Win my SS02 mother plant

No purchase necessary

No purchase or payment of any kind is necessary to enter or to win. Buying something from the shop does not improve anyone's chances, and nobody has to send a photo or a fact to be in the draw.

The free way in is on this page. Sending a photo is a second, optional way to earn entries. It is not a payment: it costs nothing but the picture a person chooses to send, and the free way is open to everyone and can earn as many entries as the photo way, up to 40 a month.

Who runs it

Mysterious Yard LLC, a California limited liability company, PO Box 1043, Discovery Bay, CA 94505 (the sponsor). That PO Box is the shop's mailing address everywhere on this site; its street address is not printed.

Who can enter

Anyone who is 18 or older and a legal resident of the lower 48 United States, except Rhode Island. That leaves out Rhode Island, which is not part of this giveaway, and Washington, DC, which is not one of the lower 48. If the shop turns off shipping to another of the 48 states, that one is left out too (the shipping page lists the states that are turned off): a live plant is shipped only to the rest, and a winner anywhere else cannot be sent one. People who work for the sponsor, and the people who live in their household, cannot win.

To be drawn, a person must meet all of these. They are 18 or older and a legal resident of those states. They have entered in that month, one way or the other. And they are on the shop's offers list by their own tick. The offers list is free: it is the shop's email list for offers and codes, and anyone can leave it with one tap in any email it sends.

The tick has to be made by the person themselves, in the cart, on the library's photo form beside its email box, or on the page the free entry's confirmation link opens, with the same sentence beside it, and the photo form and that page say again, above the box, that a person must be on the list to be drawn. A tick on the photo form does not put anybody on the list by itself: the shop emails that address one link, and it is on the list only once its owner opens the link and presses the button. A person who leaves the offers list before the draw cannot be drawn.

One person, one email address; entries from extra addresses are void. Different spellings of one address, such as a + tag or the dots in a gmail address, are the same address. A person who enters the free way confirms the address by opening the link in the entry email. A person who enters by sending a photo is found on the offers list by the address they ticked it with and then confirmed.

When it runs

The first giveaway starts on October 4, 2026 and ends at 11:59 pm Pacific time on October 31, 2026. After that a giveaway runs for each calendar month, from 12:00 am on its first day to 11:59 pm Pacific time on its last. Entries count only in the period they belong to.

A free entry counts on the day it is confirmed. A photo counts in the month it was sent, if the shop accepts it before that month's draw; one accepted after that draw counts in the month it is accepted.

A link to confirm a free entry works for 7 days and never past the close of the period: one asked for in the last two days of a period can be confirmed until the close, 11:59 pm Pacific time on its last day, and not after.

A month with no prize picked has no giveaway: nothing is earned in it, and the free entry is closed.

How to enter

There are two ways in, and either one is enough.

The free way: use the free entry form on this page. It takes an email address and a tick that you are 18 or older and a legal resident of the lower 48 United States, except Rhode Island. No photo, no fact and no purchase. A link to confirm the entry is emailed to that address, and the entry counts once its owner opens the link and presses the button. A new link is sent once the last one has run out (a link works for 7 days) or been used, up to 3 a month for one person. None is needed once an address has confirmed. The page that link opens also carries the offers box, unticked: only a tick made there puts the address on the offers list.

A confirmed free entry is 5 entries, the same as an accepted photo. After the first, a person can enter free again once a day, with one tap on their points page (the link to it is in the confirmation email, and the points page can email it again), with no new email each day, up to the ceiling of 40 entries a month that photos share.

The other way: send a photo of a plant you grow, through the form on the library's Add to the library page, and give your email address in the form's email box. If the shop accepts the photo, that is 5 entries. Without that address the photo is still read and may be used, but it earns no entries. To be drawn, that address also has to be on the offers list: the photo form carries the offers box, unticked, under the email box, with the same sentence beside it, and a tick there asks for one email with a link; only a tick that its owner then confirms by opening the link and pressing the button puts the address on the list. A person at the shop looks at every photo before it is used, and sending one is never required.

The free way is the first thing on this page and is no harder to use than the other. Both share the same ceiling of 40 entries a month, and either way is enough to be in the draw.

How entries are counted

One point is one entry in that period's draw. A confirmed free entry is 5 entries, once a day. A photo of your own plant that the shop accepts, sent with your email address in the form's email box, is 5 entries. A fact is read and used when it stands, and earns no entries. When thumbs are showing on the library's photos, each thumbs up that a visitor gives an accepted photo of yours is 1 entry, up to 5 for any one photo in a month.

