Frequently asked questions

You will find information on how the product is supplied within the offer under the "offer comprises". When its says 9cm/25cm, it means it will be supplied in a 9 cm pot and is approx 25 cm tall on arrival. If it's supplied as bulbs it will say bulb size 4/5cm, this means the bulbs are 4-5 cm in circumference. Bulb sizes are measured in centimeters all over the world. If its supplied as a rhizome, corm, tuber or a fibrous root then we call it a bare root plant.

If you receive your plants and the ground is frozen then you can start the plants and bulbs off in pots, then store them in a cool dry place for the winter and transplant to your garden when all danger of frost has passed.

t's still pending payment because your payment was not processed successfully, if this is the case you can log back into your account on the website with the username and password you created, then you will see the order number you were working in your order history and when the status is pending payment you can click on the view button, it will bring you back to the payment page and you can continue to pay from there. This process allows you to finish the order without having to go through the process of adding the items to your basket again and you can complete your order in one go.

We will inform you by email as soon as your parcel our warehouse; this notification will include the shipping method. See below: If your parcel has been sent via royal mail first class then it is the usual procedure in your area. They will attempt delivery only once before leaving your parcel at the local post office to collect. However if your parcel has been sent via couriers, they require a signature so they will attempt delivery first day and leave a card informing you that they have been and they would try again the following day around the same time. If you are still not home on the second attempt then another card is left. But this card is details for you to contact them to make an alternative arrangement to collect the parcel. If you fail to get in contact after two working days then your parcel is sent back to us in Holland and you will still be charged.

If you place the order on a working day, it will be shipped the following work day from Holland. If the order is placed on the weekend and you choose the ASAP option, it will leave on the Monday accordingly. We will inform you via email as soon as it leaves the warehouse and when you can expect it. Delivery usually takes on average 2-3 working days to arrive. Any questions please contact the customer service.

If you wish to change the quantity in your basket on an item then, once your looking at your basket you will be able to see a little green button beside the quantity box, the black button allows you to delete something from your basket but the green button allows you to increase the quantity in your basket. Pressing the green button makes the calculation and you can proceed to check out.

When your plants arrive if they do not resemble the picture on the website and seem dry, please don't worry we anticipate this. We have years of experience so let us explain. Our photos are for illustrative purposes only, the pictures on the website are of mature plants in their flowering season. As we deal in live products the season and weather dictates the condition. Sizes and measurements of plants on our website are approximate, they can vary significantly in size between seasons.

With mail order plants, the power of the plant is stored in its root system. We understand they may not initially look as attractive as plants in a garden centre, but they are just as strong or even stronger.

Because people usually buy plants buy their appearance, plants are forced into flower to look attractive in a garden centre, but will get quite a shock once brought home and planted in your garden. They can take some time to fully recover if ever. Our plants do not waste any energy, they are hardened off and just waiting to boost into life in your garden.

The reason why plants arrive dry is because we try to prevent them from sweating and developing fungus quickly during transit, also the extra moisture would potentially damage the packaging or even make them heavier and in turn the cost of the shipping would be much more. We advise watering upon arrival and give the time to recover from the shock of being in a dark box for a few days. Your plants will appreciate this.

If you follow our guidelines enclosed, you will be rewarded in the growing season by watching your plants grow into mature and very strong plants.

The reason you will not see any flower heads on your plants when they arrive is because flower heads are delicate and wilt quickly during transit so we remove them before packing. Doing this also helps to promote new and bushy growth.

Do not be alarmed if you receive your plants without leaves, because in autumn and early spring these plants are deciduous, so it’s normal for them to look like that. This does not mean it’s dead; in fact it’s still very much alive.

There is always one way to know if something is dead or not and that's by scratching the bark hard with your thumbnail and if it’s green under the bark then it’s alive and will flourish in spring. However if it’s brown when you scratch, then it’s dead or dying. And in this case just contact us for your free replacement or your money back.

We mainly supply Herbaceous Perennials as bare roots. They are plants that will die down naturally to ground level in late autumn/winter and will re appear again next spring/summer. As they die down naturally, they may appear lifeless or as if they are dying but they are not, this is known as being dormant. You will be surprised just how quickly they develop once the temperature rises.

Rest assured your order is guaranteed so if you are still unhappy please contact our customer service. We wish you lots of success with your garden.

Some customers experience an empty Basket once they arrive at checkout. This is due to the fact that, in order to be able to correctly manage the order during checkout the website needs to place a cookie on your pc and it's being blocked because of your security settings. Click below the read more link to learn how to solve this and process your order. Please be advised that you can change this by explicitly allowing cookies for gardens4you.co.uk without changing security settings for the internet in general.

Your pc will stay secure and on our website you will be able to securely checkout, see below for instructions.

How to enable cookies for Gardens4you.co.uk.
Just follow the instructions below to enable cookies for Gardens4you.co.uk. (Screenprints are from a PC using Windows XP, Other versions might look slightly different).

