Delivery & Returns: How YourTopiary Arrives, and What We Guarantee

We deliver free to most UK mainland addresses. Additional charges may apply for the Scottish Highlands, islands and some remote postcodes; these are calculated automatically at checkout from your postcode, so you always see the total before you pay. We are unable to deliver to Northern Ireland or the Republic of Ireland due to plant health regulations, and we do not ship outside the UK.

14–21 working days from order confirmation, rising to 21–28 days in peak season, February to May, when every designer in the country wants the same three size bands at once. Orders of ten pairs or more may also need 21–28 days. That time is not padding. It covers:

• Sourcing and inspecting your specific plants at our growers in Holland and Italy
• Completing the phytosanitary paperwork and EU plant passports
• Consolidated transport to the UK
• Final courier delivery to your address

We cannot confirm a delivery date until your pair has passed our Mirror Matching & Quality Inspection in the UK — the check that two plants really are a pair. Until that is done, any date we gave you would be a guess.

It means the plants arrive on a wooden pallet under protective wrap, and the courier delivers them to your kerbside, driveway or the nearest accessible flat surface — not to the spot where you want them planted. Couriers are not insured to enter your property or to move plants beyond kerbside, so please arrange help for delivery day. A topiary pair is heavy, particularly if the plants are already potted, and two people is the realistic minimum. The driver will call you roughly an hour before arrival.

If you have authorised a safe place at checkout, the courier leaves the pallet there and the delivery is complete. If you have not, the driver will attempt a redelivery or contact you to arrange collection. Authorising a safe place means you accept responsibility for inspecting the plants as soon as possible, and we cannot be held liable for damage that occurs after a safe-place delivery — so we would always rather plan a day when someone can be there to take them in.

Not through a tracking portal — our pallet network does not run one, and we would rather say so than send you to a page that never updates. What you get instead:

• A dispatch confirmation email with your estimated delivery date, sent the moment your pair leaves us
• A delivery window from our office if you email and ask for one
• A call from the driver roughly an hour before arrival, so you have time to get someone to the door

We monitor every delivery ourselves and will contact you if anything slips. If you need an update on the day, email hello@topiarytwins.co.uk.

Tell us at checkout and we will work around it. The things that matter to a pallet vehicle:

• Narrow lanes, single-track approaches or restricted access
• Height restrictions — low bridges, archways, overhanging trees
• A delivery point that needs specific instructions to find
• Anywhere a large vehicle cannot turn or park safely

In some cases we arrange a smaller vehicle or an alternative delivery point nearby. It is always cheaper to tell us in advance than to have a lorry turn around at the end of your lane.

Upright on a wooden pallet, secured with protective wrap, and never boxed. Topiary is not a parcel: laying a specimen on its side for several days damages the form you paid for. Plants travel standing, in the orientation they grew in, with the rootball supported.

Keep the wrap on until you are ready to unload, then take it off promptly so the foliage can breathe. There is a full planting guide and a complete care guide for what to do in the first fortnight.

In three situations, and they cover everything that is genuinely our problem:

• The plants arrive damaged or defective, and you report it within the inspection windows below
• The pair does not meet our Matching Guarantee standard
• We are unable to fulfil your order as confirmed

In each case you get a replacement, sourced and delivered at no additional charge, or a full refund if replacement is not possible or you would simply rather have your money. The full written terms are in our returns policy.

You have 24 hours to report obvious physical damage and 7 days to report latent issues discovered before planting. Unwrap the pallet and look properly at both plants on the day they arrive, even if you are not planting for another fortnight. Report anything wrong by email to hello@topiarytwins.co.uk with your order number and photographs: both plants side by side, and close-ups of the problem itself. Inside those windows we replace the affected plants at no additional charge, or refund you in full if a replacement is not possible or you would prefer the money.

Yes, on a sliding scale, because sourcing begins the moment your order is confirmed. Cancel within 24 hours of placing the order and you receive a full refund. Cancel after sourcing has begun but before dispatch and we refund you minus the reasonable, demonstrable costs we have already incurred, typically 15 to 30%, itemised on request: grower fees, inspections, transport bookings and phytosanitary certificates. After dispatch we cannot accept a cancellation, because the plants are perishable goods already in transit and cannot be returned to stock.

Email hello@topiarytwins.co.uk with the subject Matching Guarantee Claim within 7 days of delivery, with photographs. A claim is assessed against our published pairing standard, and it is valid where:

• The height difference between the two plants exceeds 10cm
• There is obvious density or form asymmetry
• The branching structures are plainly different

10cm is the published tolerance and it is the figure every claim is measured against — on this page, on your order, and in any conversation with us. A replacement pair is our standard resolution, and a full refund is available on request instead. Full detail is in the Guarantees section above.

Approved refunds are processed within 5 to 7 working days to the original payment method; we cannot refund to a different card or account. You receive the full amount where the fault is ours or we cannot fulfil the order as confirmed, the order value minus our demonstrable sourcing costs where you cancel after sourcing has begun, or an agreed partial amount where we have settled on a partial resolution. Delivery charges are refunded when the issue is our responsibility, and are otherwise non-refundable, because they are costs we have already paid out.

It does not cover care-related failure: over-watering or under-watering, planting in an unsuitable location, or a lack of winter protection in extreme cold. It does not cover environmental damage after delivery either, which means pest or disease damage occurring after delivery, weather damage, and poor drainage causing root problems. If both plants in a pair fail, that points to the site or the care rather than plant quality, so it falls outside the guarantee; the guarantee covers individual plant failure within an otherwise healthy pair. If you are unsure which side of that line you are on, email us anyway and we will review your case individually and answer honestly.