# Buying plants



## Olly Buckle (Sep 24, 2016)

Yesterday we did what many people do, we went out and visited a garden, and saw some beautiful plants, well established, in lovely surroundings. This can be very stimulating, one comes back full of ideas, but it does pay to remember these are professionals who have been at it a long time. If all the plants that were sold in such places survived and thrived as theirs do everybody would have full gardens; most of them die. Sometimes this is due to simple  lack of care, people tell me I have ‘green fingers’, it is pretty much nonsense, feed and water plants on a regular basis, make sure they are in a big enough pot, or not too crowded in the bed, and most plants thrive; most die from a lack of basic care.

Having said that it cannot be denied that some are more difficult than others, I have a friend who grows Chilean bell flowers on his North East facing balcony, ‘Wisley lost theirs last winter’, he told me, ‘I am glad I managed to keep mine, they are very expensive’, therein lies a clue  that they are difficult. Not that ‘Wisley lost theirs’, that is more than a clue; Wisley are the Royal Horticultural Society’s garden, if a plant dies on them we know it is difficult, but in that they are expensive. When plants are expensive it is not because they are particularly beautiful, that they have a wonderful scent, or any other esoteric reason. They are not ‘better’ than others, they are more difficult to grow and propagate.

There are plenty of plants that look good, or smell good, are easy to grow, and are cheap. This is the place to start your gardening career, when plants are cheap you can afford to discover that you have put them in the wrong place, or the wrong sort of soil, there is no great loss, and because cheap plants will be easy to grow and propagate, success is more likely. 

There is a downside of course, sometimes they are just too easy to grow and propagate. At the extreme end there are people who now regret having planted Japanese knot weed when it was fashionable, on a lesser basis gladioli can produce spectacular flower stems, and some hundreds of tiny corms as well, which keep re-appearing. It can be swings and roundabouts, but on the whole the cheap end of the market is the beginner’s best bet, unlike most things money does not buy quality, only difficulty.


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## jenthepen (Sep 25, 2016)

Your piece struck a chord for me, Olly. I have made plenty of expensive mistakes with plants. Now I make a habit of befriending people with glorious gardens and begging seeds or cuttings when I want to replenish my plot. Years ago, I had an elderly neighbour who planted her garden like a minicipal park with all the plants in symmetrical rows and colour matched on either side of the garden. We stood together surveying my exuberant and cluttered planting and I commented on our very different approaches to gardening. "Never mind, dear," she said, "you're doing your best."

Anyway, I think you made some good points and the summing up in the last paragraph was full of wisdom. Good one.


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## Mistique (Sep 25, 2016)

This one might be a good one to remember. I tend to be the one who has 'black fingers' which in my case does mean, as you said, that I tend to forget - after my initial enthousiasm has worn off - to give them the basic care they need


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## escorial (Sep 25, 2016)

charming read with that hint of knowledge departed..f.o.c


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## Olly Buckle (Sep 25, 2016)

Thank you all for your comments, I look at the number of plants sold in Garden centres and how many of them there are around here and it is obvious that most must die, there just wouldn't be room for them. I do find it depressing that there is an entire industry devoted to stripping peat bogs and turning oil into plastic for pots to plant cuttings in so they can be transported around the country to garden centres, sold, killed and thrown away, but I suppose most consumer industies are similar.


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## escorial (Sep 25, 2016)

Olly this planet can and will heal itself when we as a species are long gone....so keep pottin man...


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## Bard_Daniel (Sep 25, 2016)

An intriguing piece. I definitely learned a few things that I didn't know. Educational while being succinct and a nice read.

Good! : D


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## Winston (Sep 26, 2016)

If I can't eat it, I don't plant it.  I appreciate the esoteric beauty that flowers provide, as long as someone else does the work.

Keep up the good fight.


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## Olly Buckle (Sep 26, 2016)

Thank you danielstj, I couldn't ask for  more appreciation.

I am not quite as absolute as that, Winston, but I mainly grow food and the missus mainly grows flowers. The old boy who used to live next door once boasted to me that he grew everything they ate except bread and meat, that would be something.

escorial, you are right, provided we don't poison everything else with us. The evolutionary history of plants goes back way before any complicated, multicelled, animals. The largest and the oldest living things are all plants, sometimes I wonder if they have evolved in ways we simply have not thought of yet.


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