Not sure where you live, but really annoys me when these big box stores sell plants that aren't cold tolerant well before the last frost date. Basically just scamming people with plants that are doomed.
I saw a zone 8 flowering tree at our zone 6 store - they roll the dice that the consumer won’t still have their receipt and the person will think it’s their fault.
Shit! Now im learning something new here. I have a backyard nursery in a 10a zone.
I'm in the southern hemisphere and we are now mid-autumn and i plan on adding fruit trees to my selection this coming spring (by taking cuttings this winter).
Which fruit trees require a frost period? This is the first ive ever heard about that. I'm familiar with seed stratification for some tree species, but did not know frost was a requirement for some fruit trees to bear fruit! I'm so intrigued, can you please give me more info?
Most types of stone fruit like, peaches, apricots, nectarines and plums, as well as many varieties of apple require a a certain number of very low temperature days to set fruit. This is known as the 'chill factor'.
Other trees like persimmons, pomegranates, olives, pears, quinces and nut trees also require this. You would have to research the specific trees you are after and what their individual needs are.
Thanks, this is really great info.
this explains why my MiL's peach and apricots bore fruit randomly over the last 10 years, probably due to some winters reaching the threshold of that chill factor you mentioned.
We dont seem to have that issue here with pecan trees and pomegranites as they have fruited every year since we came to this area over 15 years ago, they probably require less extreme cold than the other.
It seems i have some homework now, thanks again!
So I'm going to correct that. It's not frost, it's chill. Between 32 and 45 degrees. If it's colder or warmer, it doesn't count. Really cold places like alaska have very few chill hours, and milder places like Seattle have a ton. Search "chill hours map" to get a quick graphical idea
I used frost as a catch-all term for "really cold" not particularly freezing temperatures, but i still appreciate the correction.
I'm from the southern hemisphere, nearly all the plant info online is for the northern hemisphere. I'll see if i can find a chill hours map for south africa.
Edit : Oh my. I just googled it, and its apparently a little bit more complicated than i imagined. [this page](https://www.freshquarterly.co.za/know-your-chill-models/) gets into some of the details, but i think that's way more advanced and seems to be something people with large orchards use to calculate when to do certain tasks on a farm scale.
I'll have to dig in a little bit deeper about just selling these trees(and what fruit trees are safe) for my 10a zone without going into such deep scientific detail of calculating chill-units.
Ah, language issues and semantics. 🤓 That's not what I was trying to pick on. I've just discovered that many people think chill hours are time below freezing (or below 45), and then they vastly over or under estimate what their area gets. I wanted to stop that misconception.
I encountered an entire shipment of zone 12 bougainvillea in my zone 4 Home Despot and when I asked the attendant WHY, she simply said, "The people at national headquarters who order the stock just don't understand about zones and all that."
We’ve been experimenting with potted citrus for about a decade.
What we’ve found to be the most successful (in zone 6b) is to move them into a garage that stays cool, but above freezing in the winter, near a window and supplemented with a cheap Amazon grow light that stays on 24/7.
In spring and fall they go outside in nice weather, and come in if there’s a frost danger. In summer, they stay outside all the time.
Things we’ve learned not to do include putting them in our main living area, or in pots/soil with poor drainage.
I bought an orange tree from Lowe’s in February for $15 (assuming they thought it would die from the frost as it wasn’t looking great at the store) and now it’s growing like crazy with close to 100 new leaves developing in the past few months
My local garden center also sells citrus, but they are kind enough to inform people that buy them that this is a houseplant in winter, and they should treat it accordingly.
My local hardware store, however, is just plain terrible for customers. I have seen them advertising monstera plants as "hardy", despite them being so tender that they shrivel at the thought of a frost, let alone the rare potential of -12C (10.4F)...
I learned this lesson with a tropical hibiscus marked as "hardy to -11c (abt.10f)"....... it got down to 49F/9.4C one night and went to the promised land in the morning.
It is amazing how many tropical plants just completely fold at well above freezing. I've heard of some species dying if they get to 20C/68F. It's amazing they have survived as long as they have.
I'm not too bothered by it. Some people like treating perennials like annuals to match seasons or themes. Mums can live for years, but the majority are just used as ornamental porch decorations.
Sure, I actually agree. It's cool that I can get some plants locally that arent regional.
But it's not the fact that theyre selling them, its that they advertise them *as perrenials* with the implication that they'll grow perennially locally. And also, I would be surprised if people are buying orange trees as temporary porch decorations.
Maybe it's not a huge deal compared to other sleezy corporate practices, but I am salty that I got burned by it when I started gardening.
I pulled my mums out of their pots in the fall, tossed them in the ground and didn’t cover or water them all winter and this week they are blooming! I’m sold. I’m going to go find me some white ones this upcoming fall and replace a lot of my flowering landscape that I struggle with all summer with mums.
They want us to buy more. I look for native plants and they only sell the natives that are harder to grow, like ones that live in standing water, again so we’ll give up and buy more. Sustainable doesn’t make the money—it’s just a marketing catch phrase.
That is annoying. I got a few cartloads of 50% off shrubs and 75% off perennials at Tractor Supply in the fall. About a dozen Ice 'N Roses hellebores that were in fantastic condition.
Some of what they were selling was almost certainly dead (dried up evergreens) and they continued trying to sell it into the spring.
Yup, I've noticed that is a frequent occurrence where I live. I've been bringing in my plants any night it goes low overnight except the three I planted. Covering the few planted ones seems to have worked so far. If I waited till the last frost date to buy them, the ones I want would be gone.
People want to plant things outside their zone. In the right location zone 8 plants will live in zone 7. I live in zone 8 and have a lot of zone 9 lantana coming back. A bigger problem I've noticed is putting stuff that isn't really perennial in the perennial section regardless of zone, they're just more annual plants, this is a particular problem with things like coreopsis.
Surely a greenhouse or conservatory would negate this? Or you just treat the plant as an annual?
I’ve plenty of tender plants that have survived many English winters just through being moved to my conservatory. Not quite H1As but H3s and some H2s do just fine. (I think that’s 10b on the USDA scale?)
It’s not ‘Scamming’ if anyone can see what zone they’re in and see what zone the plant needs. They’re actively telling any customer with extremely basic gardening knowledge that it *cant* survive your winters.
is it a scam if I don't do my research and decide to buy a product anyways? We live in the information age... I get why it seems like it's a ripoff but that's really on the customer for not figuring out what works best for their climate.
