Refund policy

The Rooted Guarantee — our refund policy

One year. Money back. Actual money, back to the card you paid with.

Not a promo code. Not a store credit. Not a replacement you did not ask for. If your tree arrives smaller than we said it would, or it dies within twelve months of the day it landed, we refund what you paid and you keep the tree.

What we do not make you do

This is the part that matters, so we are putting it first.

You do not have to send us photographs. Tell us what happened. We believe you. If we ever need to see something to make the tree better next time we will ask, and it will be optional.
You do not have to register anything. There is no form to fill in within 14 days of delivery, no account to create, no serial number to record. Your order number is the whole registration.
You do not have to ship a dead tree back. Do not put a dead tree in a box. Compost it. It is better for the soil than it is for our records.
You do not pay return freight. On the rare occasion we do want something back, we pay the freight and we send the label. That is our cost, not yours.
You do not waive a jury trial to buy a tree. There is no arbitration clause in this policy and no class-action waiver. We are not going to make you sign away a legal right in order to spend $89 with us.

How to use it

Email us your order number and one sentence about what went wrong. That is the entire process. We approve or we ask one question, and the refund is on its way to your card within 7 business days of approval.

You choose the remedy, not us: a full refund, or a replacement tree. If you pick the replacement, we pay the shipping on it. If you pick the refund, it goes back to the original payment method — we will not substitute a credit code.

What is covered

Arrives under spec — covered on day one, no waiting period. Every product page carries a "What actually ships" block with height, caliper, container size and root form. Measure your tree against those numbers on the day it arrives. If it misses, that is a full refund and you keep the tree. We are not going to send you a stick and a photograph of somebody else's oak.
Dies within 365 days of delivery — covered. Every live plant in this catalog, for a full year from the day it was delivered.
Arrives damaged, or does not arrive — covered. Freight damage is our problem to chase, not yours. Tell us and we will make it right; we will deal with the carrier.
Hard goods — 30 days, any reason. Root starter and deer guards can go back within 30 days, unopened or opened, and we pay the return shipping.

What is not covered

Three things, and we would rather you read them now than find out later:

A tree planted outside its stated USDA zone. Every page prints the zones. An anacacho orchid tree in zone 7 will freeze to the ground, and we said so before you bought it.
A tree left in the box for more than 5 days. Open the carton the day it lands. This is the single most common way a healthy shipment becomes a dead one.
Acts of God we can both see on the news. A hundred-year flood or a once-a-decade freeze event is not something either of us priced in.

Nothing else is excluded. There is no lifetime cap, no per-household limit, no "one approved replacement only" clause, and no expiry on the credit — because there is no credit.

Cancelling an order

Before it ships, you can cancel anything for any reason and we refund you in full. Email us or use the cancel link in your order confirmation.

If we miss a ship window, you get a revised date and a one-click cancel. If we need more than 30 days past the original date, your order is cancelled and refunded automatically unless you tell us to hold it. Silence means we give you your money back. That is how the FTC Mail Order Rule (16 CFR Part 435) is meant to work, and it is how we run it.

Why we can afford this

Because we grow the trees. There is no broker margin between you and the field, so a refund costs us a tree and some freight rather than a tree, some freight and somebody else's markup. And because the honest sizing spec on every page means most of the reasons people ask for refunds never happen here.

A policy page is something we write. A refund is something you can see land on your statement. We would rather be judged on the second one.