No one person can earn more than 40 entries in a month, free entries, photos and thumbs together, so the free way and the photo way share the same ceiling. Anything sent in beyond that is still read and used. One person, one email address: entries from extra addresses are void.

A photo that is refused earns nothing. A photo the shop takes down before the period closes loses its entries. The list of entries is fixed when the period closes: a photo taken down after the close keeps its entries unless it broke the rules (it was not the sender's own, or it was something illegal), and the only entries added after the close are for a photo sent during the period and accepted before the draw. Entries are earned only while the giveaway is open, in a month with a prize.

These extra entries for a photo are optional, cost nothing and never need a purchase, and a free entry is a real entry in the same draw.

How the winner is drawn

The draw for the first giveaway is held in early November 2026, no later than November 10. For a later month it is held within ten days after the month closes. One winner is drawn at random from everyone who is eligible, each person's chance in proportion to their entries. Up to 2 more names are drawn in the same order, in case a winner does not answer.

The sponsor runs the draw, by computer, on the list of entries as it stood when the period closed. A hash of that list (a short fingerprint of every person's code and entries) is written in the draw's record and folded, with the shop's private key and the month, into the number the draw uses, so a list changed after the close would no longer match it. The record holds that fingerprint, the number and every entry, so the shop can run the same draw again and get the same winner. Only the shop holds the private key, so the record is the shop's own and nobody else can re-run it: no outside witness is used, and the record is kept for at least four years.

Your chances

They depend on how many entries there are, which is not known until the month closes. One entry in a month with a hundred entries is one chance in a hundred of being drawn first. After a draw, anyone can ask on the contact page how many entries and how many people there were, and will be told.

The prize

The prize for the first giveaway is one live plant: the sponsor's own SS02 mother plant, sent fully rooted. It is worth less than $600.

There is one prize each month. It has no cash alternative and cannot be exchanged for money or given to somebody else. It is shipped to the winner at the sponsor's cost, within the lower 48 United States, except Rhode Island, the way every plant from the shop is sent, under the shop's shipping page and its weather holds. As with every plant here it is for growing and display, not for human consumption. If the plant cannot be sent as described, the sponsor may send another plant of equal or greater value instead.

If you win

The winner is told by email at the address on the offers list. They then have 7 days from that email to reply with a name and a street address in the lower 48 United States, except Rhode Island. If there is no reply in 7 days, the next name drawn is told instead, down to 2 more names, and a name that has left the offers list by then is passed over at once. If nobody answers, no prize is given that month.

No form to sign and no release is asked for: only a name and a street address to ship to. The winner is responsible for any taxes on the prize. The sponsor will not use the winner's name or picture to promote anything without the winner's consent.

Photos and facts you send

A photo you send stays yours. It is used only the way the Add to the library page says: on the library page for the plant it shows, with your credit if you gave a name, and only if you ticked the box that allows it. Asking for entries does not change that, and the entries give the shop no more right to the photo than that page does. Photos and words that break the rules on that page, such as anything illegal or not about these plants, are turned away. A person at the shop says yes or no to every photo before it is shown.

When thumbs are showing on the library's photos and paragraphs, a paragraph that many visitors give a thumbs down (at least 5, and at least twice as many as thumbs up) is looked at again: if it is wrong it is corrected, and if it is right it stays. A photo that gets as many thumbs down is looked at by a person at the shop, who decides whether it stays. Thumbs alone never take a photo down.

Your information

The email address you give is used to confirm an entry, to find your points and to tell a winner, and for nothing else here. It is not written next to your points: the points are kept under a scrambled code, and the key to that code is held outside the shop's saved data. Only if you tick the offers box does the address go on the offers list. No tracker from anyone else is used, and when thumbs are showing they are counted without keeping who gave them. The shop's privacy page, at /privacy, says the same in full. To have your entries and points removed, write on the contact page from the address you used; the one thing that stays is a past draw's record, which keeps the code, never the address.

Read the privacy page

Void where prohibited

This giveaway is void where the law does not allow it. These rules are governed by California law. The sponsor can change or end the giveaway only for fraud, a technical failure or the law, and never to give a smaller prize or worse odds to entries already made; it will say so on this page.

The sponsor has not filed a registration or posted a bond for it. A few states ask for one only for large prizes (the figure usually given is $5,000 in total prizes), and this prize is one plant, well below that. The sponsor will not run a giveaway of that size without getting legal advice first.

Who wrote these rules

These rules are written in plain English for a one-person nursery. If any term here conflicts with California law, the law applies. If anything is unclear, ask on the contact page before you enter.