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There Ougta be a Law...or Why Chain Stores Shouldn't Sell Plants

© Wesley Ford

I got a haircut this morning. I do that 4 or 5 times a year, whether I need it or not. Actually it was shortly before lunch. I took an early lunch so I could schedule it. Now I can't say as I'm much of a conversationalist but when I sit in Cheryl's chair something magically happens to me. For the 2 or 3 minutes it takes for her to trim what hair I have left, I actually carry on a conversation. Usually we ask about each others' families and commiserate about the state of local affairs. But today our topic was gardening. You could tell the warming weather and longer days were giving Cheryl the itch have at her garden. In particular we were discussing tomato tactics. I think we came to the conclusion that tomatoes really like to be ignored. Just get them a good start and then stand back.

Well, as I was driving into the small strip shopping center where Cheryl's shop is, I noticed that the chain variety store that anchors the strip had some greenery out on the sidewalk in front of the store. As I got out of the van, I vowed to take a few moments after my haircut to check out the selections. After all, the warming weather and longer days were giving me the itch too. So as I paid up I mentioned to Cheryl, I was going to slip down to check the plants. She responded that usually she waited till the end of the season to buy things there. She had been buying azaleas there for a couple of years for a $1 for a gallon pot. "They look a little ratty, but once I get them home where I can take care of them, they do ok for me." She continued with, "only this year I don't think I will do that. The azaleas already look ratty and they just got them". Well, being the hard headed individual I am, I had to go look for myself. How could freshly arrived plants look bad so soon, even at a big box mass marketer? Usually it takes a couple of weeks for most such stores to abuse their plants into the trash bin.

I really wasn't surprised by what I found, but then again I was. The first group of plants I encountered were 1 gallon boxwoods. These plants had been "sheared" on top, ostensibly I guess, to shape them and make them either more marketable (?) or reduce their size to make shipping easier. These plants were a pretty sorry looking lot in spite of the hair cut (unlike the author, of course). Here it was only early April and we are still experiencing frosty nights here in mountainous areas of Virginia, and these boxwoods were sporting 2 to 3 inches of brand new soft growth! Drooping leaders bespoke of ailing plants. I moved in for a closer inspection. I picked up the "trade gallon" pot (A trade gallon is a ruse, it is only about 3 quarts, only 75% of a gallon) to discover that the soil was bone dry. There is more water on the moon than was in this pot. It was feather light. I looked around, not a hose in sight. These plants probably hadn't been watered since they had arrived- since the day they left the nursery.