Remove Your Address From Spring Hill Nurseries' Mailing List

The Privacy Risk Behind a Spring Hill Nurseries Order

A gardener fills out a mail order for a handful of perennials — a name, a shipping address, sometimes a phone number and a credit card, entered once to get plants delivered by spring. That order doesn't stay a one-time transaction. Under the terms a retailer sets for itself, that same name and address can be combined with information from other companies, matched against public records, and made reachable by organizations the gardener never dealt with directly. That's the raw material behind a much larger pattern: in 2023, Americans age 60 and older reported $3.4 billion in losses to the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center — 101,068 complaints, an average loss of $33,915, up roughly 11% from the year before (FBI IC3 2023 Elder Fraud Report). A customer file sitting at any mail-order company is worth taking seriously against that backdrop, regardless of what the company plans to sell.

Spring Hill Nurseries is a mail-order and online garden retailer selling perennials, shrubs, roses, trees, and bulbs, marketed by a company called Gardens Alive Brands. Every catalog request, phone order, or online purchase creates a customer-file entry, whether the buyer thinks about it that way or not.

Physical mail remains part of the identity-theft threat landscape for a reason that has nothing to do with any single catalog. The FTC's guidance on how to stop junk mail treats mailing-list participation — not any individual mailer — as the underlying driver of unwanted mail volume, and notes that meaningfully reducing exposure requires opt-outs at multiple registry levels rather than discarding each piece as it arrives. For the broader mechanics of how catalog mailing-list data circulates and connects to identity-theft exposure across categories, see Catalog Mail and Identity Theft Risk. This page focuses on what Spring Hill Nurseries specifically discloses about its own data practices and what to do about it.

What Spring Hill Nurseries' Policy Actually Discloses

Spring Hill Nurseries' privacy policy is written on behalf of Gardens Alive Brands and covers every site the company markets. It states that the company collects personal information when a customer places an order, requests a catalog, signs up for email newsletters, or enters a contest or promotion — name, shipping and billing address, phone number, email address, and credit card information — and that it "maintains a record of your online purchases." Supplying that information is described as voluntary, but the policy is direct about the tradeoff: declining to provide it may mean being unable to complete a purchase, take part in a promotion, or access certain site content.

The policy then describes three separate channels through which that information can move beyond Spring Hill Nurseries itself. First, the company says it establishes relationships with what it calls "Marketing Partners" — other businesses it has "asked to confirm that their privacy policies are consistent with ours" — and that it may "share and cross-reference information, including personally identifiable information," with those partners so they can contact a customer about products and services that "may be of interest." Second, the policy states that Spring Hill Nurseries "may combine information you give us online, over the phone or through the mail" with "publicly available information and information we receive from our Marketing Partners and others," and that the combined profile is used "to enhance and personalize your shopping experience" and "for other promotional purposes." Third, the company contracts with what it calls "Service Providers" — for credit card processing, shipping, data management, and promotional services — and states it provides those contractors "the information needed for them to perform these services, including your personally identifiable information when necessary."

The policy also carries a legal-disclosure clause common to most mail-order and e-commerce retailers: personally identifiable information may be disclosed when the company has reason to believe doing so is necessary to identify, contact, or bring legal action against someone causing injury to a customer, to the company, or to others, and it may be disclosed whenever the law requires it.

What This Means for Where Your Address Ends Up

Unlike a retailer that states outright it will not rent or sell customer data, Spring Hill Nurseries' policy describes an active sharing arrangement: information moving to Marketing Partners for exactly the purpose of being contacted about other products, and a combined profile built from a customer's own order history plus "publicly available information" and other companies' data. That is a broader stance than a simple "we protect your privacy" statement suggests, and it means an address entered once, for one gardening order, can become part of a marketing profile that other companies use to make first contact — without that customer ever having a direct relationship with those companies.