1. Open your control panel from the start button and click on the internet options
2. Within internet options click on the Privacy tab to open the Privacy settings.
3. Click on the sites button to go to the manage sites page
4. Enter the website in the address of website field: www.gardens4you.co.uk and click on the allow button
5. Check if the website is now mentioned as a managed website and press the OK button.

You should now be able to checkout properly, if you still experience problems, contact customer service to help you out

When you pay using Pay Pal you may notice that the actual payment is done to B.J. Floradirect b.v. or Bulbs Direct.

You may also notice this name on your bank statements. This is the name of the company that takes care of order fullfillment for both Gardens4you.co.uk, Gardens4you.eu, Gardens4you.ie, bulbsdirect.com, MeinGartenshop.de, MeinGartenshop.at, www.jardinpourvous.com and several other garden relateded websites and it takes care of the financial handling and logistics for all these websites.

In case you have paid using an Echeck through Pay Pal it will take a couple of days until this payment is cleared. During this period your order will keep the status "pending payment". As soon as we receive the auto message from Pay Pal that the payment is cleared we will update your order to new status "confirmed" and process it. Do keep in mind that it delays your order for about a week in case you want to send a Gift and/or want it delivered by a specific date. Other payment methods such as a credit card payment through Pay Pal (or RBS World Pay) are cleared immediately and your order will be updated to "confirmed" as soon as you have made the payment.

We try to keep accurate stock of all items we sell on the website.However some items that are on the website might show out of stock. There are 2 possible reasons for this.

1. Due to a great demand, we sold so much of it during the day that we sold out. Stock will be updated again overnight; usually there will be stock again next day or a few days later.

2. It's a seasonal item that we do not ship yet.

You can click on the "ïnform me when available" button and we will send you an email when the item becomes available for shipment. In both cases we want to prevent selling something to you that we do not have! The stock show on the website is usually not our total available stock, it is the stock reserved for this website. Should you want to place a larger quantity than shown on the website, contact our customer service, they will be able to boost stock for this specific item so you will be able to place your order.

Once you have confirmed your order you are then transferred to the Secure RBS World Pay Payment Server (part of Royal Bank of Scotland) or Pay Pal Server to do the actual Payment.

This screen looks different from the normal web pages on our site. In case you pay through RBS World Pay it will show you an overview of your order (we send that info to the RBS World Pay Server) and will ask you to enter your credit card details, Pay Pal will ask you to login on your Pay Pal account and finish payment that way.

The actual verification of your card and payment is done on the RBS World Pay or Pay Pal Server. After payment has been done you are transferred back to our website together with the information if the payment succeeded or not. We will display a message if the order was completed and will send you an email as confirmation if it was a success. You can always check your status in your account under orders. The advantage of this process is that we do not need to store any credit card information on our server or website. It is all stored with World Pay or Pay Pal.

Both our website and the Credit Card Clearing Company (RBS World Pay) use cookies to enable a safe and secure shopping experience and a secure transfer of your payment.
A cookie is just a key written on your pc/Apple so the shopper can keep track of what is in your basket and the Credit Card Company uses it to make sure that the person shown the payment information is actually the same person that placed the order.
Due to strict security settings on some pc/Apples the website might not be able to place this cookie, causing either a failure to put anything in your basket or an error during the payment processing ("order not found or already paid"). If this is the case please try another pc. If you experience these problems using a PC change your internet settings in the control panel:

To be able to check your orderstatus online you need to click on the "your account" button on the home menu on the home page. This will bring you to account maintenance where you can view your Recent orders and their status . You need to be logged in for this, if your not logged in yet it will ask you for your user ID and password first.

If there is something wrong with your item(s) such as it has been damaged in transit or hasn't survived the journey, just contact us as soon as possible describing the problem and we will happily replace the item for you free of charge under your guarantee. Some items are perishable and there will be no need to return dead or damaged plants; however we may ask for photos for quality control purposes.
Please see in our Terms and Conditions for our Return Policy, any questions please contact customer service.

If you did not receive our email containing your password or our order confirmation, in may be caused by the fact that the password and/or confirmation email sent to you has been considered as spam. Check your junk mail folder just in case it has gone to there instead. Adjust your settings and in case of the password perform the lost password procedure on the website to get a New password. If you still do not receive it you might have mistyped your email address while ordering, in this case contact customer service to have it adjusted. Once you are able to login again, you can always look up your order online and print it if required, should you have missed the confirmation email. Always make sure that you allow emails from gardens4you.co.uk so you will receive our password email, order confirmation and shipment confirmation emails. If you subscribed to our Newsletter you will also receive our Newsletter up to once a month.

The first time you place an order you need to register. In this process you create an userid and a password for future access. This is done for security reasons, it ensures that you can check your orderstatus and re-use shipping addresses the next time you order, but prevents Other people from looking up your information. If you just want to browse the website and read our tips there is no need to log in or having an account. If you click on remember me the next time you logon, the website will log you on automatically every time you visit, no need to remember difficult passwords. (only use this feature on your pc at home). If you try to order a second time using the same email address, but without logging in, an error message will be displayed that this userid is already registered, you then have to login first. Should you want to change your userid and/or password, you can do so in account maintenance, available from the home page after you login. If you have lost your password, use the lost password link on the homepage and a New password will be sent to you or you can contact our customerservice.

