Delivery

All our prices include delivery on orders of £50 or more (excl VAT and the delivery surcharge) to our free delivery area - which is all of mainland Britain. In addition to our free delivery area, we can deliver to Isle of Man, Isle of Wight, Scottish Islands, Channel Islands, Ireland and France - we deliver regularly to all these areas and are experienced in managing delivery costs. We have also delivered further afield - please contact us for a bespoke quote. Sometimes it doesn't cost any extra - depending on the quantity and type of plants and of course there's a VATsaving for Channel Island customers which often offsets any additional cost of delivery.

On small orders (£20 - £50) we have to charge for delivery - our standard charge is £5.99 plus vat which doesn't cover our costs but makes a contribution towards them.

Tall plants need to be delivered by pallet - we still give free delivery but we have to have a min order value of £200 plus VAT (there is a note in the shopping cart wherever this applies) - you can select any plants of any species in order to get your order up to £200 plus VAT - or if you really don't want to order that many plants, you can make a very reasonable contribution towards the delivery cost or collect from our despatch centre in Lancashire - please phone us to discuss the options if the plants you want have a min of £200 order value but you do not want to order sufficient plants to qualify for free delivery.

On very tall plants (over 2.25m) which cannot be transported on standard pallet lorries, we have to use a dedicated haulage lorry - the benefit is that normally only your plants will be on the lorry but there's a high cost so we have to impose a min order value of £2000 in order to be able to afford to give you free delivery. On the other hand, we can fit an enormous number of plants into a lorry so if you need a lot, the cost per plant is very inexpensive so we can give free delivery and a discount. Alternatively, if the delivery address is in the North West we can use our own lorry for delivery and that's more economical - or maybe you could collect. We are happy to work through the delivery options with you to try to avoid the min order value.

The vast majority of our orders are sent "free delivery" using Parcel Force's or Citilink's 24 hour service or our local pallet company who are part of an international network, again on their 24 hour (or sometimes 48 hour) service. We have tested lots of carriers in the past and whilst these carriers are not infallible, we have found their service to be extremely good and they are also excellent at sorting out the occasional hiccup.

Our sales team are very experienced in all delivery options - please ask for advice on 01257 263873.

POT GROWN PLANTS
We keep quantities of most sizes in pot grown plants available at all times at our despatch centre ready for despatch within a couple of days of the orders being received. 95% of our orders are despatched within a few days of the order being received. Occasionally (it's actually very occasionally) we do not have immediate stock to hand in our despatch centre in which case delivery will be within 7 days to allow us time to bring plants from our nurseries to our despatch centre. If in very unusual circumstances delivery is going to be longer than 7 days, we would contact you to inform you of the delay and to agree a delivery date with you. If you wish to cancel your order at this stage, you may of course do so, and your debit/credit card would be reimbursed with no deductions.

CELL GROWN PLANTS
These are kept in stock at all times and are normally despatched within 2 - 5 days of the order being processed - if in very unusual circumstances, we cannot despatch your order within 7 days, we will notify you. This has only happened a couple of times in thousands of orders!

BARE ROOT PLANTS

Delivery arrangements for bare root (when in season between November and March/early April) vary depending on the height of plant and complexity of order (number of species). It takes us a couple of weeks in early November to despatch all the pre-orders that have been placed by customers between July and late October. After that, plants up to 1.2m, in all the main species, are kept ready for despatch and we try to turn these round within a couple of days. Larger plants are lifted to order and arrive into our despatch centre on a Tuesday and go straight out to customers on Wednesdays and Thursdays. Orders for plants over 1.2m need to be with us by Thursday evening for despatch the following Wednesday/Thursday.

Some customers "pick and mix" small quantities (less than 10 of any species) of various species of bare root plants. We're quite happy for customers to do this but when we're busy we can only pick these orders when we've got slightly quieter days so we ask customers taking advantage of the pick and mix service to be patient and allow us a couple of weeks for delivery.

In March and early April, the peak time for bare root orders, we do our best to get all orders out on our normal couple of days turnaround timescale but the sheer volume of orders means this isn't always possible. If you must have your delivery by a certain date, please speak to us by phone.


ROOT BALL PLANTS
Root ball plants are lifted from the fields to order so please order in good time before you actually need the plants. We will liaise with you to agree a delivery date. The benefit of this approach (rather than lifting the plants and holding them - out of the soil - on the nursery) is that the plants are really fresh and that gives them a better success rate. Normally we can deliver within 10 days of order, often less than that and occasionally a few days longer - but never more than 2 weeks.

DO I NEED TO BE AT HOME TO SIGN FOR THEM?
The majority of pot grown plants, cell grown/p9's and bare root orders are despatched in boxes using Parcel Force and Citilink and do not need to be signed for. Please leave us instructions in the section on the order form for where they should be left - but please be reasonable - we can't expect carriers to leave them "in the shed at the bottom of the garden".

We use pallet delivery (for orders of large quantities, or tall plants and due to the weight of the plants, all root balls) and these generally have to be signed for but we will contact you when we are ready to despatch to make sure someone will be able to sign for the delivery. The pallet company prefers someone to sign for them because pallets are difficult to manoevre so the driver may need to be shown where the pallet can be safely left (and if it's a gravel drive you may need to unpack the pallet at the gate). If you cannot be there to sign for the delivery, we can pass on your instructions to the pallet company and authorise them to leave the plants without your signature. This can all be discussed when we liaise with you to agree a convenient date for delivery.

OR PHONE US FOR SPECIFIC DELIVERY DETAILS ON YOUR ORDER
If that was all too confusing, please ring us on 01257 263873 and tell us what you'd like to order and when you'd like it to be delivered - and we'll tell you if it's possible and how we'll do it.