Garden centre prices

I'm not a fond user of gardening centre's I'd much rather go and visit an off the beaten track nursery and have a root through what they have to offer, I'm a big fan of the uncommon and cheap

 

I nipped in to a center the other day to grab a single bag of bark. The guy in front of me at the checkout was complaining that the discount hadn't been applied to his lavender. When a supervisor finally sorted it my ears perked up when I realised he was happily paying £120 for plants he could get for £50 in the ma and pa nursery down the road or £20 in a trade nursery. I'm in the wrong game.

 

I'm not a big fan of Garden Centres especially those that sell allsorts of tripe....(i'm talking of things that are completely unrelated to gardens or gardening)......What is really lacking near where i live is a good old fashion nursery....

 

oh god you mean the ones which randomly sell clothing and boutique crap like baskets and candles?

 

They're the one Aesculus

 

I'm with you there. It's also good to see/understand the conditions that they were grown in - a fantastic looking mail order plant can sulk its ass off when deprived of the cosy surroundings that it was raised in.

 

Though I've bought one or two things online in the past (especially good if you don't have a 'local' or its difficult to pick stuff up yourself), I prefer to see the plants in the flesh before buying. I often pop into my local nurseries for the enjoyment of just rooting through the new stock in hopes of finding something a bit unusual or there is always that must-have that is lurking in a corner somewhere just waiting to be taken home.

 

I fell out with big chains, having seen for example:

* A Strelitzia that was in full bloom, except it wasn't, closer inspection showed a fake flower on a stick in the pot.

* Very boldly coloured heathers, which turned out to have been sprayed with food colouring.

* Plants which I now know to be autumn flowering in full bloom in early march (and then you get them home, and the blooms die because the plant realises its got it all wrong, and then it sulks for months until its gets its rhythm back in order).

All for extortionate prices.

Having said that, I do sometimes go to a big nursery shop that belongs to a chain (but not a massive chain, just a few shops up north). They are very expensive, but sell very good quality plants, and ones that I don't often see elsewhere. I rarely buy them mind, but I do like looking.

 

I go to the big chains ......

*In late December to buy a few new glitzy tree decorations at bargain (i.e. fair) prices.

*To have a snoop around their reduced plants section, usually fruitless, though I did get a lovely variegated catalpa once. Seeing as the plants on the bargain section are in very poor, often nearly dead, sometimes completely dead, condition, then anything above 0p is a rip-off. There are occasionally good things but need inspecting carefully.

*On a chilly weekend in February when I'm keen to get going and fancy doing some browsing in the warm. Try not to actually buy anything, though.

 

With half of the bigger ones it seems to me the plant section is just their excuse to avoid planning permission to open an out of town 'Harrods'

 

Blimey! Good job you lot don't feel strongly about it!

I buy at my local garden centre quite often. They have things in flower, and the moment they finish they are moved to the 50% off rack. Its not a bargin, but its a "good price" - but the original wasn't!

Come August Bank Holiday all their seed becomes 50p a packet - even the £3, £4, £5 ones (including Mushroom spawn ...) - I'm definitely a buyer then

And their 4-for-3 on brand name compost is quite a good deal.

Never bought a Cream Tea there though (their refectory looks ghastly) ... nor any Christmas decorations - although I did buy a roll of wrapping paper, 50% off in the sale after Christmas only to find it was cheaper in W H Smiths with NO discount!

Their plants are SO poorly looked after. They do water everything, but its a lad wandering around with a hose-with-rose. Some pots get missed etc. I'm amazed they don't have capillary matting on all the benches to give the plants a chance of sucking up some water.

Tomatoes etc. in early season outside looking miserable - using they buy-now-die-buy-again profiteering principle. And the number of vegetables they sell in the Autumn which have no chance of making sufficient growth for the Winter is dreadful ....

... so good job I don't feel strongly about it too !!

 

Actually, my main reason for feeling strongly about it is sheer, pea-green envy that other people seem to have cash galore to splash about on this stuff, no questions asked, while I am scrimping and saving.

Mind you, I do enjoy the feeling of self-righteous smugness as the idiots fill their baskets with over-priced dross, while I am soooo much cleverer!

 

I tend to wander round my local GCs just for something to do and to get ideas ready for the next nursery runs. I'm finding out more and more though that nursery prices are catching up with GC prices and in some cases have even overtaken them. Where's the logic in that? One thing i do hate though is walking into a GC and breathing in the fumes of new wicker furniture, candles, bath bombs and fighting my way through the over priced and over rated "local" produce just to get to the plants!!!