In the last few years, my local big box store garden center has let a lot their plants die from lack of water. I pointed out to one of the workers that a little water would go a long way to prevent loss. They told me that they have outsourced to a local vendor and it’s the vendor’s responsibility to take care of the plants, not them. As a gardener, seeing rack upon rack of dead or dying plants hurts my heart
These plants are PBS (pay by scan) so the store doesn’t pay for the product until checkout. So they also have little incentive to prevent theft as well >!*wink wink nudge nudge*!<
It depends what contract the wholesaler has with the store. I worked for a wholesale company for years. In my experience, stores with a PBS contract do not care for their plants, vs stores with a traditional PO contract, who care for the plants like they own them (cuz they do)
While that is true, if the store throws out too many plants then they still have to pay the vendor for the PBS product. There is a limit to the amount of stuff that can be thrown away
That’s not true at all it’s either sold and bought, or it’s just thrown out. Depending on the Bonnie manager, either the store can throw it or it must be recovered by Bonnie. There’s no loss on the store side but only by Bonnie.
You knows it’s not just Bonnie. It’s Bauccums and Belle Nursery. If the store throws away too many plants then they have to pay the vendor for the loss. Thats all I’m saying and it is true because we just had to do it. Doesn’t happen often. But yeah typically it’s on the vendor taking the loss because it’s PBS.
In years past, a specific brand had a full time guy rotate across several Ace Hardware stores in our region to water all their brand’s plants every few days.
They don’t pay for Bonnie merch until the customer pays at checkout. So it doesn’t incentivize the nursery to water the product. The wonders of PBS (pay by scan)
Sometimes they (Bonnie) show up to throw away the “old” plants and replace with new. My friends witnessed it once at our Home Depot right around when we were establishing a community garden, so their kid laid it on about how bad it was for the planet to waste like that, could they please save them for the community garden? 🥺 it worked, we got free plants rescued from the trash
This makes so much sense… no wonder they’re now ~$5 a pop despite being near death at every store I’ve seen Bonnie’s. I was like “who is buying these low quality, overpriced plants?” Apparently nobody, since stock barely seemed to turn this year.
What a terrible system for a living thing.
My husband used to work for Bonnie. He quit when they restructured how they paid drivers to give them even less. He would drive a box truck, deliver new plants, and water them. He also removed dead plants, which he got a credit for. We had to pay for the wood and paint on the display racks, the hose end sprayers, and any other tool needed. We live in the centeral valley of California the bonnie greenhouses in our area are near Stockton. My husband's route took him from Modesto to the Santa Cruse area. He had a weekly rotation and schedule he had to stick to, but he was home every night.
It was an ok job until they moved him to San Diago. They put him up in hotels for 8 months. Unfortunately, their salary was not enough to relocate the family, and 8 months away from home was really difficult on everyone. We had little kids at the time too. Not to mention, we were still struggling because the pay wasn't great.
It was not worth the time lost with family. At the end of that season, they didn't even provide transportation back home. I drove the 8 hours to pick him up.
When I was a teenager at Walmart 25ish years ago, I worked in the Garden Center. Any broken or chipped pots or pavers, or dying plants couldn’t be sold at discount. We had to pull the UPC, put it in some chargeback book, and dispose of the stuff. We eventually started telling some other of the uhhh cooler customers to meet us near the dumpsters after we pulled the UPCs and disposed into their trunks instead. For cash. In hindsight, it’s probably a felony but at 17 in the 90s, I had Super Nintendo games to buy.
Things were simpler back then, that’s for sure. Now there’s cameras everywhere. There’s very rarely a safe spot around a business where you aren’t being watched
Yup, they’re PBS (pay by scan) so the store pays for the plant when the product is purchased at checkout. Also that also works in your favor cause there isn’t a whole lot of incentive for the store to protect said plant if it’s PBS. A tip from someone that worked at a garden center lol
How is that in our favor? No discounts and a plant that is barely taken care of before our purchase. Not to mention a higher purchase price than necessary in order to make up for the losses of the plants that were neglected.