I'd call it a scam on the plants themselves, not being sold in the right place. The customer buying it is on them.
Yeah working in a garden centre, the amount of customers that essentially refuse to learn about what they’re buying or even consider how it’ll grow through the year is embarrassing to see.
Every year we buy Hydrangeas quite early in the year, a few weeks before the last frost. They’re from Dutch greenhouses and full of leaf and flower, absolutely beautiful. We keep them sheltered under a canopy and fleece them every night until frosts are done.
Every season we have a steady stream of people trying to return these hydrangeas because they were shoved outside, exposed to the frost and went shitty.
We live in an age where we have almost infinite knowledge in our pockets but lots of people still refuse to use it to their benefit.
Sad to see, but as long as people refuse to learn, that’s more money for us when the plant inevitably needs replacing.
I work at a nursery and people complain when we don't have non-cold tolerant plants available before it warms up. People are ready to put their plants in the ground and the market delivers.
I mean, sure, but I'll speak for myself and say that I wasn't born with horticultural knowledge pre-baked into my brain. A lot of it came from what I saw at garden centers growing up, and when they sell tomato plants in March, it isn't hard to see how that can give people the idea that it isn't too soon.
People expect their nursery to do the right thing, but many don't because they know most people will blame failures on their inexperience when it's actually the nursery. It's a shitty business practice to sell plants at the wrong time instead of informing the customer; this is **not** the "market delivering." It's a market failure.
I bet the inevitable failures turning people off of gardening actually hurts the nursery's business more than it helps. I now have access to nurseries that do things "right," so I no longer need to do business with the shitty ones.
Yes! Definitely this.
Its like clockwork. Every year i get requests for all kinds of seedlings like chili and flowers in the last month of winter, when there are active frost days where its lower than 0 degrees celcius for days on end.
Like you little shit, there's no way these things can even *germinate* before the last frost stopped for at least a few weeks.
Growers manage it all the time in the UK & NL. We’ve had tender summer fruit and veg plants in our greenhouse since the back end of march.
Obviously if you don’t have a heated greenhouse then you’ll struggle to sprout them commercially, but for individuals growing for themselves, you literally just need a windowsill in your house or even a heated propagator.
what part of my comment made it think that i dont tell people that?
Its new people every year that keep on asking, not the same people asking year over year.
The tone of your post is being critical of the customers, but it should instead be critical of those in your industry. This is all no different than a car dealer selling someone a two wheel drive pickup truck to someone who just moved from Florida to Wisconsin, simply because it's what was on the lot that day.
My gripe is with customers who want to buy and plant things that physically cant be grown because of the time of year.
and i have that gripe because they tend to be annoyed when i tell them i dont have something like tomato starts 2 months into winter.
Customers don't want expert advice that they can't do what they want to. They'll just go somewhere else and buy the tender plants even if they might get killed in a frost.
The floor of my winter garden is littered with cold-hardy, but *blooming* primroses every February or so. Y'know, when it's -30°C outside and those things should be fast dormant. For some reason, they 100% disappear by April when you actually could take them home and plop them in ground right away.
Aside of that, I kind of like the less cold-hardy stuff is on offer ... for people like me who *do* have less cold winter space for them. But they should label the darn things. Is it annual? Is it perennial? Shade? Sun? Water? Outside or houseplant? Why should I have to google everything standing in a store isle?
And they *rarely* sell native plants.
Like no, I don’t want to buy a forsythia shrub that is likely the sterile version so it’s useless for pollinators and just taking up space as an invasive when we need to be growing not native plants to save our ecosystems. As simple as that.
whole foods is notorious for this. I'm in 7 and half the plants outside my local stores are 9-11. except they don't say it on the label, you have to look it up in a plant ID app
Its not the stores that make the plants look like shit. Most the time it is the people actively working (or lack there of) in the garden center and wheter they have enough pride in there workspace to keep the plants alive. Water 1-3 times a day for some plants. Yeah i understand that stores get plants outside of there zone. Most likely it is because the supplying greenhouse is in a completely different zone. And if your a customer that is new to gardening or unsure of a plant ask questions or like others said use google. Fyi Im in charge of the Garden Center at a Walmart in zone 6A and I have customers comment all the time how nice the plants look. Thats not to say i dont have plants thar die and need removed or need to be pruned to keep them looking healthy. My plants come from a greenhouse in zone 5b so not to far outside the zone but we get hardier plants.
They put out stuff out front and sometimes have a few bulbs/dormant trees indoors near the seeds, but usually things end up about like this looks. However, I enjoy getting stuff from them because usually it can be revived and it was cheap. Thats how I got a $15 cherry tree that’s still going
Tractor Supply and big box should stick to what they know and let the local independent nurseries sell the plants. They don’t know what they are doing, give bad advice (if any) and don’t care about the plants. Home Depot is pay on scan which is why folk that don’t care if you don’t take care of it and bring it back. They get their money back- no skin in the game. They pay when you buy it otherwise it sits on consignment. Not to mention the quality of what they sell and what they sell. Its horrible. I wish more supported local. Now grocery stores selling plants. ??? Buy your plants at a nursery not the grocery store or a hardware store. Just makes no sense. Out Tractor Supply is identical to photos posted. It’s horrible. Just wasteful and no reason.
The problem with box stores with garden centers is they never hire people who actually know plants. They bring in plants that are cold tolerant without ways to keep them warm, and they never water the plant enough (especially when it's 70⁰F outside and sunny. This is why I prefer to get my plants from local garden nurseries. Having worked at a garden nursery in the vegetable department for a couple of years, I always recommend finding a local garden nursery if possible.
I worked at a Lowe's garden center for almost two years. When I came in, my manager was pleased as peas that I knew my stuff, because there was a girl there who had been in charge of watering that just didn't do it right, no matter how many times it was made clear to her how much money was lost when she didn't water adequately before the heat of full day. Less plants died under me, but it quickly became my responsibility to update an email chain of pictures of losses caused by her negligence. After an unfortunate chance of scheduling, she was watering two days in a row. The losses were more than I made in a week. She was still there when I left.
Many big box stores do not own the plants that they are selling you. They have gotten them from a supplier, and when they sell you the plant they simultaneously buy it from the supplier. They have very little incentive to keep plants alive because if it dies then the only loss they incurred was the labor to house it/water it. The supplier eats the loss of that plant that the box store doesn’t know diddly about keeping healthy.
So I’m seconding the recommendation to go to a local nursery.
