Shipping Information

Phoenix Perennials Mail Order offers an exciting selection of more than 3000 different plants Canadian gardeners each year from the more than 5000 different plants we offer for in-person shopping. If you’re looking for a special plant that you don’t see on our mail order site, let us know. We might have it and can add it to an existing order or create a special order.

Phoenix Perennials Does Mail Order Differently (Plus other things to know about shipping plants in Canada.):

1. We ship the same size plants you would find at your local nursery in 6cm (2.5 inch), 9cm (4 inch), 11cm (4.5 inch), 15cm (5.5 inch), and 1 gallon pots. We grow most of these plants ourselves.  
2. We do not ship small plugs or bare root plants unless otherwise noted such as for Cypripedium, Dactylorhiza, and certain bare root in our Spring and Summer Bulb and Bare Root Pre-Orders.
3. Our plants will not require any special care or growing on before planting. Our plants arrive ready to be planted.
4. Shipping potted, full-sized plants takes more time to pack and larger boxes to ship than plugs or bare root. It is a trade-off between small or unrooted, cheap-to-ship plants that are difficult to can be difficult to care for versus strong, full size plants that will establish quickly and easily.
5. If you live in eastern Canada, shipping will cost more for our BC-grown plants than from mail order companies closer to where you live. Also, the longer the ship time, the larger and stronger the plants must be before we ship them. Our plants might arrive later than when you see similar plants in local garden centres. For the Atlantic provinces, we don’t ship until mid June into early July.
6. Our Main Catalogue plants cost $2 more than they do at the nursery to cover the labour and administration costs of selecting and packing your plants. After all, in-person customers do this work themselves. Whether for shipping or pick-up, we must do this work on your behalf. Even our local customers see the value, convenience, and efficiency of ordering online for an easy pick-up. Pre-order plants, however, cost the same online as they do in the nursery.
7. On average every order we ship requires 30-60 minutes of administration and packing time. This is much more attention than an average on-site shopper requires. Our shipping costs, therefore, include the Canada Post or FedEx rate plus an amount to cover the time we spend administering your order, lovingly packing your plants, and shipping your box(es). We calculate this amount to cover the cost of our time without making a profit.
8. The first plant in your order incurs the fixed base costs for Canada Post or FedEx and for our administration and packing. Each additional plant will only add a few dollars more to your shipping cost. Shipping one plant is expensive. Shipping more plants becomes increasingly cost effective on a per plant basis.
9. Shipping across the vast distances of a country like Canada has real costs. Small businesses like Phoenix Perennials are mere mortals compared with giant multinational online retailers. That’s why we need to cover the real cost of shipping.
10. We are proud to offer a different kind of mail order plant experience to Canadians. We look forward to sending you beautiful plants. Please read further for full details and discussion of our mail order service.

Ordering and Enquiries: We do not accept orders over the phone. Please order online. For enquiries that are not time sensitive, please email us so that we can maintain a record of our communications with you to best serve you. We try to answer all emails within 24-48 hours keeping in mind that the mail order staff do not work on weekends. Also, response time may be slower during the peak shipping seasons of May-June and September-October. For time sensitive matters, please call us.

Minimum Order: $40 (Before shipping & handling and taxes). All prices are in Canadian dollars.

Payment: Our servers and payment gateway are managed by some of the largest names in online shopping and provide the highest levels of internet security for your personal information so you can shop with confidence. We accept Visa and Visa Debit, Mastercard and Mastercard Debit, PayPal, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and E-Transfer for mail order purchases. Your order is charged at the time of ordering. If you add plants to your order, we will ask for payment at that time. If plants are not available or shipping charges need to be adjusted, we will make the needed adjustments to your invoice at the time of shipping and either send you a refund or request additional payment, as the case may be.

Plant Availability: We will make every effort to ensure that your full order is available for you. Please place your order early to secure your desired plants. Some plants may become unavailable as a result of crop failures due to weather, disease, or pests or from shortages with our suppliers. In this case we prioritize those who ordered first. Should a plant not be available, we will contact you to see if you would like a substitution. We never make substitutions without asking you.

Plants Sizes and Prices: Prices and sizes are subject to change under some circumstances. Pot sizes could move up or down by one size if we feel the plant would grow more successfully in a given year in a certain size. Generally this does not change the price. Sometimes we may need to repot into a much larger size that could have a corresponding price increase or slight increase in shipping costs. We will notify you first to discuss your options.

We offer a wide range of plants from normal tried and true cultivars to the extraordinarily rare. The price of each plant will reflect that. However, we do try to focus on more special plants for mail order. You can get normal plants at your local garden centre. We’re here to offer you something special.

Substitutions and Back Orders: We will make every effort to ship your order in its entirety to save on shipping costs. However, plants do not always grow at the same rate or even the rate they grew the previous year! Should a plant on your order not be available when the rest of your plants are ready for shipping, we will contact you and suggest possible substitutions, offer to remove it from your order, or offer to ship it at a later date. We will not make substitutions without your permission. Please be advised that if we ship at a later date this will increase your shipping costs because of the base price charged on each package by Canada Post and FedEx. Sometimes making two shipments is unavoidable as half of your order might be ready in April but the other half won’t be ready until June. Also, often larger orders would have to ship in two boxes anyway so we might split your order and ship at different times. With so many different plants and countless possible combinations, we must evaluate each order carefully and individually. We will make every attempt to minimize your shipping costs.

