Return policy

Return Policy

At Satinflower Nurseries, we take great care in growing, collecting, handling, and providing high-quality native plants and seed. We want you to succeed in establishing your native plants, and we are always happy to help with questions about what you are growing.

We stand behind the plants and seed we provide. We take care to ensure that species are correctly identified, plants are healthy when they leave our care, seed is carefully grown, collected, cleaned, and stored, and orders are assembled accurately.

If you have a concern with your purchase, please contact us at info@satinflower.ca. We are happy to help assess what you are seeing and work with you to find an appropriate solution.

We also encourage you to review our FAQ, Seeding Instructions, and Planting from Pot Instructions. These resources include important information about native plant life cycles, seed dormancy and germination, sowing timing, site preparation, planting, and what to expect when growing native species.

Return Eligibility & Plant Health Concerns

Proof of purchase is required for returns, exchanges, store credits, or refunds.

If you have a concern about the health or condition of a potted plant, please contact us within 7 days of purchase or pickup. This gives us the best opportunity to understand what you are seeing and help determine what may be happening.

Plants are living organisms, and once they leave our care their condition can change quickly. Watering, planting, soil and drainage, weather, pests, handling, storage, and other growing conditions can all affect plant health and survival. For this reason, plant-health concerns reported more than 7 days after purchase or pickup are generally not eligible for refund, replacement, exchange, or store credit.

Please contact us before bringing or sending anything back to the nursery. Items returned without prior approval may not be accepted.

Plant Condition & Natural Imperfections

We grow our plants without pesticides, and native plants are part of a living ecosystem. Some leaf damage, insect feeding, spotting, or other natural imperfections may be present and do not necessarily indicate that a plant is unhealthy. In fact, signs of wildlife use can be part of what we value about growing plants that support local biodiversity.

We select plants for sale based on their overall health and suitability, rather than an expectation of cosmetic perfection.

If you have a concern about the condition of a plant, or believe you received the wrong species or quantity, please contact us promptly so we can review the situation with you.

Annual Plants & Natural Life Cycle

Annual plants complete their life cycle within a growing season. They are selected for orders in good condition and at an appropriate stage of growth when the order is prepared, but they will naturally continue through their life cycle over time. This may include flowering, setting seed, yellowing, and eventually dying.

If pickup is delayed beyond the agreed pickup date or timeframe, changes resulting from this natural progression are not considered a plant-health concern. Annual plants that flower, set seed, or die during a delayed pickup period are not eligible for refund, replacement, exchange, or store credit on that basis.

Geophytes & Seasonal Dormancy

Many of our native perennial species are geophytes — plants that grow from underground bulbs, corms, rhizomes, or tubers. These plants naturally senesce and enter dormancy for part of the year. During this process, foliage may yellow, die back, or disappear completely above ground. This is a normal part of the plant’s life cycle and does not, on its own, indicate that the plant is dead.

We sell some geophytes during their natural period of senescence or dormancy. When a geophyte is purchased or picked up in this condition, we will review its seasonal condition with you at pickup. We encourage you to ask any questions you may have about planting, care, dormancy, and what to expect when the plant would normally emerge again.

Geophytes purchased or accepted during senescence or dormancy are not eligible for return, refund, replacement, exchange, or store credit based on their dormant appearance or subsequent failure to emerge.

This is because once a dormant plant leaves our care, we cannot control factors such as storage, watering, drainage, planting depth, weather, pests, or other growing conditions that may affect its survival and future emergence.

Potted Plant Orders for Pickup

Potted plant orders are generally held for up to one month, beginning when we notify you that your order is ready for pickup. Plants require ongoing care and nursery space is limited, and we may not be able to properly maintain orders over an extended period.

If you require a longer holding period, please contact us in advance. Extended holds may be available by special arrangement, particularly for larger orders, but must be requested and confirmed by Satinflower Nurseries.

A Plant Care Fee of 5% of the applicable plant order subtotal per month may apply when plants are held beyond the agreed pickup date or timeframe.

If an order is not collected within the agreed timeframe and an extended hold has not been arranged, the plants may be returned to nursery inventory and made available for sale. Once plants have been returned to circulation, we cannot guarantee that the same plants, quantities, or species will remain available for later pickup.

If plants from the original order are no longer available when you are ready to collect your order, store credit may be offered for those unavailable items, as appropriate.