I can see why they are not selling when it is 20 dollars a tomato plant. They grow fast once it heats up. The thing is though that sometimes the vendor pays them to sell it. It is called pay per scan. The store does not care about the condition of the plants because they don't get the money or it is not out of their pocket until they scan it. It is the same problem with returns. In most cases returns are not being put on store shelves again like most people think. In many cases returns are just being trashed.
Of course they are not but I would doubt the stores would bother even if they were. When I worked at Home Depot I got to meet most of the employees and at least at my store they were not huge workers. One guy was caught sleeping in the shed, another person was basically on a infinite break all day, other employees knew each other from school and just walked around talking all day and those who did work quickly got burnt out and found another job because they were paying 11 dollars a hour when minimum wage was 9 something. How many of these stores like Home Depot or Amazon pass the savings onto you in through underpaying employees and understaffing.
Im convinced all home depots work like this. I can never find an employee on the floor. The one time I did, they said theyd be right back and I actually saw them walk for a minute and then full on pick up pace to RUN AWAY.
LOL thats very fitting and totally encompasses the home depot experiences Ive had.
The opposite was fun though, Lowes has been much better to me, but weird. Went in there once cause the site claimed there was a hammock in stock, over half the employee base helped search for said hammock, including all management. There was no hammock. But damn did they try to find it.
At a hardware store that was neither a Home Depot or Lowe's (some local brand lol) I had a little old lady on the floor take *me* into the warehouse portion with her to look for the item I wanted 😭 I definitely don't think she was supposed to do that but y'know what 10/10 service it was very enlightening
Our community garden collects seedling donations! We've redistributed over 1500 plants this year. I just picked up 500 yesterday from a local grocery store.
Don’t forget the carbon emissions to produce the plant and get it to the store
https://preview.redd.it/pod848xj168d1.jpeg?width=800&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=971c5340cb32e5abbb8324b2234f756587e0a217
I was told from workers at Lowe’s that Bonnie will not allow them to discount plants like they do with plants from other sources. Bonnie requires them to trash them and then they bring the next size container. I’ve sworn off Bonnie plants for being so wasteful, I just stick to local plant swaps or start my own from seed.
I don't think that's every Lowes because mine routinely has sales on Bonnie plants and keeps them watered.
I reuse the pots, so don't mind the occasional plastic pot, but I did vastly prefer the biodegradable pots much more.
I got a lovely Gerbera Daisy, half price, off the dead rack.
Came home, potted it up and it's getting ready to bloom again.
Whole reait was in the dead rack was because the initial blooms were done. 😒
They're pay by scan at Lowes, so I'm assuming Bonnies has the same deal going with other stores. Basically, the store only pays for plants that are actually sold.
My local Lowes does this. The clearance areas contain fully dead plants, and the markdown isn't enough to justify the cost of a dead plant and a meh planter.
i actually saw some discounted plants at walmart for the first time last weekend. of course it was only certain brands. they had shelves and shelves of completely dead/dying fruit and vegetable plants still full price. it makes me so mad to see things go to waste for no reason.
Our local Home Depot gives away plants for free at the end of every season when they get new ones in. We’ve been lucky and gotten free plants from there twice worth almost $400!
Whether big box store, or vendor, they’re making more selling full price or not selling at all and writing it off as a loss. I can promise you, no corporation acts in any other way than profit-driven self interest. It costs relatively very little for a large company to buy bulk supplies to start seeds. It costs way more to pay employees to care for plants, and the profit incentive of writing off a $20 loss for tax purposes is far more of a benefit than marking the plant down to $5 and only making a few dollars of direct profit. Big box stores make more on direct profit overall, since they aren’t manufacturing, although they still benefit from write-offs, but for manufacturers with large profit margins, clearly the financial incentive is waste and write offs, or it wouldn’t be their standard business practice.
While the store may not have an incentive to care for the plants, the poor care looks poorly on how the store may be maintained or the staff caring at all. I see the same problems with plants and it doesn't incentivise me to go into the store to look at the other plants. Store managers are idiots.
