Plant Sale FAQ
Welcome to our first annuals farm plant sale FAQ! Since this is all our first time doing this, here are some answers to questions I think you all might have. If you have other questions, drop us an email hello@thefarmatoxford.com.
How does this all work/what is the process?
This is a self-serve specialty plant sale. Each booking slot has 30minutes to shop. You can bring 2-3 people with you in those 30minutes, the time is yours. Shop & pull your plants, then move into the plant shed to finish your transactions. This is an honor system checkout-I will not be present. Inside the shed will be calculators and price sheets as available. You will calculate the total of your plants, don’t forget to remove your $5 space fee; and then pay with Venmo, exact cash, PayPal or check made out to The Farm at Oxford; load your plants in, and that is it! If you need assistance, you can text me 408-373-4961.
How much time do we have?
Each booking slot is 30minutes. If you booked 2 slots, then you have an hour. If you booked 1 slot, then you have 30minutes. Ideally, we don’t want any overlap with customers, as we will have a lot of plants out and parking with multiple cars + plants in our driveway area doesn’t mesh well. We ask that you try to pull your plants in the 30minutes you have, and then move into the plant shed to checkout…that way if someone else arrives while you are finishing check out, they can start shopping while you are finalizing the transaction
I only booked one slot but what if I need more than 30minutes to shop?
My suggestion is to have a plan of attack ready. We will have the plants segmented for you as best as we can, so have an idea of where you are putting the plants, aka do you need sun or shade. Are you looking for perennials or shrubs? What spaces are you trying to fill? As long as you have all your plants pulled and set aside, you can go into the flower shed to finalize your transactions. If someone else arrives while you are doing this, it’s fine. We will also have a partially complete plant list with pricing that we will send out a few days before the sale—it won’t be complete because we will also be pulling plants for sale from our own farm stock or growing items ourselves for this sale, and those may not be on the list due to timing but they will be at the sale. However, the partially complete list should give you a good idea of what you’ll find.
I booked 2-3 slots thinking it was # of people; but we DON’T need more time, what do we do?
Some of you booked 2 and 3 slots. This means you get 1 hour or 1.5 hours to shop. The amount of slots you booked is not ‘per person’, you can bring 3 people and shop for 30min for one slot. If you do NOT need the extra time you booked, please do let me know so that I can open that extra time up for others—we have a waiting list of people and I would love to get as many people in to shop as possible!
When is the best time to come/book?
Honestly, if you are a big plant nut, book time to come as early in the sale as possible. We are putting out 90% of the plants for the first weekend, we don’t want to hold anything back. So that first weekend will have the BEST selection most likely. If we need to get more plants after that weekend finishes, we will definitely do so, so if you can’t come til second weekend, don’t feel like you won’t have a good selection, but the first weekend will have the MOST out.
What types of plants will you have?
We are busy gathering all our favorites for you to shop from. There will be hellebores, peonies, perennials, annuals, veggies and herbs, woodies/shrubs. The majority of these you will not easily find at a local store. Most of these items will also be good for cutting. We will be marking ‘we use these for cuts’ with special tags so you can see which to add if you are interested in that as well. The plants will be separated out by type of plant (annual/perennial etc) to try to make it easy for you. We will also be marking sun vs shade plants so again you can see what will be available for your planting spaces.
What is pricing?
We will have a board with marked prices based on the size of the plant container. Example: 1 gallons for $11 along with a photo of a 1 gallon. Anything that does not follow this pricing structure (hellebores or ITOH peonies for example which are more expensive for us to procure); will have a price tag inside of it marked with the pricing.
What do I do when I get there?
Our address is 2050 Oxford Rd, Lincoln University PA. After you book your slot for the shopping time, you will get the address, my cell for texts and any other pertinent info on directions etc. Drive in and park, hopefully you are the only car there, and then get to shopping!
What forms of payment are you taking?
We are taking Venmo @MaraTylerTFAO; PayPal mara@thefarmatoxford.com; exact cash (no one on hand to give change) and checks made to The Farm at Oxford. Since we will not be present, we cannot take credit cards at this time. Please come prepared (aka setup accounts etc ahead of time) so that you can quickly check out.
How do I take my $5 booking fee off?
When you tally your order, just remove the $5 from your total. It’s all via honor system!
What if I need help or have a problem?
It is impossible for me to man this sale at all hours—we are very busy on the farm for spring. We will try to make it as easy/foolproof as possible for you to get in, shop, checkout yourselves, however if you need assistance, my cell phone is 408-373-4961 and you can text or call me. If I am there, I can try to help you out. Worst case scenario: take your plants, email me, and we will settle up later. I know all my best customers are coming to this sale, so there is a level of trust here. Please do not worry if something goes wrong and you can’t checkout yourself. We can work it out later.
Thank you!! I am super excited about this and have tried to set it up so that you all get get access to these special items and make it easy for all of us to enjoy it as well.