Should you buy plants on sale in garden centres?
SO, after perusing the very expensive plant sections in your local garden centre, you move on to the discount bench, where you’ll often find an array of specimens much more suited to your budget – but are they worth buying?
Christine Walkden, resident gardening expert for The One Show and author of Christine Walkden’s No-nonsense Container Gardening, says you can bag some fantastic bargains, but you need to be aware of what may end up on the compost heap.
“Garden centres are now clearing their shelves of mainstream bedding and herbaceous plants to get ready for bulbs, which generally come in August, and then for their Christmas stock. If a plant is just reduced because they want to clear the benches, which at this time of year is often the case, you can pick up some real bargains.”
As the season began so late this year, there are great bargains to be had, she adds.
You can now purchase packs of summer annuals for a fraction of their original cost, as well as ready-made hanging baskets and containers, which if kept fed, watered and deadheaded, should last well into September.
But you need to check the plant’s health before you buy, she warns.
“A lot of things are being reduced, but look carefully at what’s being offered,” she advises. “I would avoid anything soft, squidgy, obviously diseased or weak, the normal poor quality things.
“If the roots of discounted bedding plants are coming through the bottom of the tray, it’s probably best to avoid them as they are likely to have been there a long time and may have been starved.”
Plants which are coming into flower or in full bloom are likely to be more expensive, while perennials and shrubs which have finished flowering may well be among the sale items.
“If perennials have just been chopped back and have a good root system, and the roots are white and fleshy, that’s another bargain to be had,” says Christine. You can get all-round interest by going into your local garden centre on the same day every month and bagging a bargain, she adds.