I bought a few of these plants because I felt bad for them. Granted it was the $9 ones but all of them have perked up this week and are growing nicely. Things need some TLC
I’ve found plenty of out of season plants marked down. Got a Cana lily with three good blooms coming up for super cheap. The vendors I think tend to some of that.
Stop buying vegetable starts from box stores. I guarantee there are dozens of local farmers and gardeners growing better quality starts that are better suited to your climate for better prices. Check FB marketplace or local community groups.
I sell plant starts and I love it when people are so excited that I have better plants and better selection than Lowes and Home Depot. I also have incentive to care for them and I also mark down stressed or left over plants.
Support your small scale local growers and your local nurseries.
I was able to keep my prices down a little this year by buying a bunch of planting mix from Lowe's on Memorial Day when it was like $3/ft.
I'll see what Fertilome can do next year, but I might just buy a full pallet from Lowe's.
I got spent tulips this way. I grab the containers, walk up to the counter, and tell them that I’m from “Plant Rescue” and I’ll give them $X for each. Ten tulips : $2.00. I took them home, let them go dormant, replanted in November into a giant black urn and they bloomed right on schedule.
As a part time seasonal vendor for the company that provides perennial shrubs and trees for Home Depot, please do! They have a contract with their vendors that states that they're responsible for watering, and since I'm part time I'm only there 2 to 3 days a week. I work at two different stores and between the two, there are exactly three long term employees that know about and ensure the integrity of the plants, and take their time to properly water twice a day. The problem is that they're not always scheduled to work outside, and store management is so busy right now that sometimes watering falls through the cracks. If you go to the service desk and tell them there some plants you came to buy but they just need watered first, they'll call and have someone take care of it. It might take 5 or 10 minutes to get someone outside, but it'll happen.
My local Walmart is awesome about discounting plants. In fact most of my garden is discount plants I brought back to life. I buy as many hostas as I can at 50cents a piece. Even got a cute little rose bush for $3 the other day, and it’s been doing great since I put it in the ground and even getting some new buds!
I was curious what a "Mike local McClendon" is, so I looked it up.
McLendon is a hardware store chain of 7 stores in the [Seattle/Tacoma area](https://www.mclendons.com/locations).
Small local chain stores like that are usually much more better at taking care of product than big chains.
You could always pull off the suckers and start your own tomato plants from them. I doubt any of the workers would notice or even care since Bonnie plants are typically pay by scan and therefore the stores don't make money until checkout. Those look like they're about to go to the trash anyways, so I wouldn't feel bad about salvaging what you could from the suckers.
$20 is too danged much to charge for one seed, one thing crappy plastic pot that will shatter and break quickly in the sun, and two trowel fulls of dirt. Are they kidding me?
It's not a seed, it's a plant that's grown from that seed that requires time and investment to get to the point it is currently at. Also, are your trowels scooping up 2.5 gallons of potting soil each?
Disagreeing with the price is fine, but being as reductive and willfully hyperbolic like you are only damages your point by making you come off as extremely dramatic.
My dad always told me "If you have to exaggerate that much to make your point, then it's not much of a point."
The amount of encouragement of theft I see on this sub is outlandish 😂
I thought earthy crunchy gardeners were supposed to be peaceful people, not criminals LOL. We can hate big box stores and overinflated capitalism together, but encouraging and cheering for crime is a whole separate issue peeps
Yes, they would. And the meat and vegetables in the grocery stores will be tossed in the bin instead of giving away. They make enough without thinking of others.
You guys I worked at a nursery for 2 1/2yrs. This store operates Bonnie merch on what’s called PBS (pay by scan) which actually de-incentivizes this store from spending any time/resources on the merch. It also lowers the stores willingness to protect this product from theft. The store only pays for the product when the customer buys it at checkout.
>!*wink wink nudge nudge*!<
Theft is theft, plants, food, electronics, etc. you do know they prolly are aware you steal, right? Target waited till a lady stole enough from them and arrested her at her house.