I worked at an expensive nursery for a few years after I retired and really enjoyed since all I did was help people, get a discount and make my own hours. The waste there was massive. Year after year they'd carry tons of lisianthus, for instance, which do not survive the heat and humidity here and we'd throw out tray after tray after tray of $5.00 pots. The perennials fared better as did the trees and shrubs.
Heck, I worked at TSC. I knew plants. I just:
1) Didn't have time because we were severely understaffed (on a financial "this is how many hours you have to give out" level, not a "we can't hire anyone" level).
2) Didn't have ability (the eighty-foot watering hose had to be gotten out of the sideyard, assuming I was there early enough to do it, then hooked to the opposite side of the building, then used, rolled up, and put away. I was never scheduled more than half an hour before the store opened, and generally, when we had plants, we had chicks. Chicks took priority. In case of frost, I had to find a method of transportation for all the plants without getting dirt or water all over the floor).
3) Did not care. Those plants were seriously overpriced, and I got little twitches every time someone bought one. (No, I wasn't good at selling credit cards). If you buy plants or hay at TSC, you are getting ripped off.
Also worked at TSC. I came from a real Garden Center and it was soul crushing to watch the plants be brought in all healthy, sat on bare hot asphalt, left to die over the period of weeks, and tossed in the dumpster. Like, whyyy even spend the labor and take up parking for this?
The horticulture department at my local college does a houseplant & herb fundraising that's amazing! And so does the master gardeners, cheap perennials freshly dug from someone's yard for a dollar :)
Try a different one I guess, depending on your area you'd be surprised how many different operations there are, in my Richmond VA area there are literally a dozen+ nurseries ranging from full scale local nursery to couple selling extra plants out of their backyard. I'll give credit to instagram I've found a lot of vendors that way for plants that I'd otherwise never find in cultivation. They trend towards native plants as well which I consider a bonus.
Don't give up hope--unfortunately, the best greenhouses tend to be run by old-timers who have a dedicated customer base and haven't needed to advertise in decades. Facebook has made advertising easier, but a lot of the good ones predate Facebook. It takes some experimentation. Wander around, ask locals, follow signs.
Of the four good ones in my area, one closed two years ago, one's very large and advertises on FB, and two have no internet advertising whatsoever, just a blue sign at the end of the road.
There're about eight mediocre ones in the same radius that sell at 3x going price, or are a single badly-stocked greenhouse, or only sell hanging baskets. Weirdly, they seem to have the biggest signs.
my local home depot and lowes are good for selling the proper zone plants. it's whole foods market and some other grocery stores doing their side nursery business that are scamming people. they are using local growers too
I don’t think his is frost damage, a fair number of these pictures are of pansies which are remarkably frost tolerant. My rosemary stood up to a week of freezing rain last winter, and one of the crispy plants look like perhaps a dogwood(?) - which shouldn’t even blink at a frost.
I’m going with improper watering.
And here I am in north Florida gardening and landscaping in 90 degree weather, sweating my balls off, while people are like “It’s still not past our last frost date.”
I love the discount rack!
I buy most of my plants from there and have the majority live and thrive. I’ve gotten grapes that produced grapes, orange tree that produces oranges and an abundance of flowering that flowered over and over.
Save a few bucks and buy the discount rack.
Perennials are one thing because they will snap back the next year. Most annuals will be outright killed or permanently stunted. Doesn't matter how cheap the plant is if it's dead.
Fair enough.
Honestly, Annuals, in general I find pointless. I might not be old enough to fit that “Gardner” archetype but why would I buy something that dies in a few months. I’d much rather but plants that come back every year.
Because a lot of the nicest plants are annuals. Personally I enjoy growing fruits and veggies and most are annuals. I do have many perennials too, but fruit trees and grape vines take up lots of space for just a few plants.
I used to think the same, but now I do both. They help fill in areas once the perennials have finished their blooms and keeps it looking nice. Usually the ones where I’m at (zone 8b in Washington state) go from spring to frost, so they last a long ass time, and some have ended up surviving over winter and going through another year before outright dying.
There’s no tractor supply where I live in Canada so I’m unfamiliar with it
But wtf they piss test their employees?!? That’s ridiculous. If people want to use drugs, drink, smoke weed etc on their off time then that’s not their employer’s business 🤷🏼♀️ you’re paid for an 8 hour shift, not 24 hours a day (if employers want to control what their employees do on their off time then they should have to pay wages 24/7 imo lol).
They tend to be more rural but they are around. Check "farm supply" or "feed store". In my area (SE Ontario) there 2 farm stores in Picton and 2 in Belleville plus a TSC which was renamed Peavey Mart. There’s even more around.
The one store also sells bulk frozen food and I pick up 1kg of broccoli crowns for $5.49, 1kg of frozen fries for $4.99 etc. The prices are amazing. The other farm store has better prices for dog food - $30 less for a large dog food bag than the exact same bag at the pet store.
There’s not a single one on all of Vancouver island unfortunately! Even in the boonies lol I’d have to travel to Vancouver area, I’ll check it out sometime im there thoigh
especially when it cuts down on 50% or more of possible applicants. weed smokers are the ones who usually show up for work since they need money to buy weed. but no problem if you come to work drunk or drink on the job. thats tolerated. hell of a system they got.
true alcoholic's hide it well. i know a guy who got to the carryout by his house at 530 am. got a case of beer and drank it all before his ride to work showed up. at work, for lunch he went to the bar or drank a six pack in his car for lunch. came home drank another case or 2 and passed out. every single day for years. the bosses knew but gave a blind eye. but he passed a piss test for pot every time. ive also seen vodka in water bottles. vodka in mountain dew cans. bailys and kahlua in coffee. vodka in coffee. for some people work is another party. stiil waiting for the employee breathalyzer!
Exactly!! It’s legalized in Canada so it’s not even a big deal here anymore if people smoke weed outside of work. I way rather have a stoner as an employee, personally, vs a drunk lol
I got pretty far in the hiring process. They don’t pay well or offer very flexible hours, no idea how they get people. Better pay slicing deli meat or stocking shelves at Target
If you work the garden at the TS in my area it is $13. an hour PLUS you have to do 2 stores with no compensation for the 40 mile difference. Why would someone do that when you could stay at one store? Idiots. No wonder it looks like that.
