Wholesale & Import Assistance

Read this before you ask about imports

The import fine print, no sugar coating

Hello planty friends. I love helping people import, but I'm going to be blunt with you, because I've eaten a $2,000 loss from a bad exporter and I'd rather you hear the ugly parts from me now than find out the hard way. So grab your tea. Here's the deal:

• I'm the middle-woman, not the grower. I find the nursery, consolidate the order, deal with the permits and phytos, get the boxes through USDA, and forward your plants. I don't grow them and I don't control what the nursery packs.
• I only use nurseries with a good track record with me. Even the best slip sometimes. I've had boxes burned at USDA that came from the best of the best. They replaced what they could, and I'll always push for that, but "as best they could" is the ceiling, not a promise. A good supplier lowers the odds. It doesn't erase them.
• You pay 100% up front, and it's non-refundable once I place the order. My fee plus the estimated pass-through costs, paid before anything gets ordered. The nursery has your money the moment I hit send, so I can't get it back for you. Card, or ACH if you ask. No net terms, no "pay when it lands."
• Plants can arrive stressed, dormant, damaged, or dead. That is importing. Bare-root, five to seven days in a dark box, temperature swings, customs, USDA inspection that can treat, hold, or destroy a shipment. If a plant dies in transit, that loss is yours, not mine. I'm not saying that to be harsh, I'm saying it because it will happen to some percentage of any import, mine included.
• No guarantees. On anything. Not live arrival, not size, not rooting, not that the nursery's ID is right, not the delivery date. I'll give you my honest read on all of it, but I can't promise what I don't control.
• Replacements are rare and not up to me. A plant gets replaced only if the nursery agrees it was their error (wrong plant, diseased stock, a packing failure) and not shipping risk. Even then it's their call, and extra shipping may apply. There are no cash refunds for dead or damaged plants. Ever.
• 48 hours to report, with photos. Dead or damaged on arrival? Clear, dated photos of the plants and the packaging, sent to me within 48 hours of delivery. I'll submit qualifying claims, but I can't make a nursery say yes.
• Timelines are guesses. Weeks, not days. Nursery availability, flights, and inspection can all push things. I'll keep you posted the whole way.
• It has to be legal where you are. You're responsible for being allowed to receive and resell what you order. I'll decline anything that would break import rules.
• You'll sign for all of this before I order. Every import starts with an Import Assistance Agreement that says, in writing, that you read and understand these risks. No signature, no order. It protects both of us, and it means nobody gets to be surprised later.

What it costs. My fee is a flat amount based on the plant subtotal (what the nursery charges for the plants), and it's the same whether I negotiate the nursery down or not. Everything else (the plants themselves, international and domestic shipping, duties, phyto, permit, and inspection fees) is billed to you at cost with zero markup. You get a good-faith estimate before I order; if the real costs come in under, you get the difference back.

Why the fee is worth it. Most of the "exporters" people find online are brokers. They don't grow anything, they buy from the actual nursery and bury a big markup inside the plant price, so you never see it. I buy direct from nurseries I've vetted over years of ordering, and I negotiate the price on every order. My fee is flat, so every dollar I knock off the nursery's number goes to you, not me. I can't promise a specific discount, but I can promise you're paying the real nursery price plus a fee you can see.

If you read all of that and you're still in, genuinely, I'd love to help. The good nurseries are hard to find, I've already done the trial and error, and a well-run import is still the best way to stock a shop with plants you can't get stateside. Everything above is spelled out in the agreement you'll sign before we start, so read it twice.