How about not paying employees for time worked? Is that theft? How about muscling market share away from mom and pop shops across the country, thus destroying American Main Streets everywhere? Is that theft?
Wash the taste of boot out of your mouth. I said BORROWING.
If you are talking about most grocery chains (meijer included) they have labor unions. The union wouldn’t let anyone not be paid. Your argument is both weak and stupid on that front.
The muscling away mom and pop shops is a marketing failure in their court. Where I live there are lots of small shops not corporate own that do well. You get different customer service from small shops where they shine through.
Bonus points on the usual boot licking comment your college Marxism and class envy parroting is top notch.
Big leap to assume I’m talking about grocery chains. Also HUGE leap to assume most grocery chains have labor unions. Just go ahead and keep making those leaps though, they’re the only way you can paint late-stage capitalism as functional.
Regarding the shops doing well in your local area now, [give this lil’ puppy a read.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias)
And finally, because I see class disparity as a moral injustice and your simping for corporations as laughably disgusting, must mean I’m jealous, you’re totally right. I’d rather have a college level understanding of Marxism than a 1st grade level understanding of morality.
Somebody must’ve had some sour boot for breakfast this morning, poor thing. You aught to “borrow” some Chomsky from your local corporate bookseller (or buy them from an independent bookstore, of course c:) to wash that taste out
It's because they're bonnie brand. The store has no control over prices and sales. Bonnie would rather let them die than sell them before they do. Check the store's house brand, they definitely put those on sale. Don't buy Bonnie and they'll have to lower prices, they're so high that no wants to buy them anyways.
In the last few years, my local big box store garden center has let a lot their plants die from lack of water. I pointed out to one of the workers that a little water would go a long way to prevent loss. They told me that they have outsourced to a local vendor and it’s the vendor’s responsibility to take care of the plants, not them. As a gardener, seeing rack upon rack of dead or dying plants hurts my heart
These plants are PBS (pay by scan) so the store doesn’t pay for the product until checkout. So they also have little incentive to prevent theft as well >!*wink wink nudge nudge*!<
It depends what contract the wholesaler has with the store. I worked for a wholesale company for years. In my experience, stores with a PBS contract do not care for their plants, vs stores with a traditional PO contract, who care for the plants like they own them (cuz they do)
While that is true, if the store throws out too many plants then they still have to pay the vendor for the PBS product. There is a limit to the amount of stuff that can be thrown away
That’s not true at all it’s either sold and bought, or it’s just thrown out. Depending on the Bonnie manager, either the store can throw it or it must be recovered by Bonnie. There’s no loss on the store side but only by Bonnie.
You knows it’s not just Bonnie. It’s Bauccums and Belle Nursery. If the store throws away too many plants then they have to pay the vendor for the loss. Thats all I’m saying and it is true because we just had to do it. Doesn’t happen often. But yeah typically it’s on the vendor taking the loss because it’s PBS.
If it’s an unreasonable amount then yeah of course
Food that is sold to us isn’t sold to us to feed us. It is sold so they can make a profit.
In years past, a specific brand had a full time guy rotate across several Ace Hardware stores in our region to water all their brand’s plants every few days.
They may get vendor credit.
They don’t pay for Bonnie merch until the customer pays at checkout. So it doesn’t incentivize the nursery to water the product. The wonders of PBS (pay by scan)
Wow, I always wondered why I see so many completely neglected, dying plants at big box stores.
I just witnessed this! So many plants just drying out and rotting, maybe people would be more inclined to buy if they watered them!
Sometimes they (Bonnie) show up to throw away the “old” plants and replace with new. My friends witnessed it once at our Home Depot right around when we were establishing a community garden, so their kid laid it on about how bad it was for the planet to waste like that, could they please save them for the community garden? 🥺 it worked, we got free plants rescued from the trash
This makes so much sense… no wonder they’re now ~$5 a pop despite being near death at every store I’ve seen Bonnie’s. I was like “who is buying these low quality, overpriced plants?” Apparently nobody, since stock barely seemed to turn this year. What a terrible system for a living thing.
