Policies

  REFUND POLICY – All refund requests must occur within 1 day of receiving your order. Please email us your intent at charlesavenueflowers@gmail.com.  When your tubers arrive, inspect them immediately. If there are any visible issues, we ask that you take photos and a quick video. Once we review your email request we will notify you of our decision to refund or not. Tubers that are obviously damaged are never shipped out by us. Sometimes damage can occur during shipping, however we take as much precaution as possible to eliminate movement inside the box. Tubers are only shipped with visible eyes and/or buds sprouting. If your tuber turns out to be a misidentification once it blooms, please email us and include a photo of the plant/flower. While we won't be able to refund the tuber, we can offer to send a replacement tuber to you the following season. We take great care when labeling tubers to prevent mixups. It's never fun to be sent the wrong tuber.  Errors happen, but we take great care in dividing, labeling, fulfilling orders and shipping to make it as error free as possible.

GALL...LET'S TALK ABOUT IT:

We have done much research about Leafy Gall and Crown Gall and the two bacteria that can infect your dahlia. Rhodococcus fascians is the bacteria behind Leafy Gall. Agrobacterium tumefaciens is the bacteria causing Crown Gall. There is a ton of information out there and I suggest spending some time reading, but I will list some quick facts about the bacteria below:

  • Both bacteria naturally occur in soil;
  • Not all dahlia will be infected if it is present in your garden;
  • Dahlias are not the only plant that can be infected;
  • Symptoms of the bacterial infection can take up to two years to show itself outwardly on your tuber;
  • Damage to the tuber or plant can allow for the bacteria to enter the tissue;
  • Sharing tools from an infected plant to a healthy plant can transfer the bacteria;
  • Water is one of their main methods of travel; insect damage is another;
  • Universities that studied these two bacteria in depth acknowledge that they don't have all the answers about them.

What they do know is that once the plant is infected with the bacteria, there is no treatment and there are no additives you can put in the soil to prevent it. The best way to try and keep healthy dahlia garden year after year is to be vigilant and throw away dahlia plants/tubers that you suspect may have signs of leafy gall or crown gall. If you keep one tuber from an infected clump that showed a small amount of leafy gall on a different tuber, it is still considered infected. Also remember to sanitize clippers and any tools used when handling plants with gall symptoms.

If you are wondering when your plant became infected, that is a difficult question to answer. It is very hard to identify the source of the contamination since the bacteria lives in the soil. You could have purchased a healthy tuber, planted it, and then it became infected from your soil. You could also have purchased an infected tuber with no outward symptoms and planted it in your garden. There is no way to find the bacteria until symptoms are present. Simply put, just purchasing a dahlia tuber means it could have or contract the bacteria at any point.

When to watch for signs: Infection with the bacteria will show itself at the end of the growing season when harvesting tubers from the ground, as well as in Spring when the tubers are waking up, as the bacteria are waking up as well. So keep an eye on anything that looks like leafy gall or crown gall during tuber harvest or spring wake up - if in doubt, throw it out. Sanitize anything that you know came into contact with that plant before proceeding. Also, if you have a dahlia that just doesn't look like it's thriving, it's time to watch that plant.

We always always recommend when receiving new tubers that you isolate them. We wake up our tubers each in their own pots, buried up to the necks with crowns exposed. We have identified the bacteria in the past this way and were able to cull those tubers.

At the end of this long story comes the question of, 'do I get a refund if I dig up a tuber from Charles Avenue Flowers that has gall?' Well in short, no we cannot offer refunds for all of the above reasons of cross contamination. Occasionally we will work with a customer if it turns out to be a known issue on our end, if we find a tuber variety that woke up and had signs, we will reach out to you asap (the main reason why we recommend waking them up in their own pots with crowns exposed). If you have a tuber of ours that is showing signs of gall BEFORE planting outside and is not in a shared vessel in your home/business with other tubers and it is within 2 weeks of receipt, please reach out and we will see what we can do. 

Dahlia virus are another story, but the return policy would be the same. The fact that dahlia virus can be spread via flying insects, we cannot accept responsibility.  

SHIPPING: We take careful consideration of both your shipping zip code and ours prior to dispatching any orders of tubers or cuttings. In colder weather conditions, we include heat packs to ensure the plants' wellbeing during transit. To minimize the risk of weekend delays with the courier, most orders are shipped out on Mondays or Tuesdays. This approach helps ensure that your plants arrive in optimal condition.

Dahlia tubers will ship in April/May when the threat of frost in our area as well as yours has passed. 

  • Please ensure proper handling of your tubers upon receipt. In spring, promptly move them to your designated tuber area. Cover them with potting soil in an unsealed plastic bag to facilitate waking and pre-sprouting until they are ready for garden planting.
  • If you receive tubers during the off-season (fall and winter), do not leave the shipment outside. Please bring the tubers indoors as soon as possible. Proceed to follow your preferred storage process after opening and inspecting the shipment.
  • For optimal winter storage, tubers should be kept in a cool, dark environment (40F-50F and 70% humidity) until it is time for them to awaken. This careful handling ensures the health and vitality of your tubers throughout storage. For more information on the media to store tubers, please email us for help.

COMBINING SHIPPING:  Certainly we can accommodate combined shipping for an additional order provided that your initial order has not yet been shipped, and you have not received a shipping confirmation email from us. Please notify us via email of your intent to place another order, and we will promptly check the status of your initial order and inform you accordingly. Further instructions on how to place your second order without incurring additional shipping charges will be included in our response. I check emails multiple times per day, so don't worry that I won't see it in time.

By purchasing this tuber, you are agreeing to the refund policy stated above.

Please contact us at charlesavenueflowers@gmail.com with any questions. Thank you for shopping with me!