Shipping Season: Most Main Catalogue orders ship from mid May until the end of June with shipping of these items continuing until November. The plants in our Pre-Orders ship during specific periods listed in the Pre-Order details. In general, we wait to ship until weather conditions in your area are favourable enough that plants will arrive safely. In some cases, this might be slightly before they can be planted outdoors in your region. We must time shipments to leave our mild growing area before they become too advanced so you might have to keep them protected for a few weeks before planting.

In most cases it is not possible to ship Main Catalogue plants and Pre-Order plants together due to the timing and readiness of the plants and packing logistics nor is it often possible to ship different Pre-Orders together. However, if you would like us to try to combine some orders, email us with a list of your order numbers. We will put notes on your orders and ship some orders together, if possible.

Our goal is to ship orders as soon as they are complete and the plants are strong enough to ship. Every week we evaluate every order and queue up those that are ready to ship. The rest are placed on hold for evaluation the following week. If we haven’t shipped to you yet, it is because plants in your order are not large enough and strong enough to ship. We encourage you to be patient in waiting for your shipment. If we are still within the dates of the main shipping season, please resist the urge to email us enquiring as to your ship date. While we wish we could respond to all enquiries with estimated shipping dates, the simple answer is that we can only ship when the plants tell us they are ready. Also, responding to such emails keeps us chained to the inbox and away from what you want us to be doing which is shipping plants.

At the time of shipping you will receive automated emails from our mail order and shipping systems notifying you of your shipment and giving you your tracking number.

If you are planning to be away for a period of time during the regular shipping season for your order, please let us know your away dates so we can ship only when you will be home to receive your new treasures. If you do not inform us of your vacation times, we cannot be held responsible if we ship when you are not home.

Shipping and Handling: Shipping costs are calculated at the time of check out using a live connection to our shipping companies. At any time you can view your cart and calculate your current shipping costs. Your shipping costs will reflect the true cost of shipping your plants. The Canada Post or FedEx portion includes two parts: a minimum base cost for your region plus a cost per kilogram. We also add a base cost and a small per plant charge to cover our costs of carefully selecting, packing, and shipping your plants. For mail order, we are your personal shoppers carrying out all of the steps that you would normally do if you were at our nursery in person. On average every order requires 30-60 minutes of administration, handling, and packing time. We must cover our costs of providing this service. However, please note that we do not make a profit on shipping costs.

In most cases there will be no change to the quoted shipping rate paid when you place your order. However, there cases that could be exceptions:

1. In the event that your plants are much cheaper to ship than your initial estimate we will decrease the cost of shipping accordingly. This would usually be a case where your plants weigh much less than expected.
2. Our online shopping cart isn’t able to estimate when an additional boxes are required for large orders. It assumes all orders will fit into one box. The variables of pot, plant, and box sizes are too complicated for an online shopping cart to calculate. In the event that you have placed a large order that must be shipped in more than one box, we may have to increase the cost of shipping. This is due to the shipping base costs for every box. We reserve the right to charge the additional fee to cover our costs. We make no profit on shipping.
3. Some orders may include plants that come ready at very different times which might require a split shipment for the health of the plants or before some of the plants get too large or costly to ship.
4. In some cases the live connection to our shippers can fail and an erroneous shipping cost can be generated. If this occurs we will contact you to clarify and get your approval for the real cost of shipping.

We make every effort to increase our efficiency and to keep shipping costs as low as possible. Our shipping and handling charges are calculated for cost recovery. They are not designed to make money. Also, in most cases we are shipping potted plants in growth, not dormant bulbs or bare root. These plants require more space in boxes and more care in handling and packing. Your plants might cost a bit more to ship but they will be bigger, easier to establish, and give you greater performance in your garden than plugs or bare root.

Special Offers: Because we are also a regular retail nursery open seven days a week for in-person shopping we might be offering coupons, special offers, loyalty cards, vouchers, and sales for on-site purchases at the nursery and in local and regional media throughout the season. By default, all special offers, sales, loyalty cards, vouchers and coupons do not apply to mail order unless otherwise stated. We make these restrictions because the economics of a bricks and mortar store are different than those of a mail order store.

Additions: We love it when you want to add more plants to your order! Additions can be made at any time. If you are a pick-up customer, simply place another order and put a note about your previous order(s) in the Order Comments box at the end of the check out page. If you are a mail order customer and wish to add plants with a total value of under $40, please email us with your additions. We will add them manually to your order and contact you with the new invoice amount for additional payment. If the value is over $40, please place a new order in our system then email us with a list of your various order numbers. We will make a note of your various orders and ship them together, if possible. If there are savings on shipping costs by combining your orders and reducing the number of boxes needed, we will refund this amount at the time of shipping.

Cancellation Policy: All cancellations must be done by email. We cannot accept cancellations over the phone. For Main Catalogue orders, you may cancel your order in part or in full up until your order enters our assembly and shipping process which usually begins 1-3 weeks before we ship your plants. Should your order already be in process we can give you a refund minus a 25% restocking fee or a 100% credit on your account for the full amount of your invoice including plants, shipping and taxes. Substituting one plant for another is not considered a cancellation. For cancellations related to Pre-Orders, please refer to the specific details of each Pre-Order.