Shipping & care
What happens to your plant after you order, and what to do with it when the box lands.
- Flat, by the plant's sizeFrom $14 a box, the same wherever it goes; USPS Ground Advantage
- 2–4 business daysThen USPS, tracked. A cutting still drying goes out once its cut face has callused.
- 48-hour guaranteePhotograph it, claim on your order page, replaced or refunded
Postage
What it costs to send
A flat shipping price by size, the same wherever it goes, shown in the cart.
Each plant ships as one of five sizes, and the biggest one in a box sets its price: Small $14 (cuttings up to about 12 in, seed, small merch), Medium $18 (up to about 20 in, or a rooted or potted plant), Large $28 (20 to 30 in), Oversize $50 (over 30 in, or a big clump), Giant $100 (mother-size). A plant's own page shows what it costs to ship.
Every other thing in the same box adds a set amount by its own size: $4 for a Small, $6 for a Medium, $20 for a Large. So two small cuttings come to $18, and a small with a large $32 when they fit one box. An Oversize or Giant plant always travels in a box of its own, at its full price.
A box holds up to about 8 lb of plants, which I work out from their sizes, and fits in 30 by 8 by 8 inches. Whatever doesn't fit starts another box, which pays the full price of the biggest thing in it; the cart shows each box.
It is the same price wherever it goes, and nothing else is added at checkout: no handling or packing charge, and no free-shipping line.
Every box goes USPS Ground Advantage, tracked: 2 to 5 business days in the post, after the 2 to 4 business days before it leaves here, so it arrives in about 4–9 business days.
A plant from another grower comes in its own box, posted by them from their own place and priced the same way; the cart shows each box and adds them into the one shipping line.
Before it leaves
How orders ship
When it ships. Orders leave within 2 to 4 business days, USPS Ground Advantage, tracked. A cutting does not go in a box until its cut face is hard, dry and shiny. If the piece you have bought is still drying, allow one to two weeks before it goes out, and longer when the air is very humid. That waiting happens here on my rack rather than in your mailbox. If an order is going to take longer than those 2 to 4 business days, I email you the new date and you can wait for it or cancel for a full refund — your choice.
What postage costs. A flat shipping price by size, the same wherever it goes, shown in the cart. Each plant ships as one of five sizes. The biggest thing in a box pays its size's full price, and every other thing sharing that box adds a set amount for its own size. A very big plant travels in a box of its own, and what does not fit in one box starts another at full price. Nothing else is added: no handling fee, no packing fee and no free-shipping line. What a thing costs is the price on it, and the only things that join it at checkout are shipping and sales tax where it applies. In winter the price of a live plant includes its heat pack, set out under Cold and heat below.
How it is packed. Cuttings ship bare root, wrapped in paper and boxed snug so nothing moves in transit. Rooted and potted plants ship with the soil knocked off and the roots dry, or in dry soil, whichever travels better. Every box of mine is packed by hand, on one table, by one person.
Tracking. The tracking number is emailed to you when the box goes out.
Where live plants can go. Live cactus is agricultural material, and where it may travel is decided by law rather than by me. Every line in this section is about live plants. Merch is not agricultural material and none of it applies to a mug, a sticker or a print — where those can go is set out under "How merch ships" further down this page.
Live plants go to the lower 48 United States only. No Alaska, no Hawaii, no US territories, and nothing international: a plant crossing a border needs import and inspection paperwork I do not issue.
Some states require paperwork to travel with each parcel of plant material coming in. Where I cannot meet what a destination state asks for, I do not ship there, and the states I am not sending live plants to today are listed at the top of this page. I am not making a promise on your behalf about any other state's rules — if you have reason to think yours wants something particular, tell me before you order and I will find out rather than guess.
The cart asks for the ZIP the box is going to and stops there, before you pay, rather than afterwards. Stripe's payment page collects the full address later, so an order can still reach me with a destination I cannot ship to. If that happens it is flagged the moment it arrives, canceled before anything is packed, and refunded in full.
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. In winter each live plant's price says it includes the heat pack, and a plant from a grower comes in the grower's own box, which gets a heat pack the same way. No order is held back for a forecast.
A plant frozen on arrival is named as covered on the Returns page — “frozen, cooked, crushed, snapped through or rotted” — and it is claimed the same way as any other damage on arrival: open the box the day it lands, photograph what came out of it, and raise the claim on your order page within 48 hours of delivery. Nothing has to be shipped back to me. The 48 hours is a deadline: a claim that arrives later is still recorded and still read, but it is no longer a claim on the guarantee.
If you would rather a plant did not travel through a cold week, message me before you order rather than after, or cancel any time before it ships. The Returns page sets out how cancelling works and what it costs you, which is nothing.
