International shipping rules

New Rules for international shipping  (this does not apply to USA and Canada)

African violets :  I will no longer be sending plugs internationally, only leaves and episcias will be sent.

I know this will make many of you angry and why I am taking the time to explain the reasons why I am making this major change.

1)     Because of the international rules on exporting plant material, I have to remove the soil off the plugs before sending and in many cases, a plug that is a nice size becomes much smaller once the rootball is removed not counting that leaves are broken during the process and the plants are more fragile so there are more losses.

2)    The removing of the soil off plugs is a VERY long process, I have to scrape off all of the root ball soil and most of the roots since the peat moss is everywhere in the main stem.  Then they all have to be washed with clean water to remove the little peat moss particles on and around leaves and stems as the import rules are very strict… and then I have to set them up to dry otherwise they are too wet and will rot in the bag during the shipping ….  In the same time that I can prepare 10 plugs for international shipping, I could prepare about 100 plugs for shipping destined to Canada and the USA. 

3)    It is no longer advantageous to sell plugs internationally for all the time it takes to prepare these for shipping versus the price I sell them and then considering the losses that occur, I actually am losing $$.  In those situations where a package is delivered late, damaged by heat or cold or gets stuck in customs, I do guarantee the contents and I do refund those items that were damaged.   When there are damages it is not anybody’s fault, this just happens when we are dealing with live material.  I have always guaranteed product because I don’t want the buyers to be out of $$ when something goes wrong however, in the end, I am always the loser because when I have to refund damaged plugs, I am then out of the plugs, I am out of the $$ plus I will never get that precious time back that was used to pack these.

So for all of these reasons, I have decided to stop selling plugs internationally, I hope you will understand and respect the decision.  If you wish to purchase leaves or episcias, there is no problem there as these don’t require the same time in packing and when a refund is necessary, it doesn’t hurt me as much.

 

Thank you.