Shipping, Refunds and Returns

Please Read Before Ordering

Plants are living organisms and require the correct environment for their health. We do not offer refunds for plants that decline after 10 business days or fail for reasons beyond our control.

Shipping Plants sold by Zone 9 Tropicals

Zone 9 Tropicals specializes in selling and shipping live plants. We ship most orders of live plants by UPS or USPS Priority Mail on Mondays. In most cases orders placed by Saturday at noon are shipped the following Monday. Orders to California typically ship within 4 to 20 days pending phytosanitary inspections. Shipping may be delayed in winter. There may also be delays in shipping around holidays, including: New Years, Memorial Day, 4th of July, Labor Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Credit cards are charged at time of order confirmation.

We list the quantity of the plants we have in stock and we strive to keep an accurate inventory. However, some plants will occasionally be out of stock. Out of stock plants will be deleted from your order before shipping. We do not substitute for out of stock plants unless you indicate which plants to substitute when you place your order. However, we will substitute a different size, of the same plant, when one size is out of stock. Please let us know in the comments box when placing your order if you do not accept a size substitution. Please list plant substitutions (or other comments) in the comment box when placing your order.

We ship plants all year. However, we recommend shipping to your area only when minimum night temperatures are consistently above 40°F. Damage due to cold temperatures and delays is at customer’s risk. Please let us know if you would like us to hold your order until warmer weather in spring. Note that some plants are only available seasonally and we may not be able to reserve some plants for long periods. We will notify you if this is the case.

Damage to plants must be reported within 7 days of receipt. An attached photo will help us in filing any insurance claims with the shipping company.

We accept mail orders. Shipping cost can be calculated by entering your plants into the shopping cart and then inputting your zip code or you can contact us for the shipping cost. Please contact us if you want to confirm plant availability before ordering. Texas residents must include 8.25% sales tax.

For shipping to Hawaii and Puerto Rico, please contact us for a quote and shipping details. If you place an order to a location we cannot ship to, we will refund and cancel your transaction. Prices are subject to change without notice. We do not sell wholesale.

California Orders and Shipping

The state of California requires poof of phytosanitary compliance for all plants imported into the state. In order for us to send a plant to a California customer we must request an inspection from the Texas Dept of Agriculture. An in-person examination is made by an officer of the department of agriculture. Upon successful inspection, a phytosanitary certificate is issued for the shipment. The certificate is affixed to the box and sent out for delivery.

Without the certificate, the plants may be intercepted, seized and destroyed.

Phytosanitary certificates incur additional fees per shipment and require 5 days lead time to schedule as plants must be individually listed on the certification application for inspection. The process is discounted if we can aggregate as many orders as possible into one inspection.

Overall, there are several additional costs for shipments to California: permit fees, higher postage costs, administrative overhead for organizing permit applications, labor costs for staging the plants for inspection and so on. We do not want burden our California customers with the additional costs.

To mitigate the added costs and avoid passing the added fees to our California customers, we aggregate shipping to California once a month. All orders to California are dispatched on the the first Monday following the 15th of every month. We will make minor adjustments to the schedule, such as in November and December, to avoid holiday delays.

Refunds

You may request a full refund including shipping costs any time prior to shipping.

We are proud of the products we sell but we also understand that in some instances we may not meet customer expectations. We will issue a full refund or replacement of plants that have major damage or are lost transit. If you are not happy with your purchase for any reason, please contact us within 7 business days for a replacement or refund. Pictures of the plants and the conditions of most concern to you will help to solve any problems experienced in transit.

We will send you a prepaid postage label to return the product. Once the product arrives, we will process your refund.

We do not charge restocking fees on any live plant returns or refunds.

Returns

Be sure to retain the shipping box in which your product was delivered. If you request a replacement, refund or return, we will send a prepaid shipping label to affix to your return. If the original packaging is too big for the product, which may be the case in instances of shipments with multiple plants, then we encourage you to find a smaller box to which you may affix the return label.

Free Shipping and Free Returns Promotion

Free shipping and free returns are only available in the continental United States.

Contact:

Email: info@zone9tropicals.com

Phone: (713)863-0708

Address: 1015 Arlington Houston, TX 77008

Products Sold by Zone 9 Tropicals' Partners

Zone 9 Tropicals offers products sold by third-party vendors, such as Amazon and others. Purchases made from those vendors found on Zone 9 Tropicals' website are generally completed on that vendor's website via means of clicking through. The shipping and returns policy of products purchased from third-party vendors are outlined on their respective websites:

SHIPPING POLICIES FOR

NOTE: Zone 9 Tropicals will occasionally offer discounts, coupons, other promotions and gift certificates. Unless otherwise noted, our partners do not accept these offers.