Shipping & Handling
How a living plant gets from our benches to your door without dying on the way.
Rates
| Order subtotal | Shipping |
|---|---|
| Under $99.00 | $14.95 flat |
| $99.00 and over | Free |
Flat rate regardless of how many plants are in the box — it costs the same to ship one as it does six.
When we ship
We pack Monday through Wednesday only. This is deliberate: a box shipped on a Thursday or Friday has a real chance of sitting in an unheated depot over the weekend, and that is where mail-order plants die. If you order Thursday afternoon, your plants go out the following Monday.
Orders are packed within 1–3 business days of that window, and transit is typically 2–4 days.
How we pack
- The root ball is bagged and secured so soil does not shake loose in transit.
- The plant is braced inside an insulated box so it cannot rattle around.
- Heat packs are added automatically when forecast temperatures along the route drop below 45°F.
- Boxes are marked as live plants so carriers handle them accordingly.
You get a tracking number by email the moment the label is created.
Extreme weather holds
If your area is in a hard freeze or a serious heat wave, we will hold your order and email you rather than ship a plant into weather it will not survive. You are welcome to tell us to send it anyway — but the live arrival guarantee does not cover a shipment you asked us to push through a weather hold.
Where we ship
We ship to the lower 48 states only — the contiguous United States plus Washington DC.
We cannot ship to Hawaii, Alaska, or Puerto Rico. Live plants entering those territories need phytosanitary certification and inspection paperwork we are not set up to issue, and the transit times involved are hard on a plant regardless. We would rather not take your money for something that arrives dead. We do not ship internationally for the same reasons.
State restrictions within the lower 48
Live plants cross state agricultural lines, and several states restrict specific genera to protect their own commercial growers from pests and disease. We enforce this at checkout — you will be told before you pay, never after.
| State | Plants we cannot ship there |
|---|---|
| Arizona | Barbados Cherry (Acerola), Blue Java "Ice Cream" Banana, Dwarf Cavendish Banana, Frederick Passion Fruit, Grand Nain Banana, Jaboticaba (Brazilian Grape Tree), Kari Starfruit (Carambola), Pickering Dwarf Mango, Raja Puri Banana, Red Lady Papaya, Ruby Supreme Pink Guava, Soursop / Graviola |
| California | Barbados Cherry (Acerola), Blue Java "Ice Cream" Banana, Dwarf Cavendish Banana, Frederick Passion Fruit, Grand Nain Banana, Jaboticaba (Brazilian Grape Tree), Kari Starfruit (Carambola), Pickering Dwarf Mango, Raja Puri Banana, Red Lady Papaya, Ruby Supreme Pink Guava, Soursop / Graviola |
| Florida | Barbados Cherry (Acerola), Jaboticaba (Brazilian Grape Tree), Kari Starfruit (Carambola), Pickering Dwarf Mango, Red Lady Papaya, Ruby Supreme Pink Guava, Soursop / Graviola |
| Louisiana | Pickering Dwarf Mango |
| Texas | Barbados Cherry (Acerola), Jaboticaba (Brazilian Grape Tree), Kari Starfruit (Carambola), Pickering Dwarf Mango, Red Lady Papaya, Ruby Supreme Pink Guava, Soursop / Graviola |
Something went wrong?
Email russ@tropiplants.com with your order number and a photo. We answer every message, usually same day.