Change-of-Mind Returns for Potted Plants

Because plants are living organisms and we cannot control their care, growing conditions, or potential exposure to pests or pathogens once they leave the nursery, potted plants that have left our care are generally not eligible for return or exchange due simply to a change of mind.

If you realize there is an issue with your purchase, please contact us rather than bringing plants back to the nursery without prior approval.

Potted Plant Orders for Delivery

Please inspect delivered plant orders as soon as possible after arrival. If you believe you received the wrong species or quantity, or there was a concern with the condition of the plants when the order arrived, please contact us promptly at info@satinflower.ca.

We will review the circumstances with you and, where the issue originated with Satinflower Nurseries, work with you to make it right.

Seed Quality, Dormancy & Germination

We take great care in growing, collecting, cleaning, storing, and handling our native seed. We also regularly sow and grow from our own seed as part of our nursery production.

Native seed is very different from many conventional garden seeds. Different species have different dormancy and germination requirements. Depending on the species, germination may be immediate, delayed, staggered over time, or require particular seasonal conditions. Some native species require considerable patience.

For these reasons, successful germination or establishment after seed leaves our care cannot be guaranteed. Germination can also be affected by sowing time, site preparation, moisture, weather, pests, storage after purchase, and other conditions outside our control.

Before sowing, please review the information provided for individual species as well as our FAQ and Seeding Instructions. These resources provide information about sowing timing, germination requirements, and what to expect when growing native plants from seed.

Seed Orders Shipped by Mail

Once a seed order has been packed and shipped, it is considered final sale and cannot be returned or exchanged due to a change of mind.

If we have made an error with your order, or your seed arrives damaged, please contact us promptly so we can review the situation and make it right.

Some small seed orders may be eligible for lower-cost untracked letter mail. Untracked letter mail does not include tracking or delivery confirmation. If an untracked shipment does not arrive, please contact us so we can review the circumstances; however, replacement of an untracked shipment cannot be guaranteed.

Tracked shipping is also available and may be required for larger-value orders. If a tracked shipment appears to be lost in transit, please contact us so we can review the tracking information and determine an appropriate solution.

Custom & Special Orders

Custom and specially prepared orders require payment in advance and are generally non-refundable once work or preparation has begun.

This may include custom-grown plants, custom seed blends, bulk seed weighed or prepared specifically for an order, and other products or services prepared specifically for a customer.

Custom and special orders require us to commit inventory, materials, growing space, and/or staff time specifically to your order. For this reason, they cannot normally be cancelled, returned, or refunded once preparation or work has begun.

If you need to make a change to a custom or special order, please contact us as early as possible. If work has not yet begun, we will do our best to accommodate the request.

Order Cancellations

If you need to cancel a prepaid order before pickup or shipment, please contact us as soon as possible. Where possible, we are happy to accommodate cancellations.

Preparing a plant order can involve significant staff time to select, locate, count, organize, and stage plants for pickup. For small orders where little preparation has occurred, we may be able to cancel the order without an additional cancellation fee.

Once an order has been assembled or significant preparation has begun, a cancellation fee of up to 15% of the applicable order subtotal may be deducted from the refund to account for staff time and handling involved in preparing the order and returning products to inventory. The amount will depend on the size of the order and the preparation already completed.

Any non-refundable payment-processing or transaction fees associated with the original payment or refund may also be deducted where the cancellation or refund is customer-initiated.

Cancellation fees and payment-processing deductions do not apply where a cancellation or refund is required because of an error by Satinflower Nurseries.

Custom and specially prepared orders are subject to the separate terms above.

Sale Items, Gift Cards & Other Non-Returnable Items

Sale items and gift cards are non-refundable.

Custom and specially prepared products are also non-refundable as described above. Additional return limitations that apply to dormant geophytes, delayed annual-plant pickups, and shipped seed are described in their respective sections above.

Returns, Exchanges, Store Credit & Refunds

Once we have reviewed your request, we will work with you to find an appropriate solution based on the circumstances. Depending on the situation, this may include a replacement, exchange, store credit, or refund.

Approved refunds will be returned to the original payment method, less any applicable cancellation or non-refundable payment-processing fees described above. Please note that your bank, credit card company, or payment provider may require additional time to process and post the refund.

Questions? Please Reach Out

Native plants and seeds do not always behave like conventional garden products, and sometimes what looks concerning is part of a species’ natural life cycle. If you are unsure about something you purchased from us, please ask. We may be able to help identify what is happening or provide growing or planting guidance.

For questions about a purchase or this policy, please contact us at info@satinflower.ca.