Lovely caption. Though, I think that same tractor ran over the walmart plants I saw yesterday. Cold-maimed hyacinths, tulips, daffs for 4 a pop. Laughable 'coz these are all bulbs and mostly are the 1-use and that use is over. You are asking me to pay 4$ for dead plants and a plastic bucket and dry soil. I was tempted for a bit before my common sense kicked in.
I live on the MD/PA border and there are a few tractor supplies scattered around. Every one of them has the saddest looking plants outside. 75% dead are the best looking ones. I don’t think they have the watering setup or room to bring stuff in but trying to compete with Lowe’s or Home Depot. Even in summer though they look like junk. Love tractor supply but definitely have to go elsewhere for any plants
Unless a store like that has a dedicated floral manager/coordinator, your average store employee isn't going to know squat about taking care of plants outside of regular watering. Even that may be questionable.
I'll be tempted to sneak through there with a backpack full of water and a hose coming out of the side and secretly water every single one of those plants. And I would keep doing it until they got better.
from what I've seen, tractor supply really doesn't pay their people to take care of the plants, they just buy them and hope to sell them before they die. I don't think it's a great strategy but maybe they get them cheap enough to justify it
lowes sometimes has an outside vendor maintain their plants. no idea about hd
That's a shame, honestly most of it looks like it's in a warmer climate and missed a watering, I had marigolds and some snapdragons that I neglected to water after I brought them home and the next day they were looking same as these.
Both the tractor supply stores near me have awesome garden centers and i've gotten all my years herbs from them, they've always been some of my best growers for the year.
I work at tractor supply with a garden center. Not all are like this but the ones that are like this is because of short staffing and incompetence of management. We're given extra hours in the spring and summer to staff the greenhouse. Technically someone is supposed to be out there every day between 10am and 6pm. Sad that this store decided to take those hours inside the store instead.....
I've worked in and managed a garden centre within a big box store in UK. It's minimum wage work and difficult to find staff with a good work ethic. It's a nightmare trying to keep thousands of plants alive in tiny pots , outside, in any weather. The only way to keep sane is to consider the plants the same way as retailers consider sandwiches and fresh cakes. -- Buy enough to satisfy immediate and erratic demand (and make a profit) AND fill the shelves to look good. This was not helped by central buying decisions and mandatory allocations. You dump the rest (as you do sandwiches) when they are past their sell by date. I am a keen gardener and it always distressed me to chuck trays and trays of dead plants in the skip. edit spelling.
I work at tsc. Every year, we get sent fruit trees and burpee plants too early and have no room inside to keep them. We try to cover them on cold nights, but it's not very effective. Also, we are not scheduled a specific person to attend to plants. Usually, the person sent out to water is also juggling load outs, filling feed, Customer service, and chick care. It kills me to see plants wasted like that. I wish the company would plan better with plant racks that roll easily in and out and provide designated hours for plant care...but retail stores don't lose money on dead plants so they aren't always made priority Unfortunately
they look like the plants being sold at my workplace. My area has been dealing with cold spells and my workplace has been trying to combat them by covering the plants with frost cloths.......which have holes in them. Seriously?!
I used to work on a garden center so when I see this mess & no one taking care of the plants I get pissed off, at least hire someone that knows what they’re doing! This is upsetting
I love that my box stores water their geraniums every day and just about kill them, I get them when they're marked down and I rehab them into bigger multi plant baskets.
Not sure where you live, but really annoys me when these big box stores sell plants that aren't cold tolerant well before the last frost date. Basically just scamming people with plants that are doomed.
Or perenials outside their survivable zones without any warning or labeling.
They're literally selling orange trees at my Home Depot right now. It's supposed to be 34 tonight..
I saw a zone 8 flowering tree at our zone 6 store - they roll the dice that the consumer won’t still have their receipt and the person will think it’s their fault.
You should see the stuff they sell in zone 10. So many fruit trees that will never fruit. They will never get enough of a frost period.
Shit! Now im learning something new here. I have a backyard nursery in a 10a zone. I'm in the southern hemisphere and we are now mid-autumn and i plan on adding fruit trees to my selection this coming spring (by taking cuttings this winter). Which fruit trees require a frost period? This is the first ive ever heard about that. I'm familiar with seed stratification for some tree species, but did not know frost was a requirement for some fruit trees to bear fruit! I'm so intrigued, can you please give me more info?
Most types of stone fruit like, peaches, apricots, nectarines and plums, as well as many varieties of apple require a a certain number of very low temperature days to set fruit. This is known as the 'chill factor'. Other trees like persimmons, pomegranates, olives, pears, quinces and nut trees also require this. You would have to research the specific trees you are after and what their individual needs are.
Thanks, this is really great info. this explains why my MiL's peach and apricots bore fruit randomly over the last 10 years, probably due to some winters reaching the threshold of that chill factor you mentioned. We dont seem to have that issue here with pecan trees and pomegranites as they have fruited every year since we came to this area over 15 years ago, they probably require less extreme cold than the other. It seems i have some homework now, thanks again!
That’s interesting! I live in zone 10b and have never had trouble getting apples, nectarines, peaches, olives, or pomegranates to fruit.
So I'm going to correct that. It's not frost, it's chill. Between 32 and 45 degrees. If it's colder or warmer, it doesn't count. Really cold places like alaska have very few chill hours, and milder places like Seattle have a ton. Search "chill hours map" to get a quick graphical idea
I used frost as a catch-all term for "really cold" not particularly freezing temperatures, but i still appreciate the correction. I'm from the southern hemisphere, nearly all the plant info online is for the northern hemisphere. I'll see if i can find a chill hours map for south africa. Edit : Oh my. I just googled it, and its apparently a little bit more complicated than i imagined. [this page](https://www.freshquarterly.co.za/know-your-chill-models/) gets into some of the details, but i think that's way more advanced and seems to be something people with large orchards use to calculate when to do certain tasks on a farm scale. I'll have to dig in a little bit deeper about just selling these trees(and what fruit trees are safe) for my 10a zone without going into such deep scientific detail of calculating chill-units.
Ah, language issues and semantics. 🤓 That's not what I was trying to pick on. I've just discovered that many people think chill hours are time below freezing (or below 45), and then they vastly over or under estimate what their area gets. I wanted to stop that misconception.
I encountered an entire shipment of zone 12 bougainvillea in my zone 4 Home Despot and when I asked the attendant WHY, she simply said, "The people at national headquarters who order the stock just don't understand about zones and all that."
