Impulse buy or no impulse buy?

Ok, so I was thinking.....how many of us gardeners actualy think logicly when were're at a gardencentre or greenhouse, maybe even a box store looking at plants? Picture yourself strolling along and there it is...that plant you've wanted for so long. Yes, I'm referring to THAT plant, the one thats peaked your interest for so long. Maybe you know everything about it or maybe you know nothing about it....for that matter you might have just discover it that second, sitting there all alone and tagless....Do you stop and think 'where could I put this? Do I have the proper location? Do I know it's watering needs? ect. ect. ect.' OR, do you grab it as fast as you can and make a run for the checkout before somebody else grabs it or you bump into some non-gardening person or family member who will likely try to convince you that you don't need it or it's too large, too costly ect. ect. ect.??? Me, I know I'd make a run for it :) How about you?

Steven

If it's a plant that i know what it is, and whether i want it or can grow it, and whether or not it is a steal for the price, i don't really consider that an impulse buy. If i have no idea what it is, or whether it will thrive or not in my garden, it would have to be cheap enough to go ahead and maybe buy than come back later, then i might buy. If i didn't know anything about it and it was expensive, i would just pass on it.

Impulse all the way.

I would grab it and run then worry about what/where I'm gonna do with it later :)))

I have left DH in the automotive section and snuck over to the plant area, paid for it, snuck it out into the car and then re-joined DH in the automotive area, he being none the wiser :))

ThreeG,
I'm glad to see I'm not the only grab and run, trying to hide plants in the cart and slipping seed packs in between grocery items :)
I have to say at least 80% of the time I buy/order plants and seeds with no idea where they're going to go :)

Len,
I have to say my bank account would probably appreciate it if I was more selective like yourself :)

Steven

lol. But i have to admit the other day while in walmart, i was buying some clay pots and bought some impulse canna, my thoughts were to plant in the pots, because i never would plant canna because i don't want to dig anything up in the fall. Then after i got home i wondered how they were going to be watered while i was away especially in a pot. so they will probably get planted as an annual.

hehehehe, I guess everyone does a little impulse buying every once in a little while ;) Last fall I actualy bothered to dig my cannas up.......but forgot to bring them in, so they died anyways. Mine were just the basic canna indica, what kind do you get?

Steven

i don't even remember, whatever the cheap ones walmart has, red and orange.lol
most of my wastes of money are on these ideas i get, and most of the time don't work out. Like the reason i was even in the gardening section of walmart. I was buying terra cotta pots that i am starting seeds in. I put them in some plastic totes with water in the totes. the theory is that they will absorb the water through the terra cotta pots and keep the soil moist without watering. However what i don't know is if they will keep the soil too moist or not enough. I noticed today some seeds are sprouting, however i sort of bought too many seeds, tomato,lavender,foxglove,delphiniums. I didn't have enough pots so i just planted them all together. lol. I think i just figure that they are probably not gonna work anyway and end up getting tired and sabotage myself. It's been 8 days so i suppose it's probably not the tomatoes coming up. I think the trick though is to keep the little 2in pots separate (different totes) from the 4in, and maintaining water levels accordingly. i had them mixed and the little pots were over saturating.lol.

I haven't been into walmart in a while but I usually fall victim to those seed displays(not to mention the packets always seem to have the wrong information on them) and buy a bunch of seeds with this vision of them all growing lushly in my containers and of course it never looks anything like that when they're full grown........if they make it that far! hahaha. I like your idea though of the pots in the bag, it sounds quite clever. Maybe the bags just need to be opened a bit to let some of the humidity out? It never hurts to try a new idea!

sw gardener here is a picture of what it looks like

here is some that are starting to grow

The soil does look a little soggy, perhaps you could try proping the pot up so they're not actualy sitting in the water and useing a sort of wicking system to keep them watered?
Just an idea :)

You have to soak the pots before you fill them with damp peat seedling mix or peat and perlite mix. I haven't had to water them as they sit in the water. but if you get too high a water level the peat gets pretty soggy. but about 25% water level seems to keep them consistently moist, and i have a couple furnace vents that blow near them also. They only get the sunlight from the windows. So i don't know what is going to happen with them. Too little sun, or not enough. Dampening off maybe? I put some osmocote slow release fertilizer so they have a chance at some nutrients if they need it, but that may burn their little roots, i'm not sure. I tend to think a little outside the box and do things that seem logical, usually with unforeseen problems.lol! It seems everything i read about horticulture seems to be so contradicting anyway. One example is clay. People hate it in the soil, they say it isn't porous and will drown your plants and needs amending. But when it comes to clay pots, the advantage is that they breathe and are porous letting the roots aerate. The exact opposite! So i just do whatever makes sense to me. If it fails, then it's just lessons learned.

Do you think? They look wetter than they feel. that second picture is a 2in pot that was saturated a week ago until i shuffled the pots around and lowered the water levels.

Actually this is an experiment that veered from the original experiment!lol. I bought these pots and some sheets of foam to see if i could float the pots on the pond. It was a cold and windy day, I barely made it out of the lumber yard with the 4'x8' sheets of foam. Actually one blew and busted but got in p/u finally and weighted and tied down. I cut holes out of styrafoam, and put clay pots in holes and while carrying out to pond wind blew and busted styrofoam, but still had 3 pots left and enough foam to float. That night the pond froze. so i waited until it thawed and pulled out the foam and pots. I didn't wet the peat and it was still dry. so my lesson learned was that you have to premoisten the peat moss. details! ugh!ol! so i'm gonna try that one when it gets a little warmer. I think i'll have to learn how deep to allow the pot to sit in the pond to adjust the moisture level though.

If they're not soggy then I probably wouldn't worry, but if you can squish the water out of the peat them it might be too moist.
I never thought about floating pots on a pond, that is a good idea! Even if you put some sort of marsh plants in the pots you could make a sort of floating garden!
I'm going to have to try that someday................just need to get me a pond!

lol. I was thinking maybe in the future, if i do some rose cuttings that i could float them to keep them moist until they got some roots and established a little. My thoughts were that it might isolate them from black spot and other diseases and critters until they got a good start. But these are all just ideas at the moment. I am away from home alot for my job and there are ways that i try and think of because i can't be there everyday to water etc., and there really isn't many references that address that. I tried a drip system for some band roses i potted up, but my drip got a drip and my waterbill quadrupled. lol!

lol, "the drip got a drip"! A floating cutting farm is a good idea too! Theres so many good ideas here at DG!