Quarantine Concierge Service Information

Western Australia, Tasmania and the Northern TerritoryPhilodendron White Knight

Paradise Distributors … Rareplants.net.au

We can prepare, hold, treat and send your plants in accordance with State Quarantine Protocols.

Every 3 weeks we send plants to the Australian States that have Prohibitive Conditions on the entry of all plants. We are licensed and have an approved protocol to do this.
The States with Quarantine Entry requirements are Western Australia, Tasmania and the Northern Territory. It is illegal to send plants into these states unless you follow the protocols dictated by the Quarantine arms of these States Departments of Agriculture. This requirement is to prevent the entry of invasive plants and to prevent the introduction of pests & disease that could decimate their natural ecosystems and agricultural crops.
These government agencies are stepping up their enforcement on those who wish to flout the law and put natural ecosystems and state agriculture at risk.
After a soft start the penalties are now enforced and harsh.

Monstera DeliciosaOriginally we sent our own plants from our nursery in Nambour QLD and have been doing so for over 27 years. Lately we have in addition, operated a concierge service for interstate buyers who buy from other nurseries anywhere in Australia…. where we will complete the required Quarantine Protocol of the receiving state and forward the plants on to you. In this case you buy and ask the seller to forward the plants onto Paradise Distributors in Nambour.

Every 3 weeks on the dates set out below on a Thursday we have the plants inspected by the QLD Dept of Agriculture, dipped and sprayed in their presence (with treatments to kill insects and disease) and then prepared and …finally packed and sent interstate by air on the Thursday & Friday. On the previous Tuesday we prepare a list of all the plants in the consignment and send that list to the Dept of Agriculture for approval. This list takes about 12 hours to prepare as we send a lot of plants and each plant must be checked to ensure its in the approved list for that state. In particular plants must be checked against the names provided by the sender and in cases where the plant name may not be on the government list we have to check for all the synonyms of that same plant. Getting one plant on the list can take half an hour!!

Important Information

As an importer of plant material into a Quarantine States you must declare the exact botanical name of the plants you are importing. Its genus and species. The supplier must do this with a tag and you must declare a list at least 8 days (For Tasmania Customers, instead you need to declare your list on Thursdays 10AM) before we send your plants.

1. Barerooted Plants. When we receive a barerooted plant it must be repotted not only to hold it till we send to you but also to be able to treat it as prescribed by the Dept of Agriculture of your State.

Amorphophallus titanum2. Name Tags. Plants must arrive with an identifying name tag. Make sure your sender realises that it is their responsibility to declare the identity of their plant. This is a basic requirement in horticulture but also we must be satisfied with the plant identity. We must have the botanical name of the plant.
As recently 50% of plants have been arriving without a basic name tag and we have to waste valuable time identifying the plant with texts and photos, we can no longer put up with this untenable situation. Any plant arriving without a name tag will be charged at $45 per plant with the risk that the plant cannot be sent. Please get this basic thing right and this fee will never apply. If your sender cannot do this basic requirement do not buy that plant.

3. Responsibility.
We take no responsibility for the condition of your plant on arrival at your address!!
Although we guarantee all our own plants, that guarantee does not extend to concierge plants because we cannot guarantee the condition the plant will arrive in here, how it will stand up after being barerooted by your sender, travelling, repotted, held, dipped, sprayed and packaged again before traveling another 4 or 5 days to get to its destination. Also some plants (esp weakly rooted/unrooted plants) may not like being sent in wet media, which is unavoidable as they have to be dipped before packaging. In addition many plants should never be barerooted. Having said that nearly all plants arrive to you in very good condition if we receive a reasonable plant.  We stopped barerooting plants over 20 years ago because most plants are weakened demonstrably.
In reality because of our superior packaging system 97% of our plants arrive in excellent condition even if traveling for 2 weeks. We have hundreds of testimonials to state this fact.

