Garden Sales

iceberg

Whether we gardeners use common sense or calculator formulas, we all know the basic facts about garden centre sales. We can forget what we learnt about cost price and selling price in mathematics lessons. There are some very basic facts concerning garden sales, especially those with discounts of 25% or more.

Immediately after reading the advertisement in the Saturday paper, we plan a visit, optimistically attaching the trailer to the car. At the same time we prepare for deep disappointment. Inevitably the original price will be so dear that even after a 50% discount the credit card won't be tempted. The only things left will be rows of Iceberg roses. We will end up wasting petrol and good daylight hours.

We know, deep down, that the best bargains are only found when we are not walleted - this is a fundamental truth of plant sales. The bargain table will contain our deepest horticultural dreams and desires, at $2 each or 6 for $10, but only when we have absolutely no money, not even any small change. Partners of gardeners have known this for years, and make sure they never have any money on them. However, if we deliberately leave our money at home...

an on sale hebe - honest!

Plants For Sale

Garden sales just bring bad luck. It's a bit like passing the roadside bags of free manure when the car is full of groceries. We've had this happen all too often. Attempts to stop and throw a few bags of the rich and smelly stuff on top of the cooked chicken are thwarted by fierce complaints from passengers, who have suddenly claimed the chicken as their own personal property.

Anyway, with good forward thinking (and maybe a dash of rooting hormone) all of the plants needed for our new borders can easily be supplied. There might be a few fungal setbacks, and our border design could possibly change before the clones are ready, but these are mere technicalities. We could even make money, offering genuine sale-price plants to others, redressing the balance, so to speak.

Just the Tip of the Iceberg?

Last weekend I went to a fifty percenter, hopes high, amply walleted and credit carded, trailer attached...... There weren't even any free bags of manure on the way home. I retired to the glass-house and rationalised. My 39 cuttings of Iceberg roses, created in anticipation of my next "white garden" phase, didn't impress, nor did the rows of lettuce plants.

glass-house cuttings

I calculated the Icebergs were costing one cent per seedling, including potting mix, but excluding the price of the cat food pottle they were potted up in. I then tried to incorporate the price of the cat food pottle, but this wasn't easy, since four cats had happily consumed its contents (four seedlings per pottle, one pottle would feed three cats for one meal....)

I rang the local paper to put an advertisement in the classifieds.

To Give Away to Kind Home - 39 Iceberg Roses in cat food pottles, yearlings, own roots, labels, etc. Will deliver...