We want every customer to have a great time buying, planting and enjoying the trees we grow and sell. We know that a small percentage of deciduous fruit trees will fail to grow away in spring regardless of the gardener’s skill and knowledge. We have seen this over the years when some trees we and other experienced gardeners plant don’t wake up after winter. We call them “sleeping beauties”. The proportion is very low, we think less than 1 or 2 in 100 trees, except for persimmons*, but it does happen.
So we offer a guarantee to support our customers unlucky enough to end up with a “sleeping beauty”. (In our experience no amount of kissing - or cursing - will wake them up!)
The guarantee is straightforward and within the limitations stated below will be honoured without question. Here are the details.
If your tree fails to “wake up” by November 30th in the year of purchase, i.e. the buds don’t swell, it doesn’t flower and leaves do not appear we will issue a store credit in the form of a coupon code for the purchase price and pro-rata shipping charge for the tree(s). No questions asked. There are conditions:
1. We believe around 1% to 2% of bare-root deciduous plants (1 or 2 out of 100) may fail even when planting and growing conditions are satisfactory. So, we will credit up to 2% of plants (i.e. 2 out of 100) purchased per customer per year†. For example a customer who has purchased 70 trees in a single year (in one or more orders) can claim credit for 2 trees under this warranty; a customer who purchases from 1 to 50 trees can claim credit for one replacement tree.
2. You must inform us and include photographs by email by December 14th in the year of purchase to claim under the guarantee. Photographs must clearly show all parts of the tree and the label supplied with the tree. Trees that are growing at November 30th in the year of purchase and later die are not covered by this guarantee.
3. Provide the order number for the tree purchase.
4. This ex gratia offer is in addition to remedies available under Australian Consumer Laws.
5. This ex gratia offer is in addition to our other Terms & Conditions.
* Persimmons are very unreliable from bare-root so we have stopped selling them until we can come up with a better way to prepare them for sale.
† Our plant guarantee is intended to protect customers from the low incidence of unexplained, natural plant failure observed in young, bare-rooted plants. It does not cover the more common causes of failure that include overwatering, incorrect planting and handling practices, drying out between delivery and planting, brush-cutter attack and force majeure events such as pest animal damage, flood or fire. We trust our customers not to rip us off!