4. Ask your sender to address the plants like this:
Your Name
C/- Bob at Paradise Distributors
9 Paradise Place, Nambour
QLD 4560

Tacca chantrieri, black bat plant, bat plant5. Timing of Arrival of Plants – WA & NT
Ask your sender to have your plants here at Paradise Distributors by 28 to 10 days before our published sending dates. We will pot up and hold them till we send. Anything arriving less than 7 days before our departure date will not be sent until the next departure date….3 weeks later.
5.1 Timing of Arrival of Plants – Tasmania
Because we send to Tasmania every Monday, your plants need to be here by the Wednesday! We also included on the Tasmania Concierge Form on which Monday for your plants to be sent, to allow for more time to have all your plants to arrive here and be sent out together.

6. Why we do Inspections and sending once every 3 weeks
As we are charged well over $250 per hour for Government Inspections we must do all orders for all Quarantine States on the one day and that’s why we only do once every 3 weeks.  In WA in particular we must land all the orders together so all the orders are inspected together with one government charge. That’s how we keep your Quarantine charge to you so low….see all charges below.

7. For WA Customers only we do not accept plants from Victoria due to the possibility of Potato Cyst Nematode. Suppliers doing an approved WA Quarantine treatment for this would be accepted.

Please Note: Cuttings with no roots (from Vic. to WA) can be accepted.

8. Sending Dates for 2023 are:

Tasmania is sent every Monday (Form must be submitted before Thursdays 10AM QLD Time)
– Western Australia & Northern Territory Sending Dates
April 8th (Form must be submitted before 1st April 2PM QLD Time)
April 29th (Form must be submitted before 22nd April 2PM QLD Time)
May 20th (Form must be submitted before 13th May 2PM QLD Time)
June 10th (Form must be submitted before 3rd June 2PM QLD Time)
July 1st (Form must be submitted before 24th June 2PM QLD Time)
July 22nd (Form must be submitted before 15th July 2PM QLD Time)
August 12th (Form must be submitted before 5th August 2PM QLD Time)
September 2nd (Form must be submitted before 26th August 2PM QLD Time)
September 23rd (Form must be submitted before 16th September 2PM QLD Time)
October 14th (Form must be submitted before 7th October 2PM QLD Time)
November 4th (Form must be submitted before 28th October 2PM QLD Time)
November 25th (Form must be submitted before 18th November 2PM QLD Time)
December 16th (Form must be submitted before 9th December 2PM QLD Time)

If we have received your plants but your form is not sent on time, a $20 late fee will be incurred on your invoice.

9. By using the Concierge Plant Submit Form, you are agreeing to waiving all rights or perceived rights to any compensation for the total loss of these plants from any cause whatsoever, even in the case of proven negligence on the part of our business Paradise Distributors. The reason for your agreement to this waiver as follows:

   There are many reasons why we will not accept blame for the occasional loss.
       A. Australia Post can say delivered and its been dropped at the wrong address. This has happened 3 times in the last 3 months where other peoples parcels have been dropped here!
       B. 70% of plants still arrive here barerooted and some expensive plants are tiny and weak on top of that and may not survive despite our best efforts.
        C. Plants have to travel twice which can set them back especially if barerooted.
        D. Many plants are purchased way overpriced at 5 to 10 times their value.
        E. Insurance companies will not cover plants at the purchase price only at the initial Manufacturers Cost.
So a so-called $3000 purchased plant…would be valued at about $30 at most. So you can forget transit insurance…which sounds ok till you try to claim.
         F. We run a very inexpensive service. where most of the costs are freight and government charges. We have not included a contingency for lost or damaged plants.

If you do not accept the risk of total loss, do not submit the form and discuss with us where we can send your plants.
NB; There are further notes on this aspect just below at 11. We further urge you to note this condition in full on all social media sites you engage in.

10. A Transit Cover option has been discontinued due to clients lack of use.

11. Since we have been doing concierge, we have sent 10000 concierge plants to the quarantined states. Only 2 plants have gone missing and there is no conclusive proof those 2 ever arrived here…ie only 0.02% or 2 out of 10,000! Less than 10 out of 10,000 have died at the nursery after arriving in poor condition ie only 0.1% or 1 in 1000. The chance of of a plant arriving from your supplier dead or close to it is much more likely than it going missing. The fact is that most plants still arrive here barerooted and this is the greatest risk to its health by far. However the survival rate is still very good at 99.9% as shown above.

12. If you require verification of the arrival of your plants, we will send you a photo of them and the cost will be $10 for each photo.
Providing this information is very time consuming as we have 100 of clients and their plants to look after.

