Lowes Home Improvement Store in St. Charles, IL: A Review

Over the course of a year, I visit all the main home improvement centers for my hardware and garden needs whether it is Home Depot, Menards, or Lowes. I usually patronize all three store chains evenly as they all have their good and bad points and each store seems to deliver better quality items and service for different hardware needs. I spent the previous weekend working in my backyard doing some cleanup and landscape work which in turn led me to Lowes garden center in St. Charles, Illinois for my mulch and annuals. The decision to go to Lowes was simply due to the location being closest to home.

After the brief trip to Lowes with the family in tow, we had to settle on a parking space quite a walk away from the garden center entrance. Apparently the eighty degree day chased many people out on a Sunday for planting and yard care. The entrance to the garden center was buried behind several displays and carts of annuals, trees, and a variety of vegetable and fruit seedlings. I quickly grabbed a few tomato plants and got back to my wife that was trying to navigate through the traffic of people in narrow aisles.

Once we actually got into the garden center, the foot traffic became much worse and the aisles were incredibly narrow. I proceeded to walk down a few aisles that were only large enough for my garden cart. I think whoever planned these aisle dimensions did not realize that they should be large enough to accommodate a garden carts and foot traffic as people need to walk down aisles. I felt like I was operating an oversized two lane vehicle down a one way street. Some people appeared frustrated by my artery clogging wagon of flowers clogging the aisle.

After freeing my vehicle I was able to pick up some extra garden items and proceed to the six to seven customer deep checkout lines. The lines moved fast and the cashier's appeared to be friendly. The checkout attendant in the aisle next to us appeared to not even acknowledge his current customer as he seemed to be discussing weekend plans with another associate who probably should have been walking the garden center attending to customer needs. I proceeded to pay my bill with my debit card on a self serve screen that appeared almost invisible to read as it was badly beaten up. I was able to sign my name with the stylus and the name was nothing more than a blotch when it appeared on the ruddy screen. Once I was on checked out, I brought the troop out to the parking lot where we picked up our bags of mulch and headed on our merry way.

Once we got home, I was happy with the quality of my cedar mulch, tomato plants and just about all my annuals. My only complaint with the flowers, were the petunias that I had brought home. The petunias came in six packs of which I purchased four of these "flats". Three of these flats had damaged petals and were severely overwatered as the soil seemed incredibly loose. I suppose I should have scrutinized my selection much better when I was shopping, but that really wasn't an option corralling two kids and the center was buzzing with traffic.

I would not hesitate going back to the St. Charles Lowes Garden Center in the future, provided I would think twice about going on a Sunday. I will also inspect my plant purchases more carefully.