Is it just me or have you all noticed how expensive annuals seem this year? Yesterday at WalMart a complete stranger and I struck up this conversation while we were picking through expensive, half dead plants :-? Maybe I'm just a tightwad, but my pots and baskets will be much less this summer!
Same here in the UK. I don't know what sort of weather you've been having but here in the UK,early Spring was a complete wash-out and many nurseries around the country,that were hoping for lots of sales were badly disappointed.I think they rely on people buying early and then having to rebuy after the frosts get the first purchases If this has been the case in your part of the world then I expect,like nurserymen here,they are trying to recoup some losses by hiking up the prices I've all but stopped buying annuals/bedding plants in favour of perennials or shrubs.If I want annuals then I buy,beg or swap seedlings with my friends.
The prices have shot way up this year. I've only bought two packs of seeds and that's only because they are scented wildflowers and ones that attract butterflies and bees. I'll be saving their seeds for next year as I don't want to pay these overly inflated prices in the shops and garden centres.
Definitely! Next year, I am going to grow my own annuals! And it's not just the annuals ... a few of the nursery's I went to were charging over $14+ for a perennial with one tiny piece of plant!
I'm glad you said something. I'm a newbie to gardening, and haven't had much experience buying plants. But I'm trying to establish some kind of garden in the house we just moved to, and I was suffered pretty heavily from sticker shock the first few times I went to shop for shrubs and flowers for the garden. Wow! I figured it was just me, but from your comments it's looking like the prices I'm seeing are actually pretty high.
Gotta love one of the big nurseries here... they jack up their prices and then lure you in by having a 1/2 off sale. Okay... that's what the "normal" prices should be. You can find a couple good deals during that time, but they are few and far in-between. Thank goodness for mark-down racks... and friends to swap plants/seeds with.
My favorite is the 1/2 off sale..."buy one get one 1/2 off" What a ridiculous and deceiving "sale". I saw the ugly and mostly dead hanging baskets at W.M. that other day and was astounded that they were trying to sell something I would throw away. I didn't go look at the small plants, but I was at H.D. the other day and the bonnie plants were outrageous. Single tomatoes for $3.49 each. Heirlooms or hybrids don't cost but pennies to buy each seed. The labor and material aren't that much, either. You are paying for an enormous amount of advertising. An heirloom shouldn't cost as much as a hybrid either. A hybrid is much more labor intensive to produce the seed than an heirloom, but they all try to get in on the media hype that the heirlooms are soooo much more valuable. I am always disappointed at the few fruits each manages to produce, but this year I have higher hopes for my plants, I am trying a bunch of new to me seeds from other growers who tell me they are great producers and taste good too. I am planting all the flowers I have left over from my greenhouse this year, which is a boatload, I don't seem to have the market for them, yet, but I keep growing them just in case I get a corner on it some year. Today I am filling the flower beds with, geraniums, new guinea impatiens, begonias, lobelia, ageratum...what ever is out there that I can fit in. I wish you all lived closer I would give you the left overs I have.
Boy, I wish I lived closer too I looked hi and low this afternoon for 4, good looking red geraniums I finally found some, sort of. There are 4 of them and they are geraniums...they aren't the prettiest I've ever seen but I'll give them some TLC and they should be just fine. I saved Marigold, Morning Glory and 4 O'Clock seeds from last year that all got planted last night. Now the waiting begins... :-?
Yes I've been learning how to gather seeds. I have only been gardening for a couple years and the tomatos went up since last year.
Deanna, red geraniums I didn't have. They were the first to go and unbelievable I sold every 4" geranium I had this year. The last 25 went for a wedding this past weekend. The last ones that didn't sell were a tray of spindly looking white ones, but I figured with a little tlc (or none what so ever) they would look better after a few weeks of being in the ground instead of a crowded flat. Yours should do fine, too. give them a dose of fertilizer and watch them grow.
One of my long time customer. . Sell me plants at his cost He owns a grocery store.. And See prices have gone way up from the grower
Looking at Lowe's yesterday I found yellow yarrow--I'd been missing having yarrow in the flowerbeds. Of course it was on the mark-down shelf at $1.49 for a 4" pot! I bit the bullet and got two, but those yarrows better perform!
I looked at Lowe's mark down rack yesterday. Lots of Lantana... which doesn't like growing at my place. And Salvias.. which I have plenty of. They did have some flats of sedum "carpet" for around $4. I almost got one but couldn't think of a place to put it and really don't know how'd they do here. So I left the store empty handed (probably a first!)
Awe that stinks Cheryl, I'm waiting for stuff I want at lowes, they have a lot of stuff that doesn't seem to be moving, I'm watching the blue and black berry plants. They have a lot doesn't seem to be selling so just waiting for the clearance rack. Haha I'm such a cheapskate.
Yeah... it's a hit & miss thing... but it's worth it when you finally find something good for a cheap price.
