OMG! That one's a keeper. I hope that this post leads to some other great customer stories; we've had some terrific threads on that subject.

Just had this lady two days ago-

I am a perennial plant specialist at a large independent nursery. My greatest experience is with tropicals (including annuals), but I'm getting decent with the perennials. I do the ordering (wouldn't you love to spend $10,000 of someone else's money on plants each week?), but most of my time is spent assisting customers. Now, I am a very patient person and am willing to help anyone from a neophyte who has never had a garden to the serious collector type who wants me to source rare plants and enjoys standing around debating what green heuchera is the best. This one threw me for a loop.

A woman came in with no plant sample, no tag, and wanted to buy a specific plant. The ensuing conversation blew my mind.

It had "a white flower on a stalk" No joke, that was her only description. Let's see if you can guess it, and I'll post the answer and mark the thread solved in a day or two.

The conversation went something like this:

Me: Does the plant grow in sun or shade?
Her: I put it around my mailbox
Me: Is your mailbox in SUN or SHADE? If you are unsure, is there anything else you grow it with that you know the name of?
Her: It's out by the road with geraniums
Me: Ok, we'll call that sun, and I will assume you are looking for an annual. (Expressing extreme restraint at this point) How tall is the plant?
Her: Short
Me: What is short? Is it one inch tall? 12 inches tall?
Her: (holds up hands to show me because she obviously has no concept of inches..about 10 inches tall)
Me: Can you describe the flower?
Her: It's white.
Me (ready to kill myself and through gritted teeth): Okaaaaay... is it round, bell shaped, is it single or in clusters? (I wanted to ask how many inches in diameter but realized the futility)- Does it flower all season? How long do the flowers last?
Her: (Ignores questions and tells long, rambling story about how she grew it in front of her geraniums and JUST LOVED IT)
Me: (Took her over to several plants with different flower shapes, associated the flower shape with a name and asked her to rate on a scale of one to ten how similar it was to her mystery plant. Keep in mind it is an annual, but the flowers that she said looked the most like Plant X were Centranthus ruber buds [if they were white], Chive flowers [if they were white], and annual strawflower buds)
Me: Can you tell me what the leaves looked like?
Her: They looked like "regular plant leaves"

At the end, I firmly reminded her that it's a good idea to save your tags for the next year and she stared at me quizzically. I told her that it is easy to take a snapshot with her cell phone. Apparently she has the time, energy and desire to make this painful guessing game a yearly event.

(BTW, it was a white gomphrena. I had to spend 45 minutes with her and all she bought was one six pack.)

I bet you thought about buying two six packs at the end of the day after that ordeal!

My favorite was when I went to do a design for an older couple from NYC who had a summer house. This was actually a side job that I did as a trial for a job with a very good design/build company that was thinking about hiring me. The contractor dealt with these folks before and had little faith that he'd get the installation job and did not want the hassle of doing the design(I found out later). This was a perfect chance to get them off his back, test my ability to deal with "clients", test my design skills, and make a couple of bucks to boot.

It was like a Seinfeld episode - think George Costanza's parents and you'll be right on the money.

We were looking at the unlandscaped side of the house. She looks at me and says "what plant goes heeya?".Having observed the other plants that she had in the garden, I said that a Lacecap Hydrangea might be nice. She said "uhh! I gut plenty of hydrangeas already!". I started to open my mouth to shift gears when the husband who was silent for the first 45 minutes all of a sudden harshly bursts out "can't we just have grass!" in his Brooklyn accent. I almost burst out laughing and started looking for the guy from candid camera as the two of them start a major arguement between them - priceless.

I had a home owner bring a soil sample into our lab and ask if we could test for microscopic frogs. After a while I figured out that she was worried about nematodes. (think about it............Yep, you got it.)

I had someone ask if I could test their soil to see if it was safe for their rhinoceros. (That turned out to be a local zoo).