Plants and trees are either sold as pot plants, plugs or bare roots. What type is used for a specific product is indicated on the detail page of that specific product. People are most familiar with Potplants, these can be shipped almost year round, and we use pots varying from 7cm thru to 25cm diameter for most of our Perennials and Shrubs. We also use 5/6cm plugs for a lot of our summerplants. Plugs are smaller than pots, but have just as much growing power. They are more effective for sending in larger quantities, because they contain less Soil. Bare root is used for some of our larger Fruit trees, Hedges and some Perennials (oa peonies). These are usually strong growers that have been grown in full ground, not being limited to a pot and they usually adapt quicker to your garden than potgrown plants. However potplants can be planted year round, for bare root this is not the case. There is also a large group of bulbs (Tulips etc) and tubers (Dahlia's ect) that everybody is familiar with. bulbs are specified by their circumreference in cm, tubers are mentioned as Size I, II or III which is an indication for their weight (I being heaviest). Bigger does not always mean more beautifull, some of the nicest Tulip Varieties are the smaller ones, but sometimes size matters.

Please do not be alarmed at the apPearance of your plants when they arrive, Shrubs and Perennials are often dormant when the are delivered so they may not have any leaves and apPear dead if ordered in autumn or winter but the will spring back to life as soon as the weather picks up. Try to plant them as soon as possible after you receive them and give them some time to establish themselves in their New homes.

Bulbs and Perennials planted in autumn will not flower until spring or summer, so be patient.. it will be worth it, when it comes to gardening, patience isn’t just a virtue it’s essential!

There is actually nothing wrong with these plants, they are still in their dormant state when being shipped. It is a natural behaviour for these plants that everything above ground dies down. It stores all it's energy in its roots and will soon resprout when planted. The same goes for Shrubs that might have shed all their leaves in Fall or not yet developed New leaves in spring. I both cases there is no need to worry all plants and shurbs have been inspected just before they were shipped and are in fine condition. Because they do not yet have leaves they much better withstand travelling and will have less stress when planted. However if you are in doubt you can always contact our customerservice (see contact us button on homepage).

We will dispatch your order at the appropriate time for planting in your area even if we have the product that you have ordered in stock earlier. If you would prefer to receive your order earlier than the appropriate planting time, you need to select the ASAP option at checkout or contact customer service with your request.

In spring we hold orders until all danger of frost has passed (March). In autumn we hold orders until the temperature drops and the soil cools down a little (September).

Once each season begins (spring and autumn) or dispatch time are as follows:

If you place the order on a working day, it will be shipped the following work day from Holland. If the order is placed on the weekend and you choose the ASAP option, it will leave on the Monday accordingly. We will inform you via email as soon as it leaves the warehouse and when you can expect it. Delivery usually takes on average 2-3 working days to arrive. Any questions please contact the customer service. Any questions please contact the customer service.

For orders outside UK different shipping times apply depending on destination, email our customer service for details

We always try to deliver all your products in one shipment.Since you can only order from the website what we have on stock at that moment this is no problem. Occasionally we might however run short of a few items, we will then ship that remaining part of your order asap (usually within one week after original shipment). Any aditional shipments will not affect your shippingcost.

In spring this can happen if you order Shrubs and summer plants at the same time. Shrubs will be shipped and can be planted from mid Feb, but summerplants are not shipped until mid April because the risk of frost. In that case we will ship our shurbs in February and the remainder of your order (the summerplants) in April. Keep an eye on the deliverydates mentioned on the detail pages of you want to prevent this from happening, you are free to order shrups in Feb and summerplants in April!

From mid april onwards everything is shippable, however sometimes there might be a short delay in getting some of the products in. This hardly ever happens but if it does, we usually still get the order comple and shipped within a week, if not we will split the shipment.

In all cases your order confirmation that we send along in the box will clearly show the status of your order, shippingcost is not affected by multiple shipments.

We try to get everything to you ASAP!.

No we do not bill your credit card straight away. When our creditcard processor (Royal Bank of Scotland - RBS World Pay) captures your credit card information there is a 5 day delay before your card is actually billed. This leaves time to cancel the order without actually having to reverse payments, should this be required. If you order items with different availability dates (say Feb and March), we do bill you the full amount after 5 days.We do this because we send your creditcard information direct to the credit card processing company (f.i. Bank of Schotland - Bibit) over an encrypted line. We do not store any credit card information on our own system. This is very secure (only the bank receives the information) but forces us to bill the full amount.

If you do not want this to happen, take the availability dates of the products into consideration and order the items when they are actually available.

If there is a problem with your order, you should contact our customer service department either by freephone or by email (use the contact us button on the main menu for further details). They will make sure that your problem is dealt with swiftly, we always believe our customers! All refunds will be made minus the cost of delivery. We do our utmost to deliver only the best quality within a week from ordering however we are all human and sometimes mistakes are made. We appreciate it if you document your complaint and attach photos.