Grow Your Own Magazine

went to homebase Derby today
horticultural expert telling people the runner beans they are selling today will be alright if you take them into your greenhouse at night.....
also selling
courgette
cucumber
six different tomatoes
so i asked the expert if i could plant the ones for outside now and he said yes the (4 inch ) plants were hardy enough. i then asked which ones were for outdoor he didn't know.
just another commercial rip-off of people who want to grow there own.

bitter and twisted
phil the shed.

I am appalled, but not surprised PTS.

On the other hand you could view it as a first positive step that veggies are actually available to buy as plants at Homebase.

I think you're being a little unfair - afterall who really buys their plants from DIY stores based on the quality of advice given???

__________________
Manda.

"Wouldn't it be nice
For maybe an hour
To not have a care."

Always makes me laugh that they happily flog loads of bedding plants at this time of year only to rub their hands together with glee when there is the predictable heavy frost. Makes you wonder if it's a deliberate ploy so that people have to buy more........

__________________

Some of us live in the past, always talking about back then. Some of us live in the future, always planning what we are going to do. And, then there are those, who neither look behind or ahead, but just enjoy the moment of right now.

Which one are you and is it how you want to be?

Still not as bad as those opportunist motorist discount type shops....(especially the orange one!!)....all run by descendents of Dick Turpin you know

__________________
Geordie

Te audire non possum. Musa sapientum fixa est in aure

I mean, how many air freshner flavours do you actually need?

__________________
"Its not who you are underneath, it's what you do that defines you" - Bruce Wayne

Exactly...seen one wheel nut...seen 'em all

__________________
Geordie

Te audire non possum. Musa sapientum fixa est in aure

Sorry folks, this may end up as a long posting.

I actually managed two B&Q gardening departments, both of which had good gardening experts, people who actually worked in their own gardens, grew their own etc and they were both succesful. In addition, if we interviewed people for the gardening department, we asked them technical questions about gardening, not just the usual 'which is the bit you put in the ground', all my team had to know something about the right way to work a garden - which usually included the peripherals, pesticides, organics, irrigation etc.

But the comment about the stores being flooded with plants is so right. The stores - well, at B&Q - have NO, NONE, NIL control over the plants that they receive. That's all worked out by buyers at head office who (a) decide when the season should be and (b) usually - but not always - are not gardeners.

I can remember receiving over 30 Danish trolleys (those big multi storey things) of plants a day for three weeks on end at the Chelmsford store when we were only selling between 6 and 10 a day and when I rang head office, I was told to try harder. And then the store general manager gets on your case because he's loosing money from his bonus because we were junking so many. And of course, you're not allowed to have them in the selling area durting the day so you wheel them out in the morning and then wheel them back at night, at this time of the year you have to cover them with fleece AND you have to water the bloody things.

The problem is non-gardeners outguessing the people on the ground who tend to know what they're doing - well at some stores anyway.

Miss the people and the chats about gardens, not the system or the work!

__________________
TonyF, Dordogne 24220

Well said TonyF .I agree with all you have said .And further to that the non- experienced gardener walks in sees all the plants and thinks "It must be the season "and buys a shed load .Then two weeks later when the frost hits and the plants die they cant understand what went wrong and then they get disheartend and give up or cant afford to replace the dead plants.

__________________
Et tū, quis es?

Should have added - the tele has a lot to answer for as well. Couple of years ago Alan Tichmarsh was banging on about banana plants and those exotic fern trees, so B&Q - who had a deal with him for his gardening range - bought in thousands of the bloody things.

A local publican came in and bought 25 having seen them on tele, cost him some ridiculous price, something like £40 each - too early, didn't have the whit to look after them all properly etc etc.

So a few months later he was back, complaining like crazy and eventually - against my better judgement - got his money back!

Blame the tele also for the public wanting 'instant gardens NOW', bit like some of the other make over programs, all red hat and no knickers.

__________________
TonyF, Dordogne 24220

Sadly, the failure, waste and disappointment must have put so many people off the wonderful hobby/passtime/obsession which is gardening.

__________________
Earth laughs in flowers. Ralph Waldo Emerson

www.vegheaven.blogspot.com

Updated November 30th - Mr Stinky's Excellent Adventure (and a Christmas Cake)

I can't believe the price of some things! My mother goes to one of the plant warehouses near Spalding and buys orchids - £1.50 for Phalanopsis, less than a fiver for Cymbidium,... she has a lot of success. The warehouse deals with orders for the big chains, so they have to have excess in case of problems - the excess then is sold at the warehouse for cheap prices.

__________________
My Blog - http://multiveg.wordpress.com/
Photo Album - http://www.flickr.com/photos/99039017@N00/

You are absolutely right Tony, it's about wanting what you can't have, rather than what you need. The world seems to be mad these days with instant gratification for everyone offering immediate satisfaction.
What happened to waiting, planning, hoping and being delightfully surprised? As gardeners, grapes on this vine understand that it is better to wait for growth in a timely fashion rather than expect it NOW. (Even if some of us did try planting things in winter!!)

I hesitate to say it, but capitalist media certainly have a lot to answer for in my book.

__________________
Regards, Jane
What sane person could live in this world and not be crazy? The creative adult is the child who has survived.
Ursula LeGuin
http://www.etribes.com/madderbat

I like my Bodgit & Quit...I pick up trays of half-dead plants for 20p or so, all they need is a good watering. My 10p Dianthus that I got in November are still flowering.

__________________
~ What do I think of Western civilisation? I think it would be a very good idea ~ Gandhi

hi two sheds
wilko's is good for cheap dead plug plants
bought 24 geranium
24 impatiens
and two packs of lobelia
for £1.95 a little bio in some warm water and three days later only 5 plugs lost
there's profit in them 'anging baskets this year ( they were all cheap too @ wyevale sale)

Work colleague of mine asked me today what he should do with the tree fern he bought from B&Q last month and all the leaves have gone brown. Apparently he paid £80 for it and it didn't mention anything about frost protection and so he thought it would be evergreen.

__________________

Some of us live in the past, always talking about back then. Some of us live in the future, always planning what we are going to do. And, then there are those, who neither look behind or ahead, but just enjoy the moment of right now.

Which one are you and is it how you want to be?

Yes, but isn't part of it about taking responsibility for ourselves? Would you spend £80 on something you knew nothing about (or am I on the wrong planet again?)

__________________
Regards, Jane
What sane person could live in this world and not be crazy? The creative adult is the child who has survived.
Ursula LeGuin
http://www.etribes.com/madderbat

Not a cheap mistake to make...

__________________
"Its not who you are underneath, it's what you do that defines you" - Bruce Wayne

Agree with both of you - his whole garden sounded like "as seen on TV" and then he moans that he hasn't got enough money! Personally I think that shops like this are only reacting to what people are asking for and even if they had tried to tell him all about it I'm not sure he'd have listened. He also asked me why all his ferns had died and I suggested that perhaps it was a side effect of winter and that if he waited a month or so the hardy ones would come back.

__________________

Some of us live in the past, always talking about back then. Some of us live in the future, always planning what we are going to do. And, then there are those, who neither look behind or ahead, but just enjoy the moment of right now.

Which one are you and is it how you want to be?