I had a guys send me a request through the mail to come do a diagnostic field call for his citrus trees in the desert. No name, no phone number, no email address. Just a description to drive a little bit past a small town, make a left on a gravel road and drive about 5 miles, park at the gate and walk up to the house. Oh and this gem "If you see black helicopters turn around and leave." (I'm assuming that turned out to be a stone cold nutjob. I never met him, his citrus trees or his helicopters)

When you are in the 'green business' any length of time, you could write a book with the anecdotes you've collected. When I worked a lot in the retail end of the business, you could take it to the bank whatever was blooming in the community, the next day you'd get a lot of clueless customers asking for it at the garden center that week. I had a guy come in asking for creepy plops. Yes, creeping phlox. In summer they came in asking for the hanging baskets of 'tubular' begonias.

I once had a lady who wanted to buy "perannuals."

Yesterday it was a lady who wanted to buy a plant "with fuzzy leaves, that didn't flower - at least not for me, that made a globe shape that the bunnies used to nest in so she had to tear it out because it was driving her dog crazy and now she wants some again." It wasn't lambs' ear. Any clue?

Could be artemisia, perhaps silver mound. Perannuals is closer than a lot of my customers used to get. Pre-annual was often how it came out, but the one I had to really bite my lips and not laugh was the lady who was only 'interested in perianals'. I am also a licensed nurse and frankly if you are unfamiliar with what that word is, then it's one you'd not want to see a television commercial about in mixed company or in front of a TV tray eating.

Another one that makes sense is "private", as in "private hedge". People are of course hearing it wrong the first time and repeating the mistake.

I once worked under a manager who was apparently dyslexic or had some other problem resulting in him using pronunciations like "poteena" (photinia) and "yeronimus" (euonymus). To "follow [him] me" you had to learn to "read the mustard on the wall."

I get the 'perannuals' one all the time. It amazes me that folks who seem otherwise intelligent can be so clueless when it comes to plants.

In the early 80's I worked in a retail nursery on Cape Cod. One of the women was showing a customer with a V.F.W. hat what types of privet we had. ....." This is California Privet in ball & burlap, oh, and we have some BARE ROOT over here at a much better price". The customer freaks out and screams "I don't want to buy nothin' from them people!"

... This was shortly after the barracks bombing that killed the 200+ Marines in BEIRUT.

For all the money it generates on a national level tarting up the yard with a few posies along the front walk or planting some fruit trees in the back yard is still a comparatively frivolous and low priority activity for most. Many buy tomato plants or geraniums once per year and pretty much leave it at that. No incentive to learn the lingo or find out the reasons for things when it's not considered that important of an activity.

Annal and "perannual" seems consistent when you don't know the etymology involved. It sounds like the same kind of relationship as something like Tsuga and Pseudotsuga.

so I want to share what happened yesterday.

A woman came to the GC and asked one of the staff if "this is the place to get pots planted up?" the staff person replied that yes we do have a planting service if she wants to bring her containers we can plant up her purchase. The woman then went to her car and proceeded to haul in 6 large containers and 3 flats of plants purchased at another local GC!! She expected us to plant them at no charge.

Every day is an adventure!

Some people are always working the angles. If you are basically unconcerned then the only thing holding you back is the objections of others. If nobody objects, and you don't have personal ethics or conscience popping up to rein you in then there is no reason not to.

Why wouldn't the store pot my plants bought elsewhere for free? I deserve it.

Here there is a big place with a low budget image near another big place with an expensive image. I worked at the first place for a time. Wondered why I was being asked for plants that were not the type of thing they would be likely to have. Finally figured out some people were going to the fancy place and looking for what caught their interest, then driving up the valley to the "cheap" place in hope of finding it there.

During the peak season shoppers were coming from all over and standing in very long lines at the checkouts in order to capture those supposedly lower prices. They were doing things like growing quantities of Polyanthus and selling at the same price they had done for years, making them effectively a loss leader like plants at a supermarket or drug store. Other items, bought in from outside sources probably weren't priced much different from the "expensive" place or other retailers in the region.

veggierosalie you got me laughing out loud. Yes, some people have enough nerve to do that. I used to get endless phone calls for people wanting to know what was wrong with their flowers. After listening to their symptoms and stories, sometimes interspersed with details about their doctor visits and operations, I would finally be clued off because I didn't grow a certain variety they were describing. So, I'd ask them where they got the plants. Usually at the big box. I was relieved, of course they weren't my plants. I'd usually still try to help them, good will and all that jazz. Until I finally had enough of it, and simply asked one lady why she didn't call up the place she buys her plants and ask them? She said 'they don't know anything about plants", so I called you.

