About Sarah Raven

Sarah Raven sells seeds, bulbs, plants and garden equipment with a strong line in cut flowers and kitchen-garden varieties, and a Sarah Raven discount code is usually spent on an order placed for a planting season rather than for immediate delivery. Gardening mail order runs on a calendar, and that calendar, not the basket, decides whether anything works.

Ordering season and dispatch season are different

Spring-flowering bulbs are sold in summer and dispatched in autumn for autumn planting. Summer bulbs go the other way. Bare root plants ship in the dormant months and potted plants in growth. So an order placed in July may not arrive until October, and the product page states the dispatch window. Read it before planning a bed around a delivery date.

Bare root, potted and plug plants

A bare root plant arrives dormant with no soil, is cheaper and lighter to post, establishes well and must go in the ground promptly. A potted plant arrives growing and can wait a little. Plug plants are seedlings needing potting on before they go out. Each needs a different level of attention in its first fortnight, and the commonest failure is treating a bare root as though it could sit in a shed for a month.

Bulb size and seed viability

Bulbs are graded by circumference, and a larger bulb carries more stored energy and flowers better in its first year. On seed packets the sow-by date matters because germination falls with age, and it falls fastest in parsnip, carrot and parsley. Store unused seed cool, dry and dark rather than in a greenhouse.

Living goods and what happens if something fails

Plants are not returnable in the way a jumper is, and every reputable nursery has a policy for stock that arrives damaged or fails to establish. Photograph anything that arrives in poor condition on the day it arrives and report it promptly, because a claim made a month later cannot be distinguished from a planting mistake.

Using a Sarah Raven discount code

Add the code in the basket and confirm the figure before paying. Codes here often exclude pre-order bulbs and plants already discounted, and they rarely cover delivery, which on plants is priced by consignment rather than by weight. One code applies per order.