the outside of the box and hold the plant in place.

This protects the tree from any shifting or aggressive movements during transfer.

Step 3. Put It In The Ground.

This method of ordering landscape elements online means that there is a bit of a DIY factor. After the plant arrives, you’re in charge of planting it in the ground yourself.

Both plants arrived in a cardboard box with a plastic bag around the base.

The base of each plant contained the roots, fresh dirt, a plastic pot, and a plastic bag with a zip tie at the top to hold it all together.

Having just traveled from South Carolina to Oklahoma, I was impressed with the quality of these trees. The leaves and stems were all intact and the base was still moist with water.

How to Plant It?

Each shipment comes with a set of planting instructions that take you step-by-step through the process.

We followed the enclosed directions and planted it upon arrival.

As you’d imagine, the planting process is fairly simple. Basically, just follow the steps below:

1. Dig a hole large enough for the plant to freely fit into.
2. Remove the plastic pot from the plant.
3. Loosen the dirt around the roots a bit.
4. Put it in the ground.
5. Cover the base of the plant back with dirt.
6. Press firmly to set the plant in place.
7. Water it.

FastGrowingTrees.com recommends that you also stake the trees in most cases. Stakes aren’t shown here, but we’ll be adding them to our dogwood shortly.

Upon initial planting, here is the height for both of the plants we received.

Plant	Ordered Height Range	Height at Delivery	Height at 6 Mos.
Multiplex Bamboo	48-60″	56″ overall	March 2022
White Kausa Dogwood	60-72″	72″ overall	March 2022

We’ll plan to update this table periodically—the next interval being the 6-month mark in March of 2022.

Stay tuned to see how well each of these plants grow in the interim.

The Quality

As mentioned above, the quality of these trees was great. After two weeks (photos below), the leaves still seemed to be in good shape and were adjusting well to their new home.

NOTE: These images were taken in November so the discoloration shown is more likely from the changing of seasons instead of any quality issue with the plants themselves.

What If The Plant Dies?

FastGrowingTrees.com offers a couple of different warranty options to help you buy with confidence, regardless of how green your thumb is.

As long as the plant / tree you buy is appropriate for your zoning area, there is likely some kind of warranty coverage.

First 5 days: If you’re dissatisfied with the condition of your plant within the first 5 days, call the company. As long as you can prove that you’ve planted the tree correctly and are located in an appropriate growing zone, your purchase is protected and they will likely do a one-time replacement.

First 30 days: If you’re dissatisfied within the first 30 days, again, give the company a call. FastGrowingTrees.com offers one-time replacement options.

Note: Replacement shipping costs are at the customer’s expense.

What If I Buy Outside of the Growing Season?

If you’ve ordered a deciduous tree during winter or early spring, and it fails to emerge from dormancy by May 30th, the company will guarantee it outside of the five-day notification period.

Be sure to drop them a line by May 30th and be ready to provide photos and proof of planting conditions.

Final Thoughts

Overall, I will say that the experience from FastGrowingTrees.com was smooth. The trees arrived at the expected sizes, were packaged well, and were easy to plant.

It’s hard to know exactly how well a tree will take to a planted environment, but we will be updating this review with results soon. So stay tuned for that update.