Policies
Shipping and pickup
We ship to the contiguous United States. Live plants travel February to May and October to November; seed and acorns travel any time. Rates are by zone and per package, and local pickup is free.
Rates
Charged per package: a base rate for the first item plus a smaller amount for each additional item in the same order. A packet of seed, acorns or nuts in a box with a live plant pays the seed rate's amount for an extra item. One package rate per order, however many boxes it takes: a large order that needs two boxes, or seed sent ahead of a held plant, costs no more than the rate shown at checkout.
| Zone | States | First item | Each extra |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mid-Atlantic | Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, District of Columbia, West Virginia | $15.00 | $3.00 |
| Rest of contiguous US | Every other state in the contiguous US (not Alaska or Hawaii) | $25.00 | $4.00 |
Seed, acorns and nuts alone
An order of only seed, acorns or nuts, with no live plant in it, has its own rate. A packet costs less to send than a box of trees. With a live plant in the order, the plants pay the rates above and each packet in the same box pays this rate's amount for an extra item.
| Zone | First item | Each extra |
|---|---|---|
| Mid-Atlantic | $5.00 | $0.50 |
| Rest of contiguous US | $10.00 | $1.00 |
The exact charge is shown at checkout before you pay.
When live plants ship
Live plants ship in spring and fall when they are dormant. Seed and acorns ship year-round. Live plants ship in February, March, April, May, October, November. If you order a live plant outside those months we hold the live plants and ship them in the next window, and we email you when they leave; acorns, nuts and seed in the same order go out right away as a separate shipment.
A box leaves within 1 to 3 business days of the order and is 2 to 5 business days in transit. We email you when it leaves, with the tracking number when the carrier provides one.
Some states bar certain plants, or let them in only with a certificate or permit. Checkout refuses a plant to a state whose published rules, as we have read them, bar it. Our table of state plant rules lists each one, state by state, with the plants it names. We checked them in the National Plant Board's state summaries for shippers in October 2026.
When your plants arrive
- Open the box the day it arrives, even if you cannot plant yet.
- Keep bare roots in their damp packing, shaded and out of the wind, and dampen the packing if it has dried. Plant within a day if you can, and within a week at most. To wait longer, heel the plants into damp soil or mulch.
- Water a potted plant and keep it shaded; it can wait weeks if watered.
- If anything arrived damaged, photograph it within 48 hours and email us.
- A dormant plant shows nothing until spring, and the guarantee runs to leaf-out. If a plant set out within a week of arrival has not leafed out by the end of the first June after it arrives, email a photo of the whole plant by the end of July. For an evergreen, new growth counts as leaf-out.
The bare-root arrival guide gives the reasons. Then follow the planting guide and put the trunk size into the watering calculator.
Local pickup
Local pickup is free. Choose it at checkout; we will email you when your order is ready and agree a time.
Larger orders, restoration plantings and anything too big to box are best collected; write to us to arrange it.