Please Let Me Take Them Home…
Have you ever seen the following sight when shopping at the nursery?
It just makes me want to cry.
Seriously, I just want to take them home, nurse them back to health and find good homes for them.
I do understand that nurseries probably have problems selling plants that are past their prime and have to remove them from the shelves.
But some nurseries just throw them out even though they can still be planted and in most cases, survive.
Some nurseries put these less then desirable plants in the back and sell them at a reduced price.
Unfortunately, not all plants you find in nurseries (particularly big box stores) aren’t suitable for your climate. In the shopping cart above, daffodils have a hard time growing in the desert – but it’s not impossible. The primrose in the bottom, make great container plants in winter.
So, the next time you visit your favorite nursery, look in the back section, which is where the the discarded/discounted plants are likely to be found. Maybe you can ‘rescue’ some plants and give them a good home 🙂
How about you?
Have you ever seen discarded plants at your nursery or do they sell them at a discount?
Noelle Johnson, aka, 'AZ Plant Lady' is a author, horticulturist, and landscape consultant who helps people learn how to create, grow, and maintain beautiful desert gardens that thrive in a hot, dry climate. She does this through her consulting services, her online class Desert Gardening 101, and her monthly membership club, Through the Garden Gate. As she likes to tell desert-dwellers, "Gardening in the desert isn't hard, but it is different."
That bunch is pretty doomed in the desert.
Primroses? Not gonna do well here. Daffs? I've had some success with rebloom – they need a winter that hits freezing at least once – I dump the ice cubes out of the auto tray on them a few times each winter. I've not had any rebloom with the large trumpet daffs, and they die off after a few seasons.
The Tulips I don't know. Those big fancy flowers are difficult to get to rebloom in more temperate zones… I wouldn't even try them down here.
Now. On the other hand – Lowes has that back section and when I have spare change I do check them out. Still I find a lot of stuff that is inappropriate for the desert. I had a long inner battle over a fairly decent looking tree palm in this area once. Tree palms thrive in Seattle. San Fran. Not Here.
I see them all the time and when I can, I try to find a home for them…..sometimes they are discounted by 75 percent!! I purchased a persimmons in this area. Today it grows gorgeous leaves and fruit. This was at Lowe's.
My dad was an experienced plant rescurer. He was most proud of the birch tree he found in a dumpster at Southern States Hardware.
I am a plant rescuer!!
We have a small local nursery here that puts their end of season or past their prime plants in the back at a discount. Last fall I rescued a number of catmint plants at 75% off. They'd been under watered, and were terribly pot-bound. I repotted them, and left them in the greenhouse over winter. Now they're huge! There's something rather satisfying about bringing a plant back from the brink, to thrive!