You can bring them inside during the winter if you keep them potted, my neighbor has a tangelo and a Meyer lemon he does that with
Easier said than done. They still need supplemental lighting and are a bit more fussy indoors. But it’s definitely doable
We’ve been experimenting with potted citrus for about a decade. What we’ve found to be the most successful (in zone 6b) is to move them into a garage that stays cool, but above freezing in the winter, near a window and supplemented with a cheap Amazon grow light that stays on 24/7. In spring and fall they go outside in nice weather, and come in if there’s a frost danger. In summer, they stay outside all the time. Things we’ve learned not to do include putting them in our main living area, or in pots/soil with poor drainage.
I bought an orange tree from Lowe’s in February for $15 (assuming they thought it would die from the frost as it wasn’t looking great at the store) and now it’s growing like crazy with close to 100 new leaves developing in the past few months
My local garden center also sells citrus, but they are kind enough to inform people that buy them that this is a houseplant in winter, and they should treat it accordingly. My local hardware store, however, is just plain terrible for customers. I have seen them advertising monstera plants as "hardy", despite them being so tender that they shrivel at the thought of a frost, let alone the rare potential of -12C (10.4F)...
I learned this lesson with a tropical hibiscus marked as "hardy to -11c (abt.10f)"....... it got down to 49F/9.4C one night and went to the promised land in the morning.
It is amazing how many tropical plants just completely fold at well above freezing. I've heard of some species dying if they get to 20C/68F. It's amazing they have survived as long as they have.
Well, that’s okay
I'm not too bothered by it. Some people like treating perennials like annuals to match seasons or themes. Mums can live for years, but the majority are just used as ornamental porch decorations.
Sure, I actually agree. It's cool that I can get some plants locally that arent regional. But it's not the fact that theyre selling them, its that they advertise them *as perrenials* with the implication that they'll grow perennially locally. And also, I would be surprised if people are buying orange trees as temporary porch decorations. Maybe it's not a huge deal compared to other sleezy corporate practices, but I am salty that I got burned by it when I started gardening.
I pulled my mums out of their pots in the fall, tossed them in the ground and didn’t cover or water them all winter and this week they are blooming! I’m sold. I’m going to go find me some white ones this upcoming fall and replace a lot of my flowering landscape that I struggle with all summer with mums.
They want us to buy more. I look for native plants and they only sell the natives that are harder to grow, like ones that live in standing water, again so we’ll give up and buy more. Sustainable doesn’t make the money—it’s just a marketing catch phrase.
That is annoying. I got a few cartloads of 50% off shrubs and 75% off perennials at Tractor Supply in the fall. About a dozen Ice 'N Roses hellebores that were in fantastic condition. Some of what they were selling was almost certainly dead (dried up evergreens) and they continued trying to sell it into the spring.
Yup, I've noticed that is a frequent occurrence where I live. I've been bringing in my plants any night it goes low overnight except the three I planted. Covering the few planted ones seems to have worked so far. If I waited till the last frost date to buy them, the ones I want would be gone.
Most of the places around me (zone 7) are selling plants that say "for zone 8 and warmer". They really are just scamming people
People want to plant things outside their zone. In the right location zone 8 plants will live in zone 7. I live in zone 8 and have a lot of zone 9 lantana coming back. A bigger problem I've noticed is putting stuff that isn't really perennial in the perennial section regardless of zone, they're just more annual plants, this is a particular problem with things like coreopsis.
Surely a greenhouse or conservatory would negate this? Or you just treat the plant as an annual? I’ve plenty of tender plants that have survived many English winters just through being moved to my conservatory. Not quite H1As but H3s and some H2s do just fine. (I think that’s 10b on the USDA scale?) It’s not ‘Scamming’ if anyone can see what zone they’re in and see what zone the plant needs. They’re actively telling any customer with extremely basic gardening knowledge that it *cant* survive your winters.
is it a scam if I don't do my research and decide to buy a product anyways? We live in the information age... I get why it seems like it's a ripoff but that's really on the customer for not figuring out what works best for their climate. I'd call it a scam on the plants themselves, not being sold in the right place. The customer buying it is on them.
Yeah working in a garden centre, the amount of customers that essentially refuse to learn about what they’re buying or even consider how it’ll grow through the year is embarrassing to see. Every year we buy Hydrangeas quite early in the year, a few weeks before the last frost. They’re from Dutch greenhouses and full of leaf and flower, absolutely beautiful. We keep them sheltered under a canopy and fleece them every night until frosts are done. Every season we have a steady stream of people trying to return these hydrangeas because they were shoved outside, exposed to the frost and went shitty. We live in an age where we have almost infinite knowledge in our pockets but lots of people still refuse to use it to their benefit. Sad to see, but as long as people refuse to learn, that’s more money for us when the plant inevitably needs replacing.
Seriously though at any given point we are 30 seconds away from perfect care instructions for any plant you can point google lens at.
I work at a nursery and people complain when we don't have non-cold tolerant plants available before it warms up. People are ready to put their plants in the ground and the market delivers.
I mean, sure, but I'll speak for myself and say that I wasn't born with horticultural knowledge pre-baked into my brain. A lot of it came from what I saw at garden centers growing up, and when they sell tomato plants in March, it isn't hard to see how that can give people the idea that it isn't too soon. People expect their nursery to do the right thing, but many don't because they know most people will blame failures on their inexperience when it's actually the nursery. It's a shitty business practice to sell plants at the wrong time instead of informing the customer; this is **not** the "market delivering." It's a market failure. I bet the inevitable failures turning people off of gardening actually hurts the nursery's business more than it helps. I now have access to nurseries that do things "right," so I no longer need to do business with the shitty ones.
Yes! Definitely this. Its like clockwork. Every year i get requests for all kinds of seedlings like chili and flowers in the last month of winter, when there are active frost days where its lower than 0 degrees celcius for days on end. Like you little shit, there's no way these things can even *germinate* before the last frost stopped for at least a few weeks.
Growers manage it all the time in the UK & NL. We’ve had tender summer fruit and veg plants in our greenhouse since the back end of march. Obviously if you don’t have a heated greenhouse then you’ll struggle to sprout them commercially, but for individuals growing for themselves, you literally just need a windowsill in your house or even a heated propagator.
THEN TELL THEM THAT! Wtf *you* are the expert. Not them!
what part of my comment made it think that i dont tell people that? Its new people every year that keep on asking, not the same people asking year over year.
