Teachers’ How-To Guide: Ordering From North Carolina Farms

At North Carolina Farms, we are passionate about furthering agriculture students’ education. And we want to support teachers. We have designed our website and business model to provide quality plants, free educational content, and an easy ordering process for all of our customers. While we are strictly wholesale, we do ship to many schools across the United States.

What to Order

We have found that many horticulture department leaders or teachers have not studied agriculture but are responsible for the school’s plant sales. Whether or not this applies to you, the following information should prove to be helpful.

There are three ways to build your order. Which method you choose depends on your needs.

1. If you know you need plants, but you have no idea what to order, and you don’t care what you receive, educational kits might be your best bet. We created this product specifically with schools in mind. These educational kits include a wide assortment of starter plants that are pulled from what we have available. We begin by selecting plants that can be found on the National Plant ID List. Then, if the kit is not full, we pull from what we know will sell well.
2. If you know what you’re looking for but don’t want a full tray of every variety, you may want to take advantage of our partial trays. You can see our blog for in-depth information, but we offer partial trays of most of the varieties we carry. This means you can order in quantities of 35, 50, 70, or 100 for most of our varieties. Our order minimum is still four full trays, but you can pick your assortment that goes into these trays.
3. If you know exactly what you want, you can order directly from our website or send your order to us, and we’ll be happy to enter it. Our product list, availability, and pricing can all be found on our website. Want to duplicate your order from last year? Request a packing list from our office staff, and we will include a link where you can automatically load your cart with all of the items from your order last year. (As long as they are available.)

Do I need tags?

Tags are labels that help mark individual pots and hanging baskets. In most cases, the tag will have a picture of the plant, list the variety name, and share helpful growing tips. These tags are about 1 inch wide and 4 inches long. The industry name for them is “pixie tags.” We sell tags for $4.50 per bundle of 100 or $0.045 per tag. If you order less than the pre-bundled 100, the price becomes $0.07 per tag. The smallest number of tags we can send is 35 per variety. We are not able to send smaller amounts (ex. 1, 5, 10) of any kind. 

If you want tags to label each of your baskets, you can absolutely order them with your order! Unfortunately, though, tags are not available for educational kits due to the assorted nature of the kit.

When to Order

The majority of our orders are pre-booked, so you need to get your order in as soon as possible. (We don’t want our teachers to miss out!) Most of our orders for spring are booked in October and November. Sooner is not too early. 

When you want your plants to arrive will factor into your ordering process. If you are selling ten-inch hanging baskets, you’ll want to give the plants ten or more weeks of growing time before your sale. So plan for your plants to arrive eleven or so weeks in advance of your sale — or earlier if your growing space can accommodate for them! Any container larger than a ten-inch hanging basket will take longer than ten weeks of growing, and anything smaller than a ten-inch hanging basket will take less time.

Payment Methods for Teachers

Yes, we accept PO numbers! We have designed our system to work well with schools and teachers, no matter what your process is. We accept payments through credit card, check, PayPal, or through a PO. Whether you need your PO before the order is ever placed or if you need an itemized quote on paper in order to get your PO number, we are set up to provide that! We do what we can to meet your needs. 

We have a copy of our W-9 form on hand to send to you, and we can fill out any extra paperwork your school might need. 

Shipping, Arrival, and Care

We ship through UPS. Rooted orders arrive two days after shipment, and unrooted orders arrive the day following shipment. We ship Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of each week, so the date you see on your acknowledgment marks the ship week and not the ship day.

If you have a class on Thursday of one week, you need to schedule your plants to arrive the week prior to your class. We cannot guarantee that your plants will arrive by any specific time or day so prepare accordingly.

If your school is closed for a teacher workday or any holiday, please let us know so we can adjust your order accordingly. 

When your plants arrive, you will want to unpack them immediately so they can get some fresh air. We ship our rooted orders with two-day shipment because that is the longest they can be in the box. They will want to be freed as soon as possible. If you want to see more care information, read our blog.

If your plants are damaged or do not look well when they arrive, please let us know. We guarantee quality plants upon arrival, so if they are less than perfect, we will do what we can to fix it!