In this guide 6 sections
Ship live plants only when they can arrive in good condition. Stock them by batch and pot size and set dispatch days for each region. Hold orders when frost or heat is forecast. Pack by plant type, and check the transit days before each label prints.
Stock plants by batch and pot size
A plant is not a tin on a shelf. Lavender potted in March is a different product from lavender potted in June, even under one name, because the roots and the size have moved on. Record stock by batch. Keep the potting date, pot size and a grade on each one.
Form matters as much as size. A potted shrub in leaf, a bare root rose in winter, a plug tray and a bag of tubers all pack and travel differently. Give each its own form field. The packing rules then key off it.
Photograph the actual batch. Plants vary from one season to the next, and a stock image sets an expectation you cannot meet once the box is opened. Pull a batch from sale the moment losses leave too few good plants to fill the orders already taken, and say so on the page.
- Batch code and potting date
- Pot size and height band
- Form: potted, bare root, plug, tuber or bulb
- Grade, with a photo of the current batch
- Hardiness: hardy, half hardy or tender
Set dispatch days for each region
A weekend in a depot kills plants. Dispatch early in the week. The box then lands while the carrier still runs a full service, and someone is likely to be home to take it in. Thursday and Friday are closed days for anything with leaves.
Build a table of transit days from your nursery to each region, copied from the carrier’s service table and checked against the first dozen parcels that actually ship. Near regions might take one day. Far ones take two or three. Give the longer routes fewer dispatch days.
Show the next dispatch date at checkout. Not just a delivery estimate. A buyer who sees a Monday dispatch date accepts the wait, but a buyer whose plants arrive on a Saturday after a night in a van does not.
Hold orders when the weather turns
Check the forecast at both ends of the journey, and along the route if the transit is long. Frost kills tender plants. Heat does worse in a closed van. A parcel left in the sun on a doorstep, waiting for someone to come home, can cook a whole box of young plants before supper.
Write the rule by hardiness, so staff are not guessing. Hardy shrubs may travel through a cold snap. Tender plants may not. Store the rule against the plant, and let the system apply it to every order in the queue each morning before the pick lists print.
A held order needs a status of its own. Tell the customer the plant is waiting for safer weather, give the next dispatch day, and keep the plants in the hardening bay meanwhile. Do not cancel the order.
- A held for weather status on the order
- Rules by hardiness: hardy, half hardy or tender
- Automatic message with the next dispatch day
- Stock reserved in the hardening bay
- Release date set by whoever runs the dispatch desk
Pack by plant type
Print the packing method on the pick slip for each plant type, so the packer never has to guess what works. Potted shrubs are staked and sleeved. The pot is wrapped to hold the compost. Bare roots go in damp paper inside a bag.
Succulents travel dry. Ferns travel moist. Tall plants need a long box with wedges at the neck of the pot, or the stem snaps on the first corner. Mark every box with a live plants label. Add an arrow for the way up.
Keep a short box list too. Each box size is tied to the pot sizes it holds, and the packer scans the box so packaging stock stays accurate. Guesswork costs replacement plants.
Check the transit day before each order leaves
Before the label prints, run four checks. The dispatch day is allowed for that region. The address is not on the remote list. No weather hold applies. The plant was packed to its method. Any failure stops the label, and the order waits on the dispatch desk until someone has fixed the cause or signed off a reason to send it anyway.
On arrival, ask customers to photograph the plant within a day, with box and label in the frame, so you can compare it with the packing record. Patterns show up quickly. A single depot, pot size or packer will stand out within a few weeks of claims.
Write down the dispatch days for your three furthest regions this week. Test each against the carrier’s service table. Remove any day where a parcel would still be in transit over a weekend, and tell customers the new days at checkout the same afternoon.
Plant dispatch planner
A single page split into three parts. At the top sits a grid with regions down the side and weekdays across, each cell marked dispatch or no dispatch, with transit days beside it. Below that come the weather hold rules by hardiness. The last part is a pre-label check of four tick boxes, with a packing method for each plant form.
Open a blank worksheet to printQuestions owners ask
Which days are best for dispatching plants?
Early in the week, so the parcel arrives before the weekend. The right days depend on transit time to the region, which is why a table of transit days by region beats a single rule for everyone.
When should an order be held for weather?
When the forecast at the destination or along the route suits the plant badly. Frost harms tender plants and extreme heat harms most. Set the rule by hardiness and apply it to the whole queue.
What should a plant claim photo show?
The plant, the opened box and the shipping label together, taken soon after delivery. Set beside the packing record, it shows whether the damage came from packing, delay or weather.
Do plants need different packing by type?
Yes. Potted shrubs, bare roots, succulents and ferns lose condition in different ways. Store the method against each plant form so the packer follows it without guessing.