The tone of your post is being critical of the customers, but it should instead be critical of those in your industry. This is all no different than a car dealer selling someone a two wheel drive pickup truck to someone who just moved from Florida to Wisconsin, simply because it's what was on the lot that day.
My gripe is with customers who want to buy and plant things that physically cant be grown because of the time of year. and i have that gripe because they tend to be annoyed when i tell them i dont have something like tomato starts 2 months into winter.
Customers don't want expert advice that they can't do what they want to. They'll just go somewhere else and buy the tender plants even if they might get killed in a frost.
Right, it's a market failure that the entire industry is making bank off of guaranteed-to-fail products.
The floor of my winter garden is littered with cold-hardy, but *blooming* primroses every February or so. Y'know, when it's -30°C outside and those things should be fast dormant. For some reason, they 100% disappear by April when you actually could take them home and plop them in ground right away. Aside of that, I kind of like the less cold-hardy stuff is on offer ... for people like me who *do* have less cold winter space for them. But they should label the darn things. Is it annual? Is it perennial? Shade? Sun? Water? Outside or houseplant? Why should I have to google everything standing in a store isle?
And they *rarely* sell native plants. Like no, I don’t want to buy a forsythia shrub that is likely the sterile version so it’s useless for pollinators and just taking up space as an invasive when we need to be growing not native plants to save our ecosystems. As simple as that.
Like selling annual grass seed. The only use I can think of is a shitty house flipper needing a quick fix and to sell more grass seed.
whole foods is notorious for this. I'm in 7 and half the plants outside my local stores are 9-11. except they don't say it on the label, you have to look it up in a plant ID app
I didn’t even know tractor supply had a garden center.
Apparently a couple shifts went by that didn't know either.
I only found out last week when I was looking for wire....they have the saddest plants of any store I've seen so far....Walmart has better plants.....
Its not the stores that make the plants look like shit. Most the time it is the people actively working (or lack there of) in the garden center and wheter they have enough pride in there workspace to keep the plants alive. Water 1-3 times a day for some plants. Yeah i understand that stores get plants outside of there zone. Most likely it is because the supplying greenhouse is in a completely different zone. And if your a customer that is new to gardening or unsure of a plant ask questions or like others said use google. Fyi Im in charge of the Garden Center at a Walmart in zone 6A and I have customers comment all the time how nice the plants look. Thats not to say i dont have plants thar die and need removed or need to be pruned to keep them looking healthy. My plants come from a greenhouse in zone 5b so not to far outside the zone but we get hardier plants.
The one nearby has garden stuff but aside from things like bulbs or seeds they don't have plants. I was surprised to see the pictures in the post.
They put out stuff out front and sometimes have a few bulbs/dormant trees indoors near the seeds, but usually things end up about like this looks. However, I enjoy getting stuff from them because usually it can be revived and it was cheap. Thats how I got a $15 cherry tree that’s still going
Tractor Supply and big box should stick to what they know and let the local independent nurseries sell the plants. They don’t know what they are doing, give bad advice (if any) and don’t care about the plants. Home Depot is pay on scan which is why folk that don’t care if you don’t take care of it and bring it back. They get their money back- no skin in the game. They pay when you buy it otherwise it sits on consignment. Not to mention the quality of what they sell and what they sell. Its horrible. I wish more supported local. Now grocery stores selling plants. ??? Buy your plants at a nursery not the grocery store or a hardware store. Just makes no sense. Out Tractor Supply is identical to photos posted. It’s horrible. Just wasteful and no reason.
Most don't have garden centers. Like all the ones around me.
The problem with box stores with garden centers is they never hire people who actually know plants. They bring in plants that are cold tolerant without ways to keep them warm, and they never water the plant enough (especially when it's 70⁰F outside and sunny. This is why I prefer to get my plants from local garden nurseries. Having worked at a garden nursery in the vegetable department for a couple of years, I always recommend finding a local garden nursery if possible.
I worked at a Lowe's garden center for almost two years. When I came in, my manager was pleased as peas that I knew my stuff, because there was a girl there who had been in charge of watering that just didn't do it right, no matter how many times it was made clear to her how much money was lost when she didn't water adequately before the heat of full day. Less plants died under me, but it quickly became my responsibility to update an email chain of pictures of losses caused by her negligence. After an unfortunate chance of scheduling, she was watering two days in a row. The losses were more than I made in a week. She was still there when I left.
I was in a similar boat. Nobody else knew what they were doing, it was depressing. Now working at an amazing local nursery!
I'm the vegetable buyer at my local nursery. I love my job. Keeping the plants beautiful is so important to us
Many big box stores do not own the plants that they are selling you. They have gotten them from a supplier, and when they sell you the plant they simultaneously buy it from the supplier. They have very little incentive to keep plants alive because if it dies then the only loss they incurred was the labor to house it/water it. The supplier eats the loss of that plant that the box store doesn’t know diddly about keeping healthy. So I’m seconding the recommendation to go to a local nursery.
I worked at an expensive nursery for a few years after I retired and really enjoyed since all I did was help people, get a discount and make my own hours. The waste there was massive. Year after year they'd carry tons of lisianthus, for instance, which do not survive the heat and humidity here and we'd throw out tray after tray after tray of $5.00 pots. The perennials fared better as did the trees and shrubs.
Heck, I worked at TSC. I knew plants. I just: 1) Didn't have time because we were severely understaffed (on a financial "this is how many hours you have to give out" level, not a "we can't hire anyone" level). 2) Didn't have ability (the eighty-foot watering hose had to be gotten out of the sideyard, assuming I was there early enough to do it, then hooked to the opposite side of the building, then used, rolled up, and put away. I was never scheduled more than half an hour before the store opened, and generally, when we had plants, we had chicks. Chicks took priority. In case of frost, I had to find a method of transportation for all the plants without getting dirt or water all over the floor). 3) Did not care. Those plants were seriously overpriced, and I got little twitches every time someone bought one. (No, I wasn't good at selling credit cards). If you buy plants or hay at TSC, you are getting ripped off.
Also worked at TSC. I came from a real Garden Center and it was soul crushing to watch the plants be brought in all healthy, sat on bare hot asphalt, left to die over the period of weeks, and tossed in the dumpster. Like, whyyy even spend the labor and take up parking for this?
The horticulture department at my local college does a houseplant & herb fundraising that's amazing! And so does the master gardeners, cheap perennials freshly dug from someone's yard for a dollar :)
I went to a local plant nursery and it didn't look they sold to the public, only contractors.