13. Unfortunately we were a bit naive about trusting that everyone would pay their invoice immediately on receipt of their plants, especially considering we have covered the freight, government charges, wages & time that go into this exercise.
That did not work as people are very forgetful.

When we decided to check, we now find we have 73 unpaid accounts with $12,500 outstanding. We will be gradually getting in touch with everyone who has forgotten to pay.

One of the big changes coming now is that everyone is required to pay the invoice before we release the plants from the quarantine procedure. This is in keeping with similar businesses. It has become an issue for us, costing both time and resources following up and contacting customers to pay outstanding invoices (Which we have trusted our clients to pay on time!) Because of these continued late & non payments, are we forced to make these changes.

First Change; As mentioned, you will be receiving an email with an invoice attached on the final day plants and concierge forms are due. This invoice will have an estimated cost of your order with a due date on it. You will be required to:
1) Pay the invoice
2) Must text Bob (0408 687 109) with a proof of payment before the due date. (A screenshot of the proof of payment). Failing to do so will result in your concierge plants being held back by 3 weeks until next shipment date and a proof of payment has be made.

Below is a sample of the invoice you will receive. It will also include 3 payment methods. (Differences will be refunded or charged within 5 Business Days after we have sent the plants).

Second Change; We are now changing the closing date for WA & NT customers to submit their Concierge Plant Forms on the Monday, closing at 2pm Queensland time (7 days before WA, NT sending date). Tasmania closing on Thursdays 10am.

This gives us both ample time to work out the estimated cost of your concierge order and for us to email the invoice of that estimated cost and for payment to be made prior to shipping.

14: We have introduced a Non Lodgement Concierge Form Fee ($20) for people whose concierge plants we have received but have not submitted their Concierge Plant Forms by the due date.​ Too avoid this fee, we need to know if we need to hold and send the plants at a later date before the concierge submit date.

Sending Summary;

**a) Your plants must arrive with a tag declaring its identity with a botanical name. False declarations could put you in legal hot water as Quarantine documents are legally binding.
b) As your plants arrive we pot into a well drained soilless mix and place in your tray under polycarbonate roof (70% shade)
**c) ‘All Plants In’ and you must complete the submit form of the complete list of plants on the Thursday or Friday one week before the Sending Date. This must be all plants you are receiving submitted with this form. We will not accept scattered submissions of additional plants and we do not want to know every time you are sending plants to us. We know when they arrive and you know by your tracking.

Do not forget SUBMIT ONE LIST OF ALL PLANTS one week before the sending date or your plants will not be on the list for Quarantine approval. Use botanical names. Genus and species.

d) Tuesday. We prepare and send the list of our declared plants for approval of Dept of Agriculture.
e) Wednesday. We pick and place all plants.
f) Thursday AM. Plant Inspection Dept Of Agriculture & Plant Preparation by us.
g) Thursday & Friday. We pack and send all the individual orders.
h) Saturday. Plants arrive overnight Saturday and wait Quarantine inspection and clearance on Monday.
i) Monday to Wednesday Plants Inspected by Quarantine and delivered by Toll in Tasmania and NT. If no one home plants will be left.
j) Tuesday or Wednesday. Plants Delivered by Toll in WA. If no one home plants will be left.
k) Deliveries can be held up a day or two rarely but plants will be fine. Our plants are packed to travel for two weeks plus.
**l) Please pay promptly. We expect you to pay and advise payment by text (0408 687 109) without us following up as we have no one to do this and it wastes time.

The ‘**’ are the only items you need worry about. We do the rest. A, C & L above.

9. Our Box Size
The maximum size box we send in is 4.2kg Cubic Weight and up to 5kg actual weight.
We can fit 10-12 plants in this normally. But how many we fit depends on the size of your plant and some leafy plants we can fit less. The freight charge per box is $42.
We do not send bigger boxes by air with toll because the charges are BIG.