When it arrives. Open the box the day it lands. If anything is crushed, frozen or rotted, tell me within 48 hours of delivery and send photographs — the claim form is on your order page and the whole policy is on the Returns page. The 48 hours is a deadline: a claim that arrives later is still recorded and I still read it, but it is no longer a claim on the guarantee. Scuffs, a few lost spines, corking and a little dehydration are normal on a living plant and are not damage. Where I can, I photograph what goes in a box before the lid goes on, so a claim is never one person's word against another's.
A plant from another grower says so above its price. That grower posts it to you from their own place, in a box of its own, so an order with one of theirs and one of mine arrives as two parcels. Each box is priced on its own, and the cart adds them into the one shipping line.
Merch
How merch ships
Merch I pack is priced the way a plant is, by its size (most of it is Small), and shown in the cart. Bought with a plant of mine, it goes in the same box while there is room, and adds its extra-item amount.
Nothing is on the merch shelf right now. A piece’s own page says whether I pack it here, at the same table as the plants, or a printer makes it and posts it.
Merch on its own travels anywhere in the 50 states and DC, including Alaska and Hawaii. I don’t ship merch to Puerto Rico, the US territories or military addresses (APO, FPO, DPO); the cart says so before you pay. The lower-48 limit in the policy above is an agricultural rule about live plants and does not touch a mug.
The other plant rules do not apply to merch either: no inspection at a state line, and no need to open the box the day it arrives. The one crossover is a mixed order — a mug bought together with a cutting is one order to one address, so a destination the plant cannot go to stops the whole order.
And like a cutting, merch does not come back because you changed your mind: an item that arrives damaged, misprinted or wrong, or never arrives, is replaced or refunded. The Returns page sets out both side by side.
After it arrives
Care & rooting
Unpack right away. Take the plant out of the box the day it arrives and brush off packing material. A plant that arrives cool, wrinkled or light is fine — it is just thirsty. Soft is a different thing: soft flesh means rot, and that is what the 48-hour guarantee is for.
Check the callus — cuttings only. The cut face should already be hard, dry and shiny, like a fingernail rather than like flesh, and then it can be potted the same day. If it is not, stand the piece upright somewhere shaded with good airflow until it is. An ordinary cutting takes one to two weeks, longer when the air is very humid; a slim pup is quicker and a really fat column slower. The face is what tells you it is done, and you will never be early. Do not put a fresh wet cut into soil. Once the face is hard, set the cutting one to two inches deep, just enough to stand it up. A rooted plant has no cut face and skips this step.
Pot it up. Use a fast-draining mix — roughly two parts gritty mineral to one part cactus soil. Pumice is the best of the mineral part and perlite works. Pot into dry or barely damp mix, never wet, and no deeper than it needs. If it wobbles, stake it: burying more of a plant is not safer, it is the commonest way to lose one.
Watering a cutting. Nothing on planting day. About a week later, a splash — just enough to darken the top inch of the mix, and no further down than that. A second small sip a week after that. The first proper soak only once you can see roots. There is no full soak before roots appear, and watering a cutting because it looks thirsty is the commonest way to lose one: it has no roots to drink with yet. Roots usually take about two months, and longer in winter, which is fine. Around week six it looks its worst, and that is normally the point just before roots. When a gentle wiggle near the top meets resistance and the ribs fill out again, it has rooted; never pull it up to check.
Watering a rooted plant. A plant that arrives with roots is not on the cutting schedule. Pot it into dry, fast-draining mix at the depth it grew, and give it four or five days before the first water, so any root bruised in the box can heal. After that, water it the way you would any established cactus: soak the whole pot, let it dry out, soak it again, testing with a finger a couple of knuckles down rather than going by the calendar. Never leave a pot standing in a saucer.
Grafts. The plant you paid for is the one on top; the roots belong to the rootstock under it. Any pup that comes up on the rootstock below the join has to come off, or it starves the plant on top.
Seedlings. A seedling often arrives floppy at the base. That is normal, and it firms up once it is potted; until it does, prop it with a wooden skewer rather than burying more of the stem. Unlike an older plant, a seedling in its first year should not dry out completely: after its first water, water again while the mix is still slightly damp underneath.
Light. Bright light, but ease into full sun. It has just spent a few days in a dark box, so give it shade with plenty of ambient light for a few days, then half sun, then full. Going from shade to hard sun in the space of a week is enough to scar a plant permanently.
Do not panic. A little shriveling while rooting is normal. Mushy, dark, sour-smelling tissue is not — cut back to clean green flesh with a sterilized blade, let it dry, and start again.