The policy does give customers a way to limit this. It states plainly: "we want to communicate with you only if you want to hear from us," and it directs anyone who prefers not to receive mail from the company or its Marketing Partners to say so — by phone, by email, or by mail — and to include their full name, mailing address, email address, and "specifically what information you do not want to receive."

What to Do: Opt Out and Protect Yourself

1. Contact Spring Hill Nurseries directly. Use the contact page to reach Customer Service, or write to Spring Hill Nurseries Customer Service, P.O. Box 4173, Lawrenceburg, IN 47025-4173. Per the company's own privacy policy, include your full name, mailing address, and a specific statement that you want to be removed from mailing and Marketing Partner distribution. A direct request stops new sharing going forward; it does not recall information already passed to a Marketing Partner or Service Provider.

2. Register with DMAchoice to cut catalog volume broadly. Per the FTC's junk-mail guidance, registering through DMAchoice — operated by the Association of National Advertisers — costs $6 online and lasts 10 years; it stops most, though not all, promotional mail from participating companies. This addresses catalog volume across retailers generally, not just Spring Hill Nurseries.

3. Opt out of prescreened credit and insurance offers. The same FTC guidance lays out two options through optoutprescreen.com or by calling 1-888-5-OPT-OUT (1-888-567-8688): a five-year opt-out, or a permanent one that requires signing and returning a form after starting the process online or by phone.

4. Consider a mail-management app for mailers a registry doesn't reach. Services like PaperKarma let you request removal from unwanted catalogs and solicitations without contacting each sender individually.

5. Shred mail bearing your full name, address, and any order or account reference number before disposal. Use a cross-cut shredder — strip-cut models don't adequately prevent reconstruction.

Signs Your Information Has Been Shared

Under a policy that actively shares data with "Marketing Partners" and combines it with information from other sources, the most direct sign that sharing has occurred is a mailing from a garden, home, or specialty retailer you never contacted directly, arriving without any order history to explain it. That pattern is consistent with the policy's own description of cross-referencing customer information with data from other companies for promotional contact.

An increase in prescreened credit-card or insurance offers is a general indicator of active participation in the credit-bureau prescreen system, independent of any single catalog relationship.

Any mailing that asks for financial account numbers, a Social Security number, or account details in response to an unsolicited piece should be treated as a fraud attempt — no legitimate retailer or financial institution requests that information by mail without a prior application or account relationship.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can Spring Hill Nurseries legally share my mailing address with third parties?

Its own privacy policy states the company may share and cross-reference personally identifiable information with "Marketing Partners" and provide it to contracted "Service Providers," and that it may combine your data with publicly available information and information from other sources for promotional purposes. That is a disclosed practice under the company's stated terms, not a legal guarantee against sharing — which is exactly why reading the policy's specific wording matters more than assuming a default of privacy.

What is a "Marketing Partner" under Spring Hill Nurseries' privacy policy?

The policy describes Marketing Partners as other businesses or entities the company believes are trustworthy and has asked to confirm their privacy policies are "consistent with ours." Through that relationship, the policy states, personally identifiable information may be shared and cross-referenced so those partners can contact a customer about products and services that may be of interest — the company does not name which businesses qualify.

How do I get Spring Hill Nurseries to stop sending me mail?

Contact Customer Service directly and, per the privacy policy's own instructions, state specifically that you want to stop receiving mail from the company and its Marketing Partners. Pair that with a DMAchoice registration to reduce catalog volume from other retailers at the same time.

Does shredding a Spring Hill Nurseries catalog protect my identity?

Shredding destroys the physical document already in hand, preventing it from being reconstructed if recovered from recycling or trash before disposal. It doesn't stop a future mailing or remove your address from any list that already exists. The FTC's junk-mail guidance treats shredding and registry-based opt-outs as complementary steps, not substitutes for each other.

References

• Spring Hill Nurseries — Privacy Policy
• Spring Hill Nurseries — Contact
• FTC: How to Stop Junk Mail
• FBI IC3 2023 Elder Fraud Report