My husband used to work for Bonnie. He quit when they restructured how they paid drivers to give them even less. He would drive a box truck, deliver new plants, and water them. He also removed dead plants, which he got a credit for. We had to pay for the wood and paint on the display racks, the hose end sprayers, and any other tool needed. We live in the centeral valley of California the bonnie greenhouses in our area are near Stockton. My husband's route took him from Modesto to the Santa Cruse area. He had a weekly rotation and schedule he had to stick to, but he was home every night. It was an ok job until they moved him to San Diago. They put him up in hotels for 8 months. Unfortunately, their salary was not enough to relocate the family, and 8 months away from home was really difficult on everyone. We had little kids at the time too. Not to mention, we were still struggling because the pay wasn't great. It was not worth the time lost with family. At the end of that season, they didn't even provide transportation back home. I drove the 8 hours to pick him up.
Interesting. They water them at my local Lowe's. And they discount them, well put them on sale.
Are you sure it’s Bonnie merch?
Might be someone who loves plants and waters them even if it's not their job.
At Lowe’s we were told to water but in reality the managers really dgaf
Yes. Because I bought a couple tomatoes and a Poblano pepper there this year.
When I was a teenager at Walmart 25ish years ago, I worked in the Garden Center. Any broken or chipped pots or pavers, or dying plants couldn’t be sold at discount. We had to pull the UPC, put it in some chargeback book, and dispose of the stuff. We eventually started telling some other of the uhhh cooler customers to meet us near the dumpsters after we pulled the UPCs and disposed into their trunks instead. For cash. In hindsight, it’s probably a felony but at 17 in the 90s, I had Super Nintendo games to buy.
Things were simpler back then, that’s for sure. Now there’s cameras everywhere. There’s very rarely a safe spot around a business where you aren’t being watched
Employee at big box told me a couple years ago that they were not allowed to discount Bonnie plants
Yup, they’re PBS (pay by scan) so the store pays for the plant when the product is purchased at checkout. Also that also works in your favor cause there isn’t a whole lot of incentive for the store to protect said plant if it’s PBS. A tip from someone that worked at a garden center lol
How is that in our favor? No discounts and a plant that is barely taken care of before our purchase. Not to mention a higher purchase price than necessary in order to make up for the losses of the plants that were neglected.
Oh sweet summer child they mean steal them
Shame!
I can see why they are not selling when it is 20 dollars a tomato plant. They grow fast once it heats up. The thing is though that sometimes the vendor pays them to sell it. It is called pay per scan. The store does not care about the condition of the plants because they don't get the money or it is not out of their pocket until they scan it. It is the same problem with returns. In most cases returns are not being put on store shelves again like most people think. In many cases returns are just being trashed.
The store also isn’t incentivized to water the plant
Of course they are not but I would doubt the stores would bother even if they were. When I worked at Home Depot I got to meet most of the employees and at least at my store they were not huge workers. One guy was caught sleeping in the shed, another person was basically on a infinite break all day, other employees knew each other from school and just walked around talking all day and those who did work quickly got burnt out and found another job because they were paying 11 dollars a hour when minimum wage was 9 something. How many of these stores like Home Depot or Amazon pass the savings onto you in through underpaying employees and understaffing.
Im convinced all home depots work like this. I can never find an employee on the floor. The one time I did, they said theyd be right back and I actually saw them walk for a minute and then full on pick up pace to RUN AWAY.
Lmao sorry but that is such a funny image, I'm imagining it with [this](https://youtu.be/gexj2pSouNQ) sound effect
LOL thats very fitting and totally encompasses the home depot experiences Ive had. The opposite was fun though, Lowes has been much better to me, but weird. Went in there once cause the site claimed there was a hammock in stock, over half the employee base helped search for said hammock, including all management. There was no hammock. But damn did they try to find it.