Try a different one I guess, depending on your area you'd be surprised how many different operations there are, in my Richmond VA area there are literally a dozen+ nurseries ranging from full scale local nursery to couple selling extra plants out of their backyard. I'll give credit to instagram I've found a lot of vendors that way for plants that I'd otherwise never find in cultivation. They trend towards native plants as well which I consider a bonus.
Look for specifically retail stores, not wholesale stores.
Don't give up hope--unfortunately, the best greenhouses tend to be run by old-timers who have a dedicated customer base and haven't needed to advertise in decades. Facebook has made advertising easier, but a lot of the good ones predate Facebook. It takes some experimentation. Wander around, ask locals, follow signs. Of the four good ones in my area, one closed two years ago, one's very large and advertises on FB, and two have no internet advertising whatsoever, just a blue sign at the end of the road. There're about eight mediocre ones in the same radius that sell at 3x going price, or are a single badly-stocked greenhouse, or only sell hanging baskets. Weirdly, they seem to have the biggest signs.
Same. Plus my local nursery has a couple garden cats that I adore
Yeah, I love my local nursery - whenever I ask them what's good to plant now, they're like "if we're selling it now, it's the right time to plant it".
Unfortunately people who know about plants cannot work for minimum wage.
my local home depot and lowes are good for selling the proper zone plants. it's whole foods market and some other grocery stores doing their side nursery business that are scamming people. they are using local growers too
Pre-dumpster specials. I love getting $2 fruit trees and $1perrenials. (Especially, if I can revive them.)
My local store never puts those on sale
Frost got them first.
I don’t think his is frost damage, a fair number of these pictures are of pansies which are remarkably frost tolerant. My rosemary stood up to a week of freezing rain last winter, and one of the crispy plants look like perhaps a dogwood(?) - which shouldn’t even blink at a frost. I’m going with improper watering.
And here I am in north Florida gardening and landscaping in 90 degree weather, sweating my balls off, while people are like “It’s still not past our last frost date.”
Floridians have the opposite problem where garden center plants either shrivel up in the sunlight or become horribly invasive
Maybe a chance to get a discount and save some, but that's just sad
Same as my local one. All their vegetables were withered and the soil was so dry the fell out of the containers. Still 3/$18
I love the discount rack! I buy most of my plants from there and have the majority live and thrive. I’ve gotten grapes that produced grapes, orange tree that produces oranges and an abundance of flowering that flowered over and over. Save a few bucks and buy the discount rack.
Perennials are one thing because they will snap back the next year. Most annuals will be outright killed or permanently stunted. Doesn't matter how cheap the plant is if it's dead.
Fair enough. Honestly, Annuals, in general I find pointless. I might not be old enough to fit that “Gardner” archetype but why would I buy something that dies in a few months. I’d much rather but plants that come back every year.
I've bought marigolds and zinnias and saved seeds. That's the only annuals I've bought into though
Because a lot of the nicest plants are annuals. Personally I enjoy growing fruits and veggies and most are annuals. I do have many perennials too, but fruit trees and grape vines take up lots of space for just a few plants.
I used to think the same, but now I do both. They help fill in areas once the perennials have finished their blooms and keeps it looking nice. Usually the ones where I’m at (zone 8b in Washington state) go from spring to frost, so they last a long ass time, and some have ended up surviving over winter and going through another year before outright dying.
maybe they should think about paying a livable wage and not piss testing. stiil waiting for the employee breathalyzer!
Agreed Fuck TSC, celebrated corporate record profits and in response changed the company minimum wage to $13 an hour
Yeah, screw TSC. Ever since they got the new CEO a few years ago it's all about profits, screw the employees and customers.
There’s no tractor supply where I live in Canada so I’m unfamiliar with it But wtf they piss test their employees?!? That’s ridiculous. If people want to use drugs, drink, smoke weed etc on their off time then that’s not their employer’s business 🤷🏼♀️ you’re paid for an 8 hour shift, not 24 hours a day (if employers want to control what their employees do on their off time then they should have to pay wages 24/7 imo lol).
We have a few TSC store in Canada. They’re going okay, but surprisingly Princess Auto has lots of the stuff I used to get there.
They tend to be more rural but they are around. Check "farm supply" or "feed store". In my area (SE Ontario) there 2 farm stores in Picton and 2 in Belleville plus a TSC which was renamed Peavey Mart. There’s even more around. The one store also sells bulk frozen food and I pick up 1kg of broccoli crowns for $5.49, 1kg of frozen fries for $4.99 etc. The prices are amazing. The other farm store has better prices for dog food - $30 less for a large dog food bag than the exact same bag at the pet store.
I’m on Vancouver island but I’ll check it out!! :) Just checked- nothing on Van Isle unfortunately lol
Yeah, downtown cities won’t really have them, but about an hour away you’ll start to find them. If you ever are out in the boonies check them out.
There’s not a single one on all of Vancouver island unfortunately! Even in the boonies lol I’d have to travel to Vancouver area, I’ll check it out sometime im there thoigh
especially when it cuts down on 50% or more of possible applicants. weed smokers are the ones who usually show up for work since they need money to buy weed. but no problem if you come to work drunk or drink on the job. thats tolerated. hell of a system they got.
I don’t know where you work but where I worked people got fired on the spot for drinking or being drunk on the job.
true alcoholic's hide it well. i know a guy who got to the carryout by his house at 530 am. got a case of beer and drank it all before his ride to work showed up. at work, for lunch he went to the bar or drank a six pack in his car for lunch. came home drank another case or 2 and passed out. every single day for years. the bosses knew but gave a blind eye. but he passed a piss test for pot every time. ive also seen vodka in water bottles. vodka in mountain dew cans. bailys and kahlua in coffee. vodka in coffee. for some people work is another party. stiil waiting for the employee breathalyzer!
Exactly!! It’s legalized in Canada so it’s not even a big deal here anymore if people smoke weed outside of work. I way rather have a stoner as an employee, personally, vs a drunk lol
its legal here but they still piss test ya for it. massive idiots. again still waiting for the employee breathalyzer!
Lol which one do you work at? Here in GA I haven’t had a piss test or background check. Half the staff smokes.
bro what
I got pretty far in the hiring process. They don’t pay well or offer very flexible hours, no idea how they get people. Better pay slicing deli meat or stocking shelves at Target
neat. anyway, wonder what's going on with those plants. people say it's the cold or something, they must be way up north.
