If you’re lucky, you might find a the distressed plants section of your favorite home and garden store this time of the year. This particular display makes me kind of sad, the same kind of sadness I feel when I visit the animal shelter, which means I tend to adopt plants the same way other people bring home new cats. I look happy here, but that’s because I was stoked to have noticed that orchid on the top shelf.
Take them for what they are – these are plants that are wilty, half-dead, crispy-dried, damaged, and begging for a new home and (mostly) a good drink of water. If you’re willing to give them a little TLC, you might luck yourself into some cheap, cheap plants for the home (and outside!).
Azaleas in my front yard bloomed wonderfully last year and are expected to do the same this spring. I found them just after they finished blooming one year, when they were past their peak. I’ve found that most plants post-flowering phase end up on sale if they’re still in stock, so you’ll really want to be loitering at Home Depot in late May/June. And this aloe plant has literally quadrupled in size, and is finally big enough to hold it’s own on my open kitchen shelving. Brings a nice pop of color too. Not sure how that baking dish ended up there too, that’s not where I usually keep it.
I’ve lost a chick and hen, maybe two, sadly, but for plant finds that are usually priced at only $1-3, it’s kind of worth giving them a chance if they seem borderline-repairable.
They even had some nice hanging baskets when I was there to take that above picture. And $1 violets, which, if you’re there as much as I am, you’ll know are something like 4/$10 full price (healthy). I think that’s even a tropical fern-y potted plant peeking in from the bottom left corner and those babies are over $10 a pop.
P.S. Remember this $5 plant I bought from Wegmans earlier in the winter? It’s probably 50% bigger and I haven’t even repotted it yet. Can’t wait for the weather to improve so it can spend some time getting sunlight.
P.P.S. Remember those seeds I started a while ago? I failed. Embarrassingly. More to come on that another time.
3 Comments
I wish I wasn’t such a plant killer! I’m pretty sure that if I scooped up any distressed plants they’d just be excited that they could look forward to a swift death. Seriously, we even killed a cactus. :(
What a GREAT idea! I had no idea that such a section existed!!! I’m all over this!!! Thanks for the tip. :)
Some of distressed plants this time around were clearly dying; the hanging baskets had a lot of hanging death, but some new growth closer to the base that would probably take right off with more access to sunlight and maybe some plant food (I’m no plant food expert so maybe just some of the potting soil that’s marketed as being more nutritious).