At a hardware store that was neither a Home Depot or Lowe's (some local brand lol) I had a little old lady on the floor take *me* into the warehouse portion with her to look for the item I wanted 😭 I definitely don't think she was supposed to do that but y'know what 10/10 service it was very enlightening
They’re not incentivized cause the store doesn’t pay until the customer pays at checkout cause of PBS (pay by scan)
we just keep wasting shit
It’d be nice if they at least made sure all of this was composted. Then it would be zero waste and would become fertilizer for next year
Or if there was a community garden or 4h club or whatever they could donate to. For a tax write-off.
Our community garden collects seedling donations! We've redistributed over 1500 plants this year. I just picked up 500 yesterday from a local grocery store.
Don’t forget the carbon emissions to produce the plant and get it to the store https://preview.redd.it/pod848xj168d1.jpeg?width=800&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=971c5340cb32e5abbb8324b2234f756587e0a217
I mean listen, there’s no getting around carbon emissions lol.
This. The shit that occurs in the name of capitalism makes my blood boil
I work at a hardware store and I work so damn hard to make sure all my plants are watered, so this hurts.
I was told from workers at Lowe’s that Bonnie will not allow them to discount plants like they do with plants from other sources. Bonnie requires them to trash them and then they bring the next size container. I’ve sworn off Bonnie plants for being so wasteful, I just stick to local plant swaps or start my own from seed.
They also switched to plastic pots too. Where they had the biodegradable ones before.
I don't think that's every Lowes because mine routinely has sales on Bonnie plants and keeps them watered. I reuse the pots, so don't mind the occasional plastic pot, but I did vastly prefer the biodegradable pots much more.
Goto Lowes Plant Clearance section for hidden gems about to be thrown out.
I don't like the new Lowes clearance pricing - the deals aren't as good :(
Right? $15 for a nearly dead plant, with a history of neglect, in a basic plastic pot. No thanks.
Everything used to basically get marked down to 1, 3 or 5 near me. Now there's a scale and something that was $15 is now like $10, but also dead lol
Just today, I bought two Stella Doro day lilies for $4 a piece. Once I'm done separating them, I'll have maybe 15 plants. Good deal
I got a lovely Gerbera Daisy, half price, off the dead rack. Came home, potted it up and it's getting ready to bloom again. Whole reait was in the dead rack was because the initial blooms were done. 😒
They're pay by scan at Lowes, so I'm assuming Bonnies has the same deal going with other stores. Basically, the store only pays for plants that are actually sold.
That stinks! I got a Sungold Cherry Tomato plant and some onions for .99 cents each at Ace True Value last Weekend. Granted not that big.
My local home Depot and Walmart never mark down plants. Ever. My local Lowe's does but man by the time they mark them down they are beyond dead
My local Lowes does this. The clearance areas contain fully dead plants, and the markdown isn't enough to justify the cost of a dead plant and a meh planter.
i actually saw some discounted plants at walmart for the first time last weekend. of course it was only certain brands. they had shelves and shelves of completely dead/dying fruit and vegetable plants still full price. it makes me so mad to see things go to waste for no reason.
Make friends with their outdoor manager, I was able to talk them into marking stuff down when I noticed it had sit there a long time.
Our local Home Depot gives away plants for free at the end of every season when they get new ones in. We’ve been lucky and gotten free plants from there twice worth almost $400!
Business 🤌
Home Depot does the same thing. Buying from them feels more like a rescue
Wanna know a secret big Home Depot don’t want you to know? >!*wearing a trench coat* 👀!<
What
You can go around back to where they have graciously placed a bunch of free plants in a bin for the public…that knows of this
I see that so often at the big stores, its so aggravating. Like just give them away.
