RENEGADE GARDENER™

Don’t buy plants that are sitting on an asphalt parking lot or roadway.

The photo alone gives me the heebie-jeebies. There’s a reason real nurseries have their potted plants and flats sitting up on tables inside a controlled environment, or, if outside, resting on dirt or gravel. Temporary plant sellers—any outfit that sells plants for only a few months out of the year, just to make a buck—aren’t equipped to do the job right.

So you see scenes like this—plants sitting on asphalt in blazing sun, the soil and roots cooking into a level of stress from which they probably won’t recover.

These temporary retailers—big home improvement box stores, hardware stores, coops—typically sell the same old basic plants that have been boring good gardeners for years, so why even bother shopping them?

I could have used this photo for another entry of Don’t DO That …

Don’t buy red geraniums!

Don Engebretson
The Renegade Gardener