SummerWinds Nursery – Palo Alto

I love hanging out at nursery and this place has a huge selection of all kinds of plants and garden stuff.
I bought a variety of veggies and fruit plants from here about a month back and all of them seem to be growing well.
The staff is very helpful and they have discounts on certain plants every so often.

I have been shopping here for fruit trees and vegetable plants for years. They have a great selection of vegetables plants, there is at least one kind (sorrel) that I haven’t found anywhere else.
There reason I’m writing a review today is a very good experience with them. Yesterday I purchased 12 citrus trees from them. At home it turned out there was a misunderstanding/​miscommunication between my husband an I: he said he didn’t want any dwarf trees (at least semi-​dwarf), but I thought he said as long as they will grow 8′ they are okay.
Anyway, I spent $ 450 and then he said no, no dwarfs whatsoever. I returned the trees (in perfect condition and had the receipt) hoping for store credit, but they were nice enough and simply accepted the trees and gave my money back. I was so relieved. Thank you.

We have been visiting for our gardening and plant supplies. People here are friendly & ready to help. One time we picked up a snow fountain cherry tree and loaded it on our sedan. one of their crew actually helped us!
They always got good supplies at competitive prices. The parking space is spacious and the plants are well taken care of.
Highly recommended!

A fun place to go wander around! My GF always finds some bulbs or something she wants to plant. The staff is helpful and professional. Exchanges are easy if you happen to kill the plant, just save your receipt!
Glad it’s here cuz our deck looks great!
We’ll be back!

This nursery was great!!! We wanted herb plants at the end of the season and were able to find a wide variety of healthy organic plants. We got sage, chervil, bay leaf, mint, cilantro, thyme, etc. Very pleasant staff and huge selection.

Nice space and plenty of variety, love the succulents! Drove by and decided to stop in, no one bugged me for I wanted to jst browse through the beautiful plants and flowers.

I have been buying most of my plants, especially veggies for about 20 years at this location, even before it became Summerwinds. Over the last few years, it seems that this location is the step child for the chain. It may be hard to find knowledgable people (guess the salary is not that fantastic), only the employees are getting less and less knowledgable.
Last year the place was okay, but not as bad as this year. I called on Monday and was told there would be a delivery on Tues… went on Wed and the veggie plants looked terrible, dry, and unappealing. The worst were the cucumbers… I couldn’t find one plant in several flats of Japanese cukes that didn’t have spotted unhealthy looking leaves. There couldn’t have been a delivery on Tues by the looks of the plants.
Powers that be in this org — either close this location or put some energy into revitalizing the nursery. There are so many other fabulous nurseries just a couple of miles away and after 20 years — I am going to go elsewhere. Instead of oh and ah I get in a nursery, I left bummed. It was really disappointing and sad. Instead of 8 – 10 veggies, I bought only 4 that seemed acceptable. and they are questionable.
A couple of times I went to the other SW in Mt. View — great help and the nursery looked healthy and rich with color. I wish I could say the same for the San Antonio branch since it is closer.

I really want to give SummerWinds a good review, but I just can’t give it an above A-​OK rating. The prices are steep and the variety just isn’t that great. Frankly, I can go the Home Depot and buy the same plants for much less.
I do like their Christmas Tree lot, though. My family almost always buys our holiday tree from this lot. They are actually a decent price and tend to be in good health, thus lasting a long time before the needles begin to drop everywhere.

Great service! I know very little about plants and so I got the staff to recommend some to me. The staff who attended to me was very knowledgeable and patient with the loads of questions asked. Wish I had found out the name of the staff.
All in all, it was a great shopping experience for me and I highly recommend this place to all.

I really love the plants here! So many plants I want to buy~ The workers here are very kind and helpful, after I bought 3 plants they helped me transfer the plants into the flowerpot. Very nice experience here!

I live in Palo Alto and from my experience the bar for any gardening business or nursery in the area tends to be very low … all of them seem to be racing to the bottom.
The low wages they pay do not bring in people who actually know about gardening. Trying to talk with Summer Winds employees for the most part is like an argument or a fencing match and gets tiresome. They are always trying to make simplistic points or take on the airs of an expert when they do not appear to know the answer to something.
Summer Winds does have two people who know what’s what so I try to find them and mostly just forget the others who stumble around over-​watering the plants or walking fast trying to avoid customers’ eyes. Summer Winds is not good for gardening know-​how but neither is just about any other nursery in the local area.
I like gardening and I hate to give my business and money to businesses that are not customer oriented and who do not seem to care about what they do, but there is very little choice in the local area. Mostly I go to Summer Winds because it is in Palo Alto where I live.
Prices are high here, but for things like vegetable starts, look very carefully because many of them are sick or about to get sick and they die when you take them home or shortly after. Got some cucumbers that were supposed to be Japanese cucumbers but grew into some kind of big bloated yellow squashy looking things.
An unprofessional nursery where you can’t expect much help or talk to people who know very much about gardening.

Great selection of vegetables and the have some large tomato plants. Based on other Unilocal reviews I went to a nursery in Los Altos first but Summerwinds has a much larger selection. «I’ll be back».

recent visit there confirmed what I had heard, new manager is the old manager, name of Dago, he is a great guy but some of his staff need an education in English speaking skills and customer service. I am offended when staff speaks in a foreign language in my presence, little do they know that I can understand most of what they say and it is quite dis respectful to talk about a customer on the sales floor when the customer might just not only hear but understand, I hope the BBW doesn’t understand gordo.
Additionally the sales staff in the fertilizer and soil areas were not very informative as in the past. Not only that their prices are quite high, but so is the quality of plants.