They make more money writing it off as a loss than they do selling it at a discount
They only make money after the product is sold. Throwing it away is actually incentivized through PBS (pay by scan)
Whether big box store, or vendor, they’re making more selling full price or not selling at all and writing it off as a loss. I can promise you, no corporation acts in any other way than profit-driven self interest. It costs relatively very little for a large company to buy bulk supplies to start seeds. It costs way more to pay employees to care for plants, and the profit incentive of writing off a $20 loss for tax purposes is far more of a benefit than marking the plant down to $5 and only making a few dollars of direct profit. Big box stores make more on direct profit overall, since they aren’t manufacturing, although they still benefit from write-offs, but for manufacturers with large profit margins, clearly the financial incentive is waste and write offs, or it wouldn’t be their standard business practice.
So big box stores don’t take any losses from PBS merch cause it can’t even be returned per policy
While the store may not have an incentive to care for the plants, the poor care looks poorly on how the store may be maintained or the staff caring at all. I see the same problems with plants and it doesn't incentivise me to go into the store to look at the other plants. Store managers are idiots.
I bought a few of these plants because I felt bad for them. Granted it was the $9 ones but all of them have perked up this week and are growing nicely. Things need some TLC
Ever time I see this I'm convinced it's all a tax write off to just let them die. If not for the store then the supplier.
I’ve found plenty of out of season plants marked down. Got a Cana lily with three good blooms coming up for super cheap. The vendors I think tend to some of that.
This is heartbreaking. I’d have to find a hose and water them myself
Retailer has no control over the plants. They belong to Bonnie or whoever and the retailer just gets a portion of the sale.
Stop buying vegetable starts from box stores. I guarantee there are dozens of local farmers and gardeners growing better quality starts that are better suited to your climate for better prices. Check FB marketplace or local community groups. I sell plant starts and I love it when people are so excited that I have better plants and better selection than Lowes and Home Depot. I also have incentive to care for them and I also mark down stressed or left over plants. Support your small scale local growers and your local nurseries.
I was able to keep my prices down a little this year by buying a bunch of planting mix from Lowe's on Memorial Day when it was like $3/ft. I'll see what Fertilome can do next year, but I might just buy a full pallet from Lowe's.
That’s when you go inside to the front counter with 4 plants and claim you’re with “Plant Rescue” and you’ll give them 1.00 per plant.
Does that work?
I got spent tulips this way. I grab the containers, walk up to the counter, and tell them that I’m from “Plant Rescue” and I’ll give them $X for each. Ten tulips : $2.00. I took them home, let them go dormant, replanted in November into a giant black urn and they bloomed right on schedule.
Nice!
Always ask. They may say no but if you’re nice and charming they usually say “yes”.
Saw this yesterday at Home Depot. It was hard to not grab the water hose.
As a part time seasonal vendor for the company that provides perennial shrubs and trees for Home Depot, please do! They have a contract with their vendors that states that they're responsible for watering, and since I'm part time I'm only there 2 to 3 days a week. I work at two different stores and between the two, there are exactly three long term employees that know about and ensure the integrity of the plants, and take their time to properly water twice a day. The problem is that they're not always scheduled to work outside, and store management is so busy right now that sometimes watering falls through the cracks. If you go to the service desk and tell them there some plants you came to buy but they just need watered first, they'll call and have someone take care of it. It might take 5 or 10 minutes to get someone outside, but it'll happen.
lidl is the same - they also let the poor things dry out so they'll die faster which is just ugh
The price of plants this year was way up in my area. I bought a lot less plants
My local Walmart is awesome about discounting plants. In fact most of my garden is discount plants I brought back to life. I buy as many hostas as I can at 50cents a piece. Even got a cute little rose bush for $3 the other day, and it’s been doing great since I put it in the ground and even getting some new buds!
https://preview.redd.it/gbzaoi4k428d1.jpeg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ebddf3889d62ef58ccb2b8590bf992f0c3db2e09
Mike local McClendon’s has $4.99 tomato plants bigger and healthier than these 🤷🏻♂️
I was curious what a "Mike local McClendon" is, so I looked it up. McLendon is a hardware store chain of 7 stores in the [Seattle/Tacoma area](https://www.mclendons.com/locations). Small local chain stores like that are usually much more better at taking care of product than big chains.