That takes the hair off. They'll take advantage of my training, and knowledge, but they won't drive a couple miles to pay my wages by buying my plants?

Another one I sometimes hear later in the season when I am still cranking out fresh bedding plants, is........" Oh, I'm so glad you have some of those! I've been everywhere and NOBODY has them, so I came here." I finally suggested to one customer that maybe they should save themselves som effort and next time come here first.

I sometimes sell flower bulbs via the internet. My best question came via email- "Could you please tell me how we can kill the invisible bugs in our lawn? They keep biting us".

My nursery specializes in herbs. We have lots of different cultivars of Lavender-My father introduced several of them to the trade. A woman came in and was very interested in learning about all the nuances between cultivars and how to grow them in our climate. After about a 1/2 an hour she realized how much it was going to cost to recreate the south of France in her front yard and said..."Do you think that Wal-Mart will have these plants for cheaper?" Then she turned, clutching her expensive Prada/Coach/Gucci purse, and walked to her MERCEDES without buying anything.

Maybe she was born wealthy. If you have had all your material needs met since you were tiny, you have a different point of view.

Although being cheap might indicate some poverty in her background, like living through the Great Depression.

Let's see - I had someone (a man!) look at a honey suck vine I had on a trellis and he asked - "What direction does this vine grow?"

Nope, I think cheap in some instances is just a personality quirk. We had a prominent local lady who used to ask us to scrape old potting soil off our benches, to give to her instead of springing the couple dollars for a bagged mix. We also caught her snipping off flowers in potted arrangements and then bringing them to the counter asking for a discount on them because some of the flowers were missing. Then she wanted it loaded up into the trunk of her caddy. LOL.

I hope you didn't tell him it was called a "honey suck vine".

This just happened Friday -
Its rained 24 out of the last 28 days in New hampshire. We were working on an installation and I stopped at a convenience store to get a bottle of water. The woman who worked there realized i was a landscaper (I guess I was dirty :) and said she had some annuals and she wanted to know if it was okay to plant them. I wasn't sure what she was asking until she explained the label said "plant in full sun". It had been raining too much to plant them, she said.

Bboy, "honey suck vine" is so priceless, i can't even go there.

Asking about the direction of growth could have been based on the oft-repeated statement that one species of wisteria grows clockwise and the other counter.

maybe it is because i have only been in this business for a few years, but it seems to me that I keep getting the strangest requests. On the weekend a woman came up to the cash register with a hand full of basket stuffers that were missing their 3.5 inch pot, bare roots dangling. She had pulled them out of the growing container and wanted a discount because she didn't 'need' the pot they were in. She also asked if we would pull the plants out of a container garden so she could buy them at a discount. I told her the pots only cost a few cents so she wouldn't be saving herself much money and that everything is already on sale...regarding the container garden I basically told her to stuff that idea.

strange

Might be more of this lately due to hard times. Otherwise, some people are always trying to get a deal.

I grow daylilies and have $5 varieties up to $150 varieties .. every year I have someone looking for a $5 daylily walk by an expensive cultivar and say "I have that one at home". I just smile.

Or the people who want Stella but in different colors ... the "everblooming" daylilies. Not in my corner of the northeast!

Another perspective on "cheap" customers:

Awhile back, late in the season I stopped at a local nursery to see if they'd discounted any of their quart perennials. I found instead that they'd recently potted everything on to gallon size and raised prices accordingly (although after a summer and early fall of sitting in pots, nothing was in very good shape). Well, O.K. - so I managed to find one lone quart pot of something I wanted that had avoided the potting-on markup and took it back to pay for it. The lady working the register (an owner) sarcastically remarked that I'd managed to find a bargain (though it was the full quart price for a less-than-impressive specimen).

Nice way to build good will, ma'am.

Yep. It's as if the big concern about being nice to shoppers that was in play at most of the