Anyone else adopting abused plants on sale?

Moin everyone,

I know it's kind of a special question, but...
Do you sometimes go into your local supermarket or hardware store and find some sad-looking lone garden-plant sitting in on a sales-table with half ripped leaves and a big 70%-off sticker on it?

Mostly I just can't help it and tend to buy it for a bargain price just to plant it in some unallocated corner of my own garden. Watching it grow into a healthy perennial, blooming and attracting bees and butterflies gives me some kind of fatherly feelings.

 

I'm quite selective with the waifs and strays I adopt, as I know I can be as brutal and forgetful as the places that sell the reduced items

 

Yes, I think you'll find most of us do buy plants that are poorly and try to "save" them by using tender care. And I don't know any gardeners who would pass by a plant for sale at a bargain price!

 

I got a Musa Cavandish (Banana) free as the Garden Center had put them by the exit for people to take.

 

The only thing I ever got for free was 5 packs of porridge no one wanted to buy. So they gifted them off at the exit but that in turn was also too suspicious for most customers (British food and such... No offense). My dutch wife loved them and is now asking for more.

 

I do buy plants that are past their best and relegated to the discounted area, I got most of my Orchids that way, never pay the full price for one of those.
Also, over the years I've bought palms at end of summer sales for half price.

But I dont buy just anything, it has to be something that interests me.

 

Big supporter of the discount section in the garden centres here myself. Lots of plants are just after being left in the pot too long or have moved out of season and are not going to sell for full price due to appearance so it makes sense to get them for future years at the reduced price. I've learned to avoid some of the tender perennials that simply don't come back and also avoid any with genuine signs of disease as I know there is little point in putting effort into these.

 

A lot of my garden has been created from the half dead sections. It has helped me learn more about the individual plant once home doing some proper research. I'll try to do a quick google search before I buy just to get some basic info but you're so right, there is something lovely about nurturing and seeing them do well.

 

I have bought half price plants from a local garden centre in the past, with varying results. However, as the garden centre has mainly been closed since last March I haven't been able to visit. I did but a very sorry looking Fern from Wilko a few years ago and that has done well.

 

I have done this, usually at my local supermarket, where the plants are lovely when they first come in but aren't well looked after, so deteriorate if they're not quickly sold. Some have recovered well, others have sadly proved too far gone and ended up in the compost heap!

My best ever "rescue" however was a big beautiful cordyline which a neighbour had got fed up with, taken out of its pot, and dumped on the pavement for the dustbin men. Shown below just after I carried it home. Three years later it continues to flourish, still on the patio but in a proper pot!

 

I have done this before in Belgium but here they just seem to let stuff wither and die tho, sometimes, I have found perennials in 4" pots on sale at 3 for 2 towards the end of the season.

I did take pity on two poor tortured bonsai acers at LIDL a few weeks ago (14€ each) and re-potted them in decent compost and told them to grow. They're doing just fine and will be nice little trees for the garden.

 

We bought our magnolia grandiflora and Catalpa bignoides at £1 and 50p from different nurseries many years ago. They are superb specimens now. We have also rescued orchids, aeoniums and sempervivums.

 

Well, since I last replied to this thread, some 4 years ago, I have learned that not all adoptees are worthy.

I had a particularly nasty experience with one of these bargains after it shared it's white fly infestation with my chillies. I don't take a magnifying glass with me when shopping and don't want a repeat of that!

 

I always head for the bargain section at my local mini GC. I buy things I would not normally buy or know much about. Earlier in the year I got a 50p orchid, whose leaves were rotted and dropping off. It had one leaf left. Now it is centre place in my kitchen window and is about to open its first flower. I don't know what colour yet - that's the exciting part.