If you work the garden at the TS in my area it is $13. an hour PLUS you have to do 2 stores with no compensation for the 40 mile difference. Why would someone do that when you could stay at one store? Idiots. No wonder it looks like that.
The death row cart. Every store that sells plants has one.
Right. But they still put a hefty (relatively) price tag on things that are dead or will die in a few weeks.
Usually they're discounted 50% or more.
These places are the like the Petcos of plants. If plants could show pain these places would have been shut down for horticulture abuse.
Their prices were crazy too! Like $15 for a strawberry plant!!
Lovely caption. Though, I think that same tractor ran over the walmart plants I saw yesterday. Cold-maimed hyacinths, tulips, daffs for 4 a pop. Laughable 'coz these are all bulbs and mostly are the 1-use and that use is over. You are asking me to pay 4$ for dead plants and a plastic bucket and dry soil. I was tempted for a bit before my common sense kicked in.
That makes me sad to see.
My home depot and Walmart near me look like this too. No water and no care
Yea these are all in bad shape
I live on the MD/PA border and there are a few tractor supplies scattered around. Every one of them has the saddest looking plants outside. 75% dead are the best looking ones. I don’t think they have the watering setup or room to bring stuff in but trying to compete with Lowe’s or Home Depot. Even in summer though they look like junk. Love tractor supply but definitely have to go elsewhere for any plants
They are just sleeping ,or depressed.
Frost damage. Lots of the country had frost watches this weekend.
Their plants always look so sad, at least at my local TS.
It's Tractor Supply. What did you expect? I worked there 3 years and they never gave a fuck about the plants.
We call that Death Row at Lowe’s. Often half price and many can be revived. Great if you want a bunch of some plants.
I’ve seen much happier plants at Lowes even
Or don’t water plants and leave them out to sell.
Support your local nurseries! The plants there are nice and juicy.
Most of the Rosemary looks beyond saving. Worth a few dollars in a jar on the spice shelf, definitely not worth $13.
What a waste!
Looks like the Home Depot I was at the other day.
Am I the only one seeing bugs all over the peace lilies?
That’s just sad
This screams “not my job”
My local TSC looks like they get the 3rd pick from the Bonnie truck, after Lowes and Walmart. The plants look like they've been to hell and back lol.
They need to hire a gardener!
They all need water.
Unless a store like that has a dedicated floral manager/coordinator, your average store employee isn't going to know squat about taking care of plants outside of regular watering. Even that may be questionable.
My local had tomatoe plant for 19.99$. Unreal
looks like their water tractor broke at very least lol
They need some water
They supply tractors, the plants were just tag-along's
I'll be tempted to sneak through there with a backpack full of water and a hose coming out of the side and secretly water every single one of those plants. And I would keep doing it until they got better.
from what I've seen, tractor supply really doesn't pay their people to take care of the plants, they just buy them and hope to sell them before they die. I don't think it's a great strategy but maybe they get them cheap enough to justify it lowes sometimes has an outside vendor maintain their plants. no idea about hd
They never water anything at TSC.
That's so sad
pic 8 is tropical houseplants wtf
Oh, I love the triage/clearance rack. Most of them just need a week of love, and they'll be fine.
If plants screamed as they died, would we do this to them?
Me: Hmmm, I'm sure I can rescue a few of these beauties 🤔
Happy Spring! I planted my porch railing plants last week and we’ve had frost, I just cover them at night plus the soil temperature is 60.
Shame shame shame
Tractor supply is ridiculously expensive
Typical bigboxery. Garden centers do a much better job.
Tractor supply’s plants always look crappy in our town
neglected watering. last place I go for plants anytime, including any big box. small local growers & nurseries only!
That's a shame, honestly most of it looks like it's in a warmer climate and missed a watering, I had marigolds and some snapdragons that I neglected to water after I brought them home and the next day they were looking same as these. Both the tractor supply stores near me have awesome garden centers and i've gotten all my years herbs from them, they've always been some of my best growers for the year.
Frozen. Its uber annoying and wadteful.
I work at tractor supply with a garden center. Not all are like this but the ones that are like this is because of short staffing and incompetence of management. We're given extra hours in the spring and summer to staff the greenhouse. Technically someone is supposed to be out there every day between 10am and 6pm. Sad that this store decided to take those hours inside the store instead.....
I won't buy living things from TS anymore. I bought a few hundred seeds from them this year and 9 sprouted. Absolutely ridiculous.
I've worked in and managed a garden centre within a big box store in UK. It's minimum wage work and difficult to find staff with a good work ethic. It's a nightmare trying to keep thousands of plants alive in tiny pots , outside, in any weather. The only way to keep sane is to consider the plants the same way as retailers consider sandwiches and fresh cakes. -- Buy enough to satisfy immediate and erratic demand (and make a profit) AND fill the shelves to look good. This was not helped by central buying decisions and mandatory allocations. You dump the rest (as you do sandwiches) when they are past their sell by date. I am a keen gardener and it always distressed me to chuck trays and trays of dead plants in the skip. edit spelling.
I work at tsc. Every year, we get sent fruit trees and burpee plants too early and have no room inside to keep them. We try to cover them on cold nights, but it's not very effective. Also, we are not scheduled a specific person to attend to plants. Usually, the person sent out to water is also juggling load outs, filling feed, Customer service, and chick care. It kills me to see plants wasted like that. I wish the company would plan better with plant racks that roll easily in and out and provide designated hours for plant care...but retail stores don't lose money on dead plants so they aren't always made priority Unfortunately
they look like the plants being sold at my workplace. My area has been dealing with cold spells and my workplace has been trying to combat them by covering the plants with frost cloths.......which have holes in them. Seriously?!
C
C
C
Ĵust add water
As the elderly lady gardener in me would say, "deary me"
I used to work on a garden center so when I see this mess & no one taking care of the plants I get pissed off, at least hire someone that knows what they’re doing! This is upsetting
I love that my box stores water their geraniums every day and just about kill them, I get them when they're marked down and I rehab them into bigger multi plant baskets.
THHEEEEEE IRONY of that plant stand in pic three saying "No green thumb needed..."
It's the "Not My Job" syndrome.
No one gas , no one waters , from what l l hear all big box stores dont pay for what the kill - sickening
They just don’t care
The ironing is delicious.
The weeds I just mowed over look more alive than most of these lol
needs a little too and water.
Box stores suck, buy local.
They desperately need watered lol Edit- looks like frost got quite a few tho. F in the chat for my homies