I have this fixation on having a money tree, though yes I’m aware it will grow me no money. Also, that it will only probably last a year or two. Why? I have yellow thumbs. Not quite green, some things decide to not die on me. Not quite brown, I don’t kill everything.
So, here we came and I liked the feel of the nursery. There is plenty of parking and the place is medium sized and well organized. When choosing a tree, they were happy, fresh and finally one just called my name — yeah!
Today, it is kind of on its last leg almost 7 months later. It is user error though, it doesn’t get enough light to dry out and I feel guilt so I over water.
Great selection of healthy plants.
Okay selection of garden ornaments.

Buy your Christmas Tree here! Since it is a nursery you think the prices will be high. Not so. Very competitive for this area. The trees are fresh. We happen to arrive a few hours after they had unloaded a truck of new trees from Oregon. They keep most trees in water.
The person working there was actually helpful, unlike the home and garden store around the corner. The people at Summer Winds were pulling out trees for our consideration. They were knowledgeable about the different trees. And once we selected a tree they gave it a fresh cut, bagged it and carried it to our car.

Interesting to see a lot of kinds of flowers and plants. It’s artificial compared to see plants in the wilderness (FYI I’m a backpacker)…but nice to know the name of flowers/​plants immediately. and also nice to have gifts here.

I was very happy with the selection and the knowledge of the staff here. We have a challenging garden area, and not one, but two different nice employees talked me through the issues and helped me select the right gear for our garden. When I went back to get additional accoutrements, a different knowledgeable employee helped me again. We got the right gear/​seeds/​plants for our set-​up.

Very bad return service from Rick.
I bought an 1 Gal plant about 2 months ago, planted in my yard and the plant slowly turned yellow and completely died about 3 weeks ago. I pull the plant up from the ground and found the root ball is about the size of a golf ball and totally root bounded.
I took it back today for an exchange and talked with Rick. I showed him the bounded and small root ball and He asked me how often did I water the plant, he then look at the label on the can and asked me where did I plant it. I told him it is at a semi-​shade location. He told me the plant needs to be at a sunny location and it is my fault to plant it in a semi-​shade location and not at a sunny location so the plant died. (Can you imagine such nonsense from a person working in a nursery?). He then asked me to show him the receipt which I did not have. I told him the label is clearly marked Summerwind. He told me it is their policy for years that I need a receipt to exchange. Talk about making things more difficult than necessary.
Either Summerwind do not train their employees correctly or Rick is a liar.
Finally, I talked with Cathy and she told me I can find another plant of equal value for exchange.
It is a very unpleasant experience both on the quality of the plant and the service from Rick.
Mountain View Summerwind is much better in customer service.

Great nursery with everything that you could need for your garden! The staff is very helpful and knowledgeable too! I was recently there looking for vegetables to plant for the summer and they had so many vegetables to choose from and many varieties within a single vegetable category as well. Everything was fresh and well taken care of.
I ended up only picking up a squash and bell pepper plant this time, but I’ll be back soon for melon. (Apparently they’re not ready until April.)
With the vast selection of fruits, vegetables and herbs available, I almost got carried away and wanted to pick up everything! But I think I should take things one at a time and work on my 2 plants for now.

I’ve been with them for years — pretty good if you have the $$$…it is cheaper @ OSH — Home Deport, etc. But I have to say the quality is better.
But just recently (¹²⁄₁₁) made some BIG purchases — bought 11 ‘Rose’ trees and they gave me a discount. Bought (1÷8÷2012) 7 ‘Rose’ trees and NO DISCOUNT — the clerk (short, plump, middle age, blonde) had already rang it up without asking me about MY discount. She wanted me to sign the CC slip & I inquired about the discount — ‘too late’ already rung it up was the response — I told her that I am not in the habit of buying BIG purchases and I would like MY discount — …‘sorry — already rang it up — it’s too late — NEXT time you buy ‘Roses’ we will give you a bigger discount — ‘
But I responded — I do NOT intend to spend $ 500 or $ 1000 again (at one time) — so how about that DISCOUNT — ‘Too Bad’ she said — ‘next time’ — WHAT next time? Why buy here when I can buy somewhere else???
Left a ‘contact message’ on their website — let use see if they respond
So I left — NOW I do miss it — but you gotta do what you gotta do — OSH — HOME DEPOT and OTHER Nurseies I go to now a days. After all, the tree or bush may NOT be TOP quality — but when you spend $$$$ and got NOTHING to show for it (and I am unemployed, etc., etc) money is tight — could have save some of the $$$
WOW!!! Just received the most awesome response from the head office — sure wish they would sign their name so I can thank them personally. They admit to errors made on their part and want to make things right.
Now I just have to wait and see — putting in 18 Rose trees is going to take some time — so all I need are small items for now which will NOT detract from my discount till I WISH IT!!! all I can do it add more to it — So Untill the NEXT project will have to wait to continue this —
But I am so glad as this is one GOOD nursery — give them 4 stars for just being Summer Winds

You know, sometimes I just want to take a stroll during the long afternoons at work. Especially on those days when I have a super huge, food-​coma-​ing lunch. Well, on those days I find myself just browsing around here at Summerwinds. Makes me wish that I have time to actually garden. The flowers are really pretty, and their selection is great.
I haven’t experienced the rude customer service that others have talked about. But maybe it’s because I just like to keep to myself as I browse. I’ll definitely have to update again though after revisiting.

Great selection of flowers. So many beautiful, different kinds! I came here with my husband & daughter today looking for some orchids and although I didn’t purchase any from here, they had more of a selection than I’ve seen anywhere else.
I’m a sucker for flowers so I give them 5 stars for having such a gorgeous selection.