Returns

1. Live plants cannot come back.

Once a cactus has been through the post it cannot be sold again, so Mysterious Yard LLC takes no change-of-mind return on a live plant after the box has gone out. A cutting that has spent three days in a dark box is not the cutting the next person is going to buy.

What you get instead is a guarantee about the state it arrives in, and that is section 2.

Merch has its own section further down this page, and it does not come back for a change of mind either.

2. The 48-hour arrival guarantee.

Open the box the day it lands. If a plant is dead or destroyed on arrival, tell me within 48 hours of delivery and send photographs: the plant as it came out of the box, the box itself, and the packing around it.

The way to do that is your order page, and the form there takes the photographs directly, so a claim never depends on an email reaching me.

Frozen, cooked, crushed, snapped through or rotted on arrival gets a replacement where I have one, or a full refund. Which of the two is my call and I will tell you why. Nothing has to be shipped back to me.

The 48 hours is a deadline. Miss it and the guarantee is over. Send the claim anyway — it is still recorded and I still read it — but past the window you are not claiming on the guarantee any more, you are asking me, and the answer is mine.

This covers a plant from another grower too. That box is packed and posted by the grower, not by me, but the claim is made the same way, on your order page, and I answer it.

3. What is covered, and what is not.

Covered: tissue that is soft, blackened, sour-smelling or collapsed when the box is opened; a cutting snapped through in transit; frost damage.

Not covered: scuffs, spines lost in transit, corking, sun-scarring, mild dehydration, or a healthy cutting that later failed to root. Rooting happens in your care, over weeks, in your light and your mix, and it is not something I can stand behind from here. The rooting guide on the Shipping & care page is the help I can give instead, and I will answer questions about a plant that is sulking for as long as you want to keep asking.

Three things get a plant refunded or replaced once it has shipped, and this is the whole list: it arrives dead or destroyed, it is the wrong plant, or the carrier loses the box. Those are sections 2, 6 and 7. Outside those three I do not owe you a refund, and every one of them runs through me — I decide it, and I tell you why.

Canceling is not on that list, because canceling is not my decision to make. Section 5 hands you a full refund, and it is not mine to withhold.

Nothing in this section takes away a right California law gives you that a seller is not allowed to take away.

4. Cold and heat.

A box that freezes on the way, or one that cooks, ruins the plant inside it. Orders paid from November 1 to March 31 get a heat pack in every box with a live plant, and each plant's price includes $5 for it; when plants share a box, you pay for one. No order is held back for a forecast.

A plant frozen on arrival is named in section 2, in those words, and it is claimed the same way as any other damage on arrival: photographs, on your order page, within the 48 hours. That window runs from the day the box is delivered rather than the day you ordered, whatever the weather did in between.

If you would rather a plant did not travel through a cold week, say so before you order, or cancel under section 5 at any time before it ships.

5. Canceling before it ships.

Say so before it ships and the order is canceled and refunded in full — no questions, no restocking fee, and a postage label already bought for it does not change that. An order that has not shipped, whatever else is happening to it, is always still cancelable.

6. The wrong plant.

My mistake, entirely my problem. The right plant goes out at my cost, and nothing has to be sent back. If I do not have the right plant, the money comes back instead. If you would rather have the money than the plant, ask — but which of the two you get is my call, the same as section 2.

7. Lost, late or undeliverable.

Once the box is moving it is in the carrier's hands, but it is still my problem until it reaches you. I chase delays with the carrier. A parcel the carrier confirms as lost is replaced or refunded, and which of the two is my call — you do not have to fight the post office on my behalf.

A box that comes back to me as undeliverable because the address was wrong can go out again once you give me the right one, at the cost of the second shipment.

8. Refunds.

Every refund in sections 2, 6 and 7 is mine to decide, and I decide it in the open: you get a reason either way. Canceling under section 5 is not a decision at all — you cancel, the money comes back in full, and nothing in this section narrows that.

Refunds go back the way you paid, within 5 business days of a claim being agreed and usually the same day.

A canceled order is refunded in full, shipping included. Where a whole order arrives dead, the shipping comes back too. Where one plant out of several is the problem, the refund is that plant, since the box traveled anyway.

9. Merch, and anything I have not covered.

The merch rules are in their own section below this text.

Anything else: the contact page, linked in the footer of every page. I answer my own messages.