Shipping Information

Papa Geno’s Shipping Practices & Costs

We ship live plants Monday & Tuesday from mid-March until mid-June, and then again from after Labor Day until before Christmas, as long as weather permits. We ship seeds and non-living items (like lavender wreaths) year round, five days per week. We ship bare root plants, dormant tubers and similar items five days per week when they are in season.

Sorry, we cannot ship live plants to Alaska or Hawaii, and certain plants to certain counties in California. (It varies from year to year.) Nor can we ship live plants to any country outside the "lower 48 states" of the U.S. These are not our rules, but we have to abide by them. .

We will ship live plants using our choice of expedited FedEx or UPS unless you give us special shipping instructions. Our shipping rates are based on us making the choice of shipping method, and if you specify a more expensive method, we will pass the costs along. We no longer use USPS Priority Mail for potted plants because the proportion of delayed shipments and dead-on-arrival plants was about ten times higher for Priority Mail than for FedEx and UPS. Some heavier gift items are still sent by Priority Mail.

Note: Neither Fedex nor UPS can deliver to a Post Office box.
We need a street address!

Important: Minimum live plant order is three standard pot plants or two large pot plants!

Shipping and Handling Charges - Live Plants

All plants shipped Fedex or UPS. We ship Monday & Tuesday only to assure that your plants do not spend a weekend in a warehouse or the back of a truck. As you will see, the more plants you order, the less postage per plant you pay. Those are not our decisions, but the pricing policies of UPS, FedEx, etc.

Please note that we have two different sizes of pots; the larger one costs considerably more to ship, because it weighs more than twice as much as the standard pot. We don’t make the rules, but we have to live by them.

There are two shipping schedules also; one for folks that live along the coasts and one for everyone else. This is not our doing either – it costs us twice as much to get an order to Washington DC , for example, than to a Maryland address 20 miles away.

Gift Section:

S&H charges are determined by the weight of the item and amount of packing materials needed, but UPS and Fed Ex have minimum charges. If you order multiple items, we will always adjust the S&H charge to your advantage.

We earn our living by growing and selling herb products, not by doubling the postage charges. If you have a question about S&H charges for a specific combination of items, please e-mail us; there are far too many possible com-binations to list them all. Please note that this does not apply to plant orders; live plants must be packaged in a separate box, and those S&H charges are listed above and to the left.

Standard Pots			Standard Pots
All zipcodes except those specified at right			Required for orders to following zipcodes: 00001 - 11999 20001 - 20399 33000 - 34999 83200 - 83999 85000 - 86999 89100 – 99999
Standard - 2.5 x 3.5” pots			Expedited - 2.5 x 3.5" pots
3-4 plants - $6.90 5-6 plants - $7.90 7-8 plants - $8.90 9-10 plants - $9.90 11-12 plants - $10.90 13-14 plants - $11.90 15-16 plants - $12.90 17-18 plants - $13.90 19-20 plants - $14.10 21-22 plants - $14.90 23-24 plants - $15.40 25-26 plants - $15.90 27-28 plants - $16.40 29-30 plants - $16.90 31-35 plants - $.54 each 36-40 plants - $.52 each 41-50 plants - $.50 each 51 + plants - $.48 each			3-4 plants - $11.75 5-6 plants - $12.50 7-8 plants - $13.75 9-10 plants - $15.00 11-12 plants - $15.75 13-14 plants - $17.00 15-16 plants - $17.75 17-18 plants - $18.50 19-20 plants - $19.50 21-22 plants - $20.75 23-24 plants - $21.50 25-26 plants - $22.25 27-28 plants - $22.75 29-30 plants - $23.50 31-35 plants - $.84 each 36-40 plants - $.81 each 41-50 plants - $.78 each 51 + plants - $.75 each
Large Pots			Large Pots
All zipcodes except those specified at right			Required for orders to following zipcodes: 00001 - 11999 20001 - 20399 33000 - 34999 83200 - 83999 85000 - 86999 89100 – 99999
Large 3.5” x 4.0" pots			Expedited - 3.5 x 4.0" pots
2 plants - $6.90 3 plants - $7.90 4 plants - $8.90 5 plants - $9.90 6 plants - $10.90 7 plants - $11.90 8 plants - $12.90 9 plants - $13.90 10 plants - $14.90 11 and up - $1.54 per plant			2 plants - $10.90 3 plants - $11.90 4 plants - $12.90 5 plants - $13.40 6 plants - $10.60 7 plants - $14.00 8 plants - $15.30 9 plants - $16.60 10 plants - $18.00 11 and up - $1.75 per plant

Weather is a factor in shipping live plants

We will ship live plants at about the time it is safe to plant them outdoors in your area, according to horticultural zone information supplied to us by the USDA. If you request a special ship date, you assume the risk of plants being damaged by temperature extremes. This means, of course, that we ship plants to Florida and Southern California starting in early March and proceeding north until we reach places like Minnesota and Montana in mid-May. In the Fall, the order is reversed, and we can often ship plants to Zones 8, 9 & 10 until December.

Our Guarantee

Our products are guaranteed to leave our greenhouses true to species and in good shape, but sometimes things happen after they get on those trucks and planes. Please let us know by phone, fax or E-Mail within 72 hours if anything arrives damaged or dead. We'll try to replace it if we have the item left in stock; if not, we'll give you a full credit toward your next order. We do not guarantee our plants against neglect or mishandling after they arrive, so please follow planting instructions carefully. Once the plants are in the ground, we cannot assume responsibility for them.

A. Our costs for shipping and shipping cartons have nearly doubled in the past four years. We do not treat shipping and handling as a "profit center" at Papa Geno's/Prairie Perennials, and we show you what the S&H is so you'll know better where your money is going. Many companies hide part of the shipping costs in the cost of the plants. We write more checks to UPS and FedEx than to any other vendor, and our shipping carton manufacturer is next! We simply try to recover our extra costs. We too wish shipping and boxes didn't cost as much! For Spring 2005, we actually lost money on our shipping and handling operations.

The two-tier shipping schedule has been made necessary by the fuel and other surcharges that both FedEx and UPS have started applying, and the steep increases in rates to certain areas. For example, it costs us more than twice as much to ship a package to Boston or Long Island or New Jersey that it does to Philadelphia. Go figure! The same high costs apply to South Florida, South Texas, Arizona and the entire West Coast.

Overall though, our products are very reasonably priced, and we invite all of our customers to do their own price and shipping cost com-parisons. Just be sure to read the fine print and compare the bottom lines! We are not going to be as cheap as WalMart or Home Depot, but those kinds of companies do not provide the quality, selection, convenience or service that we do.