Most articles about clones stop at the price tag. The order gets placed, and the real questions start. When does the box actually leave? What's in it? What happens if the plants show up looking rough? Those questions deserve written answers. Here's what happens between the moment you order and the moment the box opens, in the order it happens.
Start With a Catalog That Names Its Selections
Plenty of the catalog is numbered pheno selections: Depth Charge #4, Kacklesnatch #3, Blueberry Gary #12. Some records carry a strain name with no number. That numbering isn't decoration. A clone is a genetic copy of the mother plant it was cut from, so the number ties a cutting back to one specific mother. That's what keeps two same-named records straight once orders start moving.
Each listing also carries its documentation in the open: breeder, lineage information, and testing status sit on the record itself. You don't have to ask what a cut is or where it came from. The answers are on the page before the order is.
The catalog currently holds 39 records with published prices from $50 to $1,000 per clone. The published minimum is 20 clones per strain. Before anything ships, the order gets checked against current stock, and nothing goes out until fulfillment is confirmed. Twenty sounds like a big number until you're planning bench space for it. Run that math before you order, not after.
The Monday Through Wednesday Dispatch Window
Our dispatch schedule is Monday through Wednesday. Three days, not seven.
For you, the window is a planning input. Three fixed dispatch days give you a known sending schedule to plan receiving and transplant prep around. Build your prep around that, not around a hope.
The arrival is only half the job, and our published first-7-days guide covers the other half: inspect the plant, water it, hold light and humidity steady while it settles. A clone that gets settled soon after arrival has the best shot at staying that way.
Every Clone Gets the Same Screening
Price doesn't change what gets tested. A $50 Mac Daddy and a $1,000 Dante's Wrath go out the door with the same documented screening: HLVd alongside Fusarium and Pythium, by PCR.
PCR matters here. RT-qPCR is the standard laboratory method for detecting HLVd, and HLVd is the pathogen worth caring about in a clone purchase. It spreads mechanically, through sap carried on tools during cutting and pruning. Once a plant has it, there's no cure. The nastiest part is that an infected plant can look perfectly normal while it quietly loses vigor and yield. You can't eyeball your way out of a viroid problem.
That's why screening happens upstream of shipping instead of hoping for the best after arrival. Every batch is screened by multiplex PCR before release, and testing details vary from record to record.
We broke down what the price ladder actually buys last week. The short version: scarcity and pheno selection, not a better test. The screening panel is identical at every tier.
If the Arrival Doesn't Look Right
Here's the part worth screenshotting. The live-arrival claim window is same-day: if something looks wrong when the box arrives, you contact us that day, with photos of the issue. Not within 48 hours of delivery. The same day.
That window used to be 48 hours. It was corrected to same-day. Our team reviews a submitted claim within 48 hours of receiving it, which is a review turnaround, not a filing window. Those are two different clocks, and mixing them up is how claims get missed.
Practical version: photograph the package condition, the foliage, and the roots the day the box lands, even if everything looks fine. You can delete the photos later. You can't take them retroactively.
If you do need to file, the photos are the claim. Send them the same day with a short note about what you're seeing, and the review starts from there.
Read the Ledger Before You Schedule
Now the part only our own data can tell you. On the September 20, 2026 inventory snapshot, the catalog held 39 records. Nineteen of them carried stock, 714 clones in total. Twenty records sat at zero.
Those counts come straight from the inventory ledger that drives the catalog, not from a marketing summary. When a number moves, the listing moves with it.
Siblings diverge. Depth Charge #4 showed 54 units on that snapshot while Depth Charge #10 showed none. Cherry Biscotti #11 and Cherry Biscotti #8 were both at zero. Numbered selections sell through and restock on their own cycles, so two cuts with the same strain name can sit at opposite ends of the ledger.
I'd rather tell a grower a cut is sold out than ship the wrong pheno and have them find out in week six. So here's the workflow we'd use in your shoes: if a specific numbered cut is the reason you're ordering, check its stock status early, confirm current availability before you plan around it, and don't treat a snapshot as a standing promise. Availability changes as orders are placed and as new propagation cycles come out.
When the Box Opens
The published guidance for arrival day is short. Inspect the plants, photograph anything that looks off the same day, and follow the supplied acclimation instructions while the incoming plants sit apart from your established garden.
Then the usual: water, steady light, steady humidity for the first week. The genetics carry the potential. The first seven days decide how much of it you keep.
The Sequence, End to End
Named selections, a midweek dispatch window, the same three-pathogen screening at every price, and a same-day claim window if arrival goes sideways. That's the whole chain, and none of it is hidden in fine print.
Check current stock on the catalog before you order, read the testing page if you want the screening protocol in detail, and call (720) 375-5261 or email orders@clone-source.com with the cultivar numbers and quantities you're considering. We'll tell you what's live and what's not before you plan around it.
