Ha! We have customers who buy a container, then 21 days later want to return it or exchange it for something else. I think I griped elsewhere about someone the other day who tried to return a hanging basket (w/ pansies in it!) that she had purchased 6 WEEKS earlier-the colors weren't right!

Preplanted mixed containers are very popular, & we're doing a great business w/ hanging baskets-today, I saw one that was a deep pink double flowered callibrachoa that was stunning! They came in late last week & this was the last one, I told the lady she was lucky, if I had seen it first, I'd have bought it (she also got an enormous peach diascia & 2 yellow plants (don't remember the name, hadn't ever seen it before). We also some gorgeous begonias & lotus vine, which was also one I hadn't seen before, as well as red mandevilla in hanging baskets.

This month's issue of Garden Design has some striking contaner plantings...

"Research tells us that the consumer is willing to purchase a pot plant in a beautiful and attractive or container, and expect it to last only 21 days. Then come back and say "Wow man, got any more?" These folks are also good for buying several edible plants. We have assembled a collection of these edible plants which we are currently marketing under the name "munchables"."

All in good fun ........ man.

Oh groan. I supplied a store with garden mums one year. Healthy, wonderful crop. About twenty one days later, the store calls me and asks me if they have a large "return" from a customer, and gave her money back, would I also credit them? I knew there was nothing wrong with my crop, so told them on one condition. That since it was such a large purchase, that I would return their money only if they made the customer dig up the plants and return them to the store so I could inspect them.

rofl. Just exactly what I thought. The plants had simply gone out of their bloom season. They were beautiful yet. I had to romance the stone with this store and it wasn't worth losing their business but I at least had the satisfaction of making that cheap woman dig them all up and cart them back. Then I asked the manager of the garden section to tell me if the plants looked diseased. It was a learning experience for him as well. A lot of people are so used to Boxmart no questions asked returns that they are totally shameless about borrowing plant material for weddings, and staging houses and then asking for their money back. I get just as much enjoyment at those other people who come right out and ask to borrow plants for occasions because it's good "advertising".

i guess i don't deal with enough retail customers. when i got that newsletter I thought, "really? how interesting... materialistic consumerism has now arrived in the garden center too. great for the industry if that's the new trend, but I can't afford to stock that stuff year round." calliope's story about the mums is truly astounding, but there are huge percentages of people who plant seasonal colour like that and then toss the plants before winter sets in. a tuberous begonia that can only last a few weeks indoors in the hands of an amateur doesn't seem much different. the flower display will last longer than cut flowers, for about the same price.

to be fair, the reason i'm not dismissing the concept out of hand (other than knowing how much rich customers treat plants): right before i got the may newsletter I was in the midwest for a funeral and the church altar was decorated with pots of pretty yellow begonias (possibly for easter). it reminded me of how poinsettias are used at christmas.

I do interior landscaping for a living, and some of our clients get what we call "color rotations" - potted floral plants that get changed out every 2 weeks, or bromeliads that are changed out every 2 months. They are tossed when replaced, unless a client or employee feels like taking one home. They are disposable plants, and it took me a long time to get used to the idea!

yeah, it's hard to get used to "tossable plants". I figure that if someone buys an indoor flowering plant from a garden center that they end up killing it within a month, so it has to get tossed anyway. It's too bad there isn't some place/org that will take your plants afterward. there are probably a lot of people who would want them but finding them might be more trouble than it's worth.