Who knows why garden centers fill their shelves with plants that die in the summer's heat?
Or sell plants that take full sun but need tons of water to stay alive.
Do the companies remember that Texas just endured 2 years of drought?
My friend loved these. They might make it until June. I didn't buy a thing.
I'm waiting until late May when the companies bring out the drought tolerant plants.
Water, water, and more water. Don't we ever learn?
Oh well. Mine is not to reason why. Mine is just to not buy anything and write a garden blog...
...and wait until they stock blackfoot daisies, one of our beautiful natives.
Or better yet, my friend has blackfoot daisy seedlings and she's offered to give me some.
Things have improved since December, but water is so precious.
David/:0)
You make more sense than the garden centers do. The drought tolerant plants are just as pretty anyway. But, I wonder how much of what people want and buy in plants has to do with influence of the idea, as I call it. Put the non-sensible in front of their noses, make it look pretty, and they will buy.
ReplyDeleteI get why you are annoyed / irritated - but the shops will stock what the public buy. It's a stupid cycle because the public wouldn't buy if they didn't stock the water guzzlers.
ReplyDeleteThe blackfoot daisy is worth waiting for. Very pretty!
It's all those beautiful colors seducing passer-bys who don't know any better!
ReplyDeleteHere I wonder why just about every single plant sold needs good drainage, even those ones that like moist soil! Really? Evenly moist soil with good drainage? Who in the world has that?! Maybe it's because the list of plants that can tolerate an alternating schedule of soggy clay and dried-hard-as-a-brick clay is not very long, to say the least... But really, can't they just write 'needs to be in a babied container because I'm going to die in that clay that you certainly have in your yard' on the label?
I actually asked a nursery manager once. She said, "We stock whatever the growers bring us."
ReplyDeleteThis was at an independently owned nursery, not a big box store.
Another reason to go to your local independent nursery. Or, do some homework about what will and what won't work in your area. People just don't do that.
ReplyDeleteIf we quit buying the water guzzlers, they'll quit stocking them.
OK..my rant is done, too.
Water is very precious indeed! We're about to have a hosepipe ban in our area starting April 5 due to water shortages, and is making everyone here even more aware of the importance of conserving water.
ReplyDeleteIn part, it's what the growers want to push - but, in part, it's because gardens are where people put their dreams.
ReplyDeleteSorry to stop posting just when you were reading! I never disappear for long. Find it hard to. Have just posted . . . but I'm still on a break till the autumn.
Esther