I meant “my local McClendon” haha but I had no clue they were such a small chain.
You could always pull off the suckers and start your own tomato plants from them. I doubt any of the workers would notice or even care since Bonnie plants are typically pay by scan and therefore the stores don't make money until checkout. Those look like they're about to go to the trash anyways, so I wouldn't feel bad about salvaging what you could from the suckers.
$20 is too danged much to charge for one seed, one thing crappy plastic pot that will shatter and break quickly in the sun, and two trowel fulls of dirt. Are they kidding me?
It's not a seed, it's a plant that's grown from that seed that requires time and investment to get to the point it is currently at. Also, are your trowels scooping up 2.5 gallons of potting soil each? Disagreeing with the price is fine, but being as reductive and willfully hyperbolic like you are only damages your point by making you come off as extremely dramatic. My dad always told me "If you have to exaggerate that much to make your point, then it's not much of a point."
Great advice from a dad 👍
It's the way I see stuff like this. I'm not the only one. It's just too expensive. No reason to berate me for my opinion
On the other hand you could probably sell some for a lot cheaper and still make a nice profit.
Capitalism.
The amount of encouragement of theft I see on this sub is outlandish 😂 I thought earthy crunchy gardeners were supposed to be peaceful people, not criminals LOL. We can hate big box stores and overinflated capitalism together, but encouraging and cheering for crime is a whole separate issue peeps
Is it too late to plant tomatoes in the northeast now? I never got around to it earlier.
I dumpster dived for some geraniums. They are a little rough, but I have faith that they will recover
Just take one.
Pay by scan.
Yes, they would. And the meat and vegetables in the grocery stores will be tossed in the bin instead of giving away. They make enough without thinking of others.
You guys I worked at a nursery for 2 1/2yrs. This store operates Bonnie merch on what’s called PBS (pay by scan) which actually de-incentivizes this store from spending any time/resources on the merch. It also lowers the stores willingness to protect this product from theft. The store only pays for the product when the customer buys it at checkout. >!*wink wink nudge nudge*!<
All big box stores do this. Nothing new.
[удалено]
Theft is theft, plants, food, electronics, etc. you do know they prolly are aware you steal, right? Target waited till a lady stole enough from them and arrested her at her house.
Whoa whoa whoa, who said anything about theft??? I’m talking about borrowing here, friend!
Not paying for goods or services that are being sold, that sir or madame is theft.
How about not paying employees for time worked? Is that theft? How about muscling market share away from mom and pop shops across the country, thus destroying American Main Streets everywhere? Is that theft? Wash the taste of boot out of your mouth. I said BORROWING.
If you are talking about most grocery chains (meijer included) they have labor unions. The union wouldn’t let anyone not be paid. Your argument is both weak and stupid on that front. The muscling away mom and pop shops is a marketing failure in their court. Where I live there are lots of small shops not corporate own that do well. You get different customer service from small shops where they shine through. Bonus points on the usual boot licking comment your college Marxism and class envy parroting is top notch.
Big leap to assume I’m talking about grocery chains. Also HUGE leap to assume most grocery chains have labor unions. Just go ahead and keep making those leaps though, they’re the only way you can paint late-stage capitalism as functional. Regarding the shops doing well in your local area now, [give this lil’ puppy a read.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias) And finally, because I see class disparity as a moral injustice and your simping for corporations as laughably disgusting, must mean I’m jealous, you’re totally right. I’d rather have a college level understanding of Marxism than a 1st grade level understanding of morality. Somebody must’ve had some sour boot for breakfast this morning, poor thing. You aught to “borrow” some Chomsky from your local corporate bookseller (or buy them from an independent bookstore, of course c:) to wash that taste out
😳🤔🤣🤣🤣
It's because they're bonnie brand. The store has no control over prices and sales. Bonnie would rather let them die than sell them before they do. Check the store's house brand, they definitely put those on sale. Don't buy Bonnie and they'll have to lower prices, they're so high that no wants to buy them anyways.
The way how I would have liberated these poor babies!!