06/01/2026
Fulfilling online orders takes a lot of time, and can be frustrating at times. During the off-season, usually during those cold, dark, dreary days of winter, we receive hundreds of orders for hosta, peony daylily, and other plants.
By the time safe shipping season starts in mid May, we begin with the oldest orders, some daring back to November, contact a few dozen at a time, and ask them to confirm their order by responding "proceed", or "cancel" if they prefer.
Once the customer confirms, Staff gather the plants, washes off all the soil, wraps the roots in wet towels, then wraps the wet towels with paper, then places the root part in a plastic bag, and moves to the next plant. Keith then wraps the entire plant in paper to protect the foliage from being damaged in shipment. He packages the plants, weighs each package, applies the postage and label, creates an invoice, and emails the customer. This is all done after we close for the day (night). The customer then has 24 hours to pay the invoice or the order will be cancelled. This to prevent plants from being in boxes longer than five days.
So, as you can see by this long post; this process takes a lot of time. Time is expense. However this expense is not passed on to the online customer.
Here is the frustrating part. When, AFTER a customer confirms their order by responding "proceed", but then AFTER they receive the invoice, they email back and say "Cancel order please. Shipping is out of normal range".
What does this even mean? This person ordered two Guardian Angel hosta. The plants, as you can see are huge and healthy. They are 33" tall! It took Staff fifteen minutes to wash each one!
Should I cut the hosta in half to save her a few dollars on shipping?
