Ireland, we're so sorry

Dear friends,

I'm really sorry to be bringing this update to you.

From 1 January, due to new regulations introduced as a result of the UK's exit from Europe, we are sadly unable to deliver plants to Eire.

From 1 January, all plants leaving the UK for the EU by post are required to be issued with a phytosanitary certificate. A phytosanitary certificate certifies the health of each plant leaving our premises and will limit the spread of harmful plant diseases. However, each certificate costs £15.

For deliveries the size of ours, this just doesn't make sense for us, or for our customers in Ireland. Lazy Flora already subsidises delivery costs to Ireland quite substantially, so we are unable to add even a proportion of the additional £15 to our deliveries, and we feel it's unfair to our customers to expect them to pay an additional £15 for every plant delivery from us.

So we've made the difficult - but necessary - decision to stop selling plants to Ireland. 

We hope this is temporary, and are continuing to research our options, and will bring you updates as and when things change.

Brexit is new territory for us all, and all UK horticultural suppliers to Ireland are affected by this - but plants by post are the most badly affected. See this article on the BBC for more information. Many larger companies have been able to set up plant holding bays in Ireland, but for small companies like Lazy Flora, this isn't an option.

Northern Ireland, although not officially in the EU, is also now subject to these phytosanitary regulations due to the sea border, so we are also unable to ship plants to Northern Ireland either for the same reason.

As I've mentioned in earlier blog posts, there wasn't a lot of information available to business owners on how Brexit was going to develop, so we've been following developments as closely as we've been able to. We were hopeful that there might be an 11th hour reprieve that would mean the phytosanitary regulations would be waived for UK growers, but that hasn't happened.

This decision makes us sad on so many levels.

So many of our customers in Ireland have supported Lazy Flora from the very start. One of our earliest customers is a lady in Dublin (you know who you are), who has been one of our strongest supporters over the past three years. I am so disappointed to now have to let you down in this way, and so frustrated by the whole situation.

I am so sorry that this is happening, and that we are unable to provide services to you for the time being. You can rest assured that there are avenues we are pursuing and there is hope that the regulations may be adapted to enable our kind of trade with our closest neighbours and friends. In future, we will ship to Ireland again, but we cannot make any promises as to when that will be.

Claire.
Lazy Flora Founder.