10. Charging Schedule:
** Holding Charge per Plant $17.00 (includes repotting) for plants total height less than 40cm.
** Oversized plants
Height; 40 to 60cm total height – $30….. 60 to 80cm – $50……. 80cm to 1m – $75.
Pot Diameter; Pots greater than 11cm – $25
Fee; Any plants purchased for over $500 or more will attract any additional fee of 2%. Please declare all plants purchased for $500 or more on the submit list.
Incomplete declarations will be charged at 10% of the deemed value instead.
** Minimum Freight $42.00
* Minimum Quarantine $20.00
* Usually 1-10 plants in one box, thereafter per box……. ** 1-5 plants. Additional $2 per plant for Quarantine.

**If paying by credit card, the card number must be texted to 0408 687 109 along with your name after submitting the List of Plants you advise us of by the Friday one week prior to sending. We will charge your card without further notice when we send the plants.

**Payments by other means must be paid immediately when you receive your plants and I must be notified by text of the payment. This is not an account. I do not have a clerk to chase payments and have spent many many wasted hours checking bank statements to see who has paid. No more of this!!

11. You can add plants from our website rareplants.net.au without incurring additional costs other than that of the plant. Freight will be charged according to number of boxes used anyway.
We add new plants to our website every time we do a new Monthly Catalogue.Amorphophallus paeonifolius

12. Only correspond by phone or Text to Bob on 0408 687 109. Do not email.

13. To get registered on our Service
Send a text to Bob on 0408 687 109. List your :
Name
Address (plants will be sent to)
Email
What your Payment Method will be.
We have Credit Card
Paypal (to bob@paraplants.com)
Direct Payment to: Paradise Distributors, BSB 014 669 Account 1021 45286

 

ADDENDUM – LEARN FAST ABOUT PROBLEMS THAT CAN ARISE

Excerpts from Emails Sent to Clients

Quarantine Notes from last month…excerpts from email answers to clients.

1. Just go to our website www.rareplants.net.au home page and click on Concierge Quarantine. This will take you to our Concierge page where all will be explained. Just follow the instructions and for a start send your details by text to this number. Cheers Bob

2. It says on our concierge page to not send plants in the same week as we send. Despite this we were inundated with plants which we had no time to handle. So we could not send any plants that arrived in that week.

3. Also we could not send any plants that were not listed in your plant declaration…because this is the list approved by WA Quarantine.

4. There is another reason your plant was not sent and that is if the label is a different name to your list and that happened also…

5. There is not too many to handle if everyone does as requested on our quarantine page. These are conditions of being registered with us.

6. Yes it’s on the WAOL list but the list isn’t the final approval….that’s why the list is not 100% helpful.
Because when I seek approval for that plant or any Euphorbias or Hibiscus or Solanum or Family Myrtaceae they will then say it’s not allowed unless you do some other requirement which would be an extraordinary COST.

IF you put anything from Family Myrtaceae into that list it will come up permitted and there’s hundreds of them but they are not allowed unless extra costly treatment

PS, WAOL is the Western Australian Organism List. Just Google that name and you can check if your plant is Permitted…. but beware if it’s in the Family Myrtaceae or Euphorbias or Hibiscus or Azaleas or Solanums….All these have additional impossible conditions and will not be approved even though on the permitted list!!

7. If your plants came with no ID. Please identify with the botanical name. Both Genus and Species.
Your sender must declare the full botanical name of all plants. This is a legal requirement if they are sending plants to a customer in WA, TAS or the Northern Territory.
If your sender cannot identify, do not buy as they cannot be sent.

The list that you declare must also have the full botanical names of all plants to be sent. These names must be the same as your suppliers names sent with the plants. It is your list that is sent to your Authorities for approval prior to sending. If you don’t send the list we can’t send your plants this time.

PS Common names and variety names are not botanical names.
Also for Example for Philodendrons. Philodendron is the Genus of many plants. Pastazanum is the Species name ie specific..there’s only one of this.

8. While barerooting of plants may save a few dollars in freight it does set the plant back. Tiny plants and many species should not be barerooted. You should be careful what you are buying.

9. No you do not have to wash the plants on receipt to wash off the chemical treatments that were required. We have been dipping and spraying plants for over 28 years to send interstate and sometimes our own. There is no adverse affect on the plants that we have ever noticed and we have treated many many thousands. Anyone suggesting otherwise is talking through their hat!!

10. A Monstera app. arrived here 2 or 3 weeks back. It had no receiver name and no sender name! It sits here waiting to be claimed.

 

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