Privacy Policy

Last Updated: [Insert Date]

Welcome to Great Garden Plants (“we”, “our”, or “us”). We are committed to protecting your privacy while providing you with quality plants and gardening solutions. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, disclose, and safeguard your information when you visit our website shopgreatgardenplants.com.

1. Information We Collect

We collect information to provide better services to all our gardening enthusiasts:

• Personal Information: When you make a purchase or create an account, we collect your name, email address, shipping address, payment information, and phone number.
• Transaction Information: Details about purchases you make through our site, including plant types (such as Arborvitae, Hydrangeas, or Landscape Plugs), quantities, and order history.
• Browsing Information: We collect data about your interaction with our website, including pages visited (like our Best Sellers or Deer Resistant plant sections), items viewed, and search queries.
• Device Information: We may collect information about the device you use to access our site, including IP address, browser type, and operating system.
• Communication Data: When you contact our customer service team, we may keep records of those communications.

2. How We Use Your Information

Your information helps us cultivate a better gardening experience:

• Process your orders for plants, whether they’re Cold Tolerant varieties or Fragrant selections
• Provide customer support and respond to your inquiries
• Improve our website and product offerings (like our Container Plants or Native species collections)
• Send you information about new arrivals, special offers, and gardening tips (you may opt out at any time)
• Prevent fraud and enhance the security of our website
• Comply with legal obligations and enforce our policies

3. Sharing of Information

We value your privacy and only share information when necessary:

• Service Providers: We may share information with third parties who perform services for us, such as payment processing (Visa, MasterCard, JCB, PayPal), shipping, and marketing assistance.
• Business Transfers: If we undergo a merger or acquisition, customer information may be transferred as part of that transaction.
• Legal Requirements: We may disclose information if required by law or in response to valid legal processes.
• With Your Consent: We may share information with third parties when we have your consent to do so.

We never sell your personal information to third parties for their marketing purposes.

4. Data Storage and Security

We take the security of your information as seriously as we take the care of our plants:

• All payment transactions are encrypted using SSL technology and are PCI-DSS compliant
• We implement reasonable security measures to protect against unauthorized access to or unauthorized alteration, disclosure, or destruction of data
• We restrict access to personal information to employees who need to know that information to process orders or provide customer service
• Sensitive payment data is not stored on our servers after transaction processing

While we strive to protect your information, no method of transmission over the Internet or electronic storage is 100% secure.

5. Your Rights and Choices

As a valued member of our gardening community, you have certain rights regarding your personal information:

• Access and Update: You may review and update your account information by logging into your account on our website.
• Marketing Communications: You may opt out of receiving promotional emails by following the unsubscribe instructions in those emails.
• Cookies: You can set your browser to refuse all or some browser cookies (see Section 6 below).
• Account Deletion: You may request deletion of your account by contacting us, subject to certain exceptions.

For international customers: We comply with applicable data protection laws, including GDPR for European customers.

6. Cookies and Tracking Technologies

Like many gardening websites, we use cookies and similar tracking technologies:

• Essential Cookies: Necessary for the website to function, such as remembering items in your shopping cart.
• Performance Cookies: Help us understand how visitors interact with our site, like which pages (such as our Hedges & Privacy or Drought Tolerant sections) are most popular.
• Functionality Cookies: Allow the website to remember choices you make (like your location for shipping estimates).
• Advertising Cookies: Used to deliver ads relevant to gardening interests.

You can control cookies through your browser settings. Disabling cookies may affect your ability to use certain features of our website.

7. International Data Transfers

As we serve gardening enthusiasts worldwide (excluding certain restricted regions), your information may be transferred to and processed in countries other than your own. We ensure appropriate safeguards are in place for these transfers.

8. Children’s Privacy

Our website is not directed to children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13.

9. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy as our business grows. We will notify you of significant changes by posting the new policy on our site with an updated effective date.

10. Contact Us

Thank you for being part of our gardening community. We’re committed to protecting your privacy as we help you grow your dream garden.