Our Plant Guarantee
We've been growing alongside our customers for over 50 years. Here's exactly how we stand behind every tree, vine, and cane we ship.
We know growing projects don't always follow the rules, and that every garden, climate, and season is a little different. Raintree has been a family-owned nursery for over 50 years, and we've learned that the best outcomes come from conversation, not fine print. If something isn't working out, reach out before you give up — we're here to talk it through and find a resolution you feel good about. We've kept this guarantee as simple as we can, with two clear windows, a straightforward test, and a small team that picks up the phone. Where we do have limits, we've tried to explain the why behind each one — and if your situation doesn't fit neatly into these guidelines, reach out. We'd rather talk it through than leave you without recourse.
— The Raintree Family
The Raintree Guarantee
Our guarantee comes down to one question: whether your plant arrived alive and as described. That's the thing we stand behind, and it's also the thing that can only be judged cleanly early on — which is why our windows are built around arrival rather than around how the plant looks weeks or months later.
A bareroot plant ships fully dormant and wakes on its own schedule, so leaf-out can lag for weeks, sometimes well into the season. The reliable read is a scratch test — a small scrape of bark to check for moist, bright green tissue underneath — which tells you within seconds that the plant arrived alive, long before any bud would show.
Once a plant has been in the ground through a season, weather, watering, siting, and planting depth all start to shape how it's doing — and arrival condition can no longer be told apart from everything that happened after. The window isn't a hurdle; it's simply the last point where we can fairly judge the one thing the guarantee covers.
Notify us within 7 days of delivery if your plant arrived dead or is missing, and we'll refund the full cost of the plant.
A photo (and scratch test where applicable) is required to confirm and process the claim.
Notify us within 30 days of delivery if your bareroot plant doesn't pass a scratch test, and we'll issue store credit for up to the full plant cost, subject to the limits below.
Credit is valid for 2 years toward any future order (excluding promotional sales). Shipping cost is not included. Photo and scratch test result required.
Orders placed for Spring shipping after May 15th do not qualify for the 30-Day guarantee. By the time 30 days have passed, you'd typically be past your safe local planting window — making it difficult to fairly assess whether a bareroot plant had a fair chance to establish. Your 7-Day Arrive Alive coverage still applies in full to all orders.
Check It Right Away: 7-Day Arrive Alive Guarantee
If your order arrived with missing plants, notify us within 7 days and we will issue a full refund. We require a photo of what was received to confirm our inventory tracking.
If your plant (potted or bareroot) arrives dead, let us know within 7 days of delivery and we'll refund the cost of the plant. A photo and scratch test (if applicable) are required for all claims.
For damaged plants, our horticultural team reviews each claim to determine whether the damage affects the plant's survival. Cosmetic damage is common in transit and doesn't usually affect whether the plant lives.
Damage types: what qualifies
- Bent or scuffed stems, minor bark scrapes
- A few broken tips from transit
- Wilted, drooping, or yellowing leaves
- Some leaf drop (especially in potted plants)
- Snapped or split trunk
- Broken or separated graft union
- Crushed or severed roots
Plant It, Watch It: 30-Day Bareroot Guarantee
By performing a scratch test, you can often know right away whether your bareroot plant is alive and healthy. But we know that proper planting takes a little time, so we provide a 30-Day Guarantee for bareroot plants to give you a fair window to assess your plant.
- Prepare the planting hole and work in compost or soil amendments.
- Tip-prune the plant before or at planting, per our growing guides (if appropriate).
- Water deeply right after planting, and keep up a regular watering schedule.
- Within 7 days, do a scratch test: a small scrape should reveal moist, green tissue. Dry, brittle, brown tissue is a sign the plant didn't make it.
If your bareroot plant does not pass the scratch test, notify us within 30 days of delivery and we'll issue store credit for up to the full cost of the plant (subject to the limits in the How to Submit a Claim section below), valid for 2 years on any future order. A photo and scratch test result are required for all claims.
If a scratch test shows green, healthy tissue — or our staff horticulturist determines the plant is alive and viable — we're not able to approve the claim. We'll let you know what we found either way.
Plants purchased at a discount of more than 20% off or on clearance are not eligible for the 30-Day guarantee. Your 7-Day Arrive Alive coverage still applies in full to every plant at any discount level.
For buy-one-get-one (BOGO) offers, eligibility follows your order receipt: the paid plant carries full 30-Day coverage, and the free plant is covered by the 7-Day Arrive Alive guarantee only. If a BOGO pair is the same variety and one plant fails, we treat the failed plant as the paid one — so every BOGO pair carries one full-coverage claim.
Grapes, strawberries, and slow-waking bareroot plants
Some bareroot plants — grapes, strawberries, and similar varieties — are dormant enough on arrival that a scratch test right away won't tell you much either way. For these, the same 30-day claim window applies, but we look for signs of life rather than a single test: buds swelling or breaking, canes leafing out, new shoots from the crown, or fresh white root growth.
Bareroot strawberries ship in bundles of 20–25. If your bundle arrives with fewer than 20 viable crowns, notify us within 7 days for a partial refund or credit.
If you don't see any signs of life within 30 days of receiving the plant, take a few photos (including the crown or root area where possible) and submit your claim within the 30-day window. Our horticulture team will review the photos:
- If the plant appears dead — we'll issue store credit for the plant cost right away.
- If we see signs the plant is alive but slow (green tissue, firm crown, live roots) — we won't close your claim. We'll hold it open so you can check back with us, because slow wakers can leaf out well past 30 days. If the plant ultimately doesn't wake, your credit is honored even though the calendar has moved on.
Filing within 30 days is what matters — a slow verdict never costs you your coverage.
For raspberry canes specifically, see the FAQ section below for detailed guidance.
How to Submit a Claim
Photos of any transit damage, scratch test (if applicable), and all plants unboxed if something is missing.
Approved claims receive a full or partial refund to your original payment method. A full refund applies to dead or missing plants. A partial refund applies when transit damage is reviewed by our horticulture team and judged survivable but significant, or when a single graft fails on a multi-graft tree (refunded proportionally — see FAQ).
Photos of the plant, scratch test result, and any transit damage.
Approved within the 30-day window. Credit appears in your Raintree account within 2–3 business days.
How store credit works
Create or log in to your Raintree account. From your account home page, you'll see your total available store credit. At checkout — as long as you're logged in — you'll have the option to apply it to your order subtotal. Store credit cannot be applied toward shipping costs or combined with a promotional sale.
Store credit limits by order size
| Original Order Total | Maximum Store Credit Available |
|---|---|
| Under $750 | Up to $250 |
| $750 – $1,250 | Up to $500 |
| Over $1,250 | Assessed per order — contact us to discuss |
Guarantee FAQ
Click any question to expand the answer.
Replacement plants
We don't ship replacement plants. In rare cases our team may make an exception, but this isn't standard practice and isn't guaranteed. Claims are resolved via refund (7-Day) or store credit (30-Day) rather than reshipping.
Plant availability — what if my plant sells out after I order?
If a plant becomes unavailable after you order, we'll issue a full refund. We'll always try to reach out first, but if we're unable to reach you within a reasonable timeframe, the refund will be processed automatically.
Combination trees — variety placement and failed grafts
Combination trees are a bit of an adventure by nature — variety placement varies tree to tree, and grafts develop at their own pace. If having a specific cultivar in a particular spot is essential to your plan, a single-variety tree is a more reliable choice.
Grafts can grow unevenly or become lopsided over time as each variety finds its rhythm — this is part of how multi-graft trees develop, and light pruning can help encourage balance.
If a graft on a multi-graft tree fails outright: notify us within 7 days for a partial refund proportional to the affected graft. For example, one failed graft on a 4-in-1 tree qualifies for a 25% refund.
Raspberry canes
Raspberry canes take a little longer to show life than most plants. If a cane hasn't pushed new growth within 30 days, send us a photo — check at the soil line, and gently uncover the roots if needed to look for new white root growth. (Canes planted too deep are a common cause of delay, so it's worth checking depth too.)
Confirmed failures within the 30-day window receive store credit for the cost of the cane; raspberry canes are not eligible for a cash refund.
Watch our raspberry planting video — it walks through what healthy new growth looks like.
Mushrooms, tubers, rhubarb, asparagus, ginger, horseradish, oca & cinnamon vine
These ship differently than trees and canes, so claims work a little differently too:
- Horseradish and oca can arrive looking wet with soft spots — that's often normal. Check our Growing Edible Tubers guide before assuming a problem. These varieties are an exception to the standard 30-day cutoff: if issues persist or the plant fails to establish, contact us even after 30 days and we'll review for a partial refund or credit.
- Asparagus crowns ship in multi-packs, so we're not able to reship an individual crown. A missing or dead crown qualifies for a partial refund or credit.
- Rhubarb is sold as individual crowns. If yours arrives dead or missing, notify us within 7 days for a full refund.
Lost or delayed shipment — what happens if the carrier loses my order?
If your order appears lost in transit or is never delivered due to a carrier error, reach out to us so we can file a claim directly with UPS. Once a carrier claim is filed, we need to allow UPS to conduct their investigation before taking next steps.
We will do our best to reship all available plants and materials from your order within the same planting season when possible. If your shipment arrives damaged due to carrier handling, notify us within 7 days — depending on the severity of the damage, we'll issue a full or partial refund for affected items.
Potted plants
Given our location in Washington, potted plants may arrive dormant or fully leafed out depending on the season. From roughly April through September, most potted plants will arrive leafed out. Past September, potted plants may arrive with browning leaves that fall off quickly — this is normal as the plant enters dormancy.
Potted plants are covered by our 7-Day Arrive Alive guarantee only. If yours arrives in poor condition, please contact us within 7 days.
Bareroot plants — buds and early leafing
Bareroot plants are kept in cold storage to stay dormant through Spring, but they'll naturally begin to wake up once shipped. It's normal to receive a bareroot plant with swelling buds or early leaf growth — this isn't a concern.
Whips and branching on bareroot plants
Most bareroot plants are 1 to 2 years old, and branching naturally varies tree to tree. Some arrive as whips with no side branching yet — this is normal, not a defect, and we don't guarantee branching or its location. We recommend pruning each tree at planting time; our growing guides can walk you through it.
Missing plant tags
If a plant tag is missing, check the container first — tags sometimes shift in transit. Send us a photo and we're happy to confirm the variety for you.
Plant sizing — what if my plant arrived smaller than advertised?
Sizes listed on our product pages are estimates based on typical growth for that variety — plants are living things, and some natural variation is normal. That said, if your plant arrives noticeably smaller than advertised, we want to make it right.
| Size difference | Resolution |
|---|---|
| 75–90% of listed size | 25% store credit toward plant cost |
| 50–75% of listed size | 50% store credit toward plant cost |
| Under 50% of listed size | 100% store credit, or refund if preferred |
To request a sizing adjustment, send us a photo of the plant next to a tape measure or other size reference within 30 days of delivery. Measure from the root crown on bareroot plants to the top of the main stem.
Ready to submit a claim, or have a question?
Our horticultural team is here Mon–Thurs, 9am–4pm · 1-800-391-8892 · help@raintreenursery.com
Find more growing tips, planting guides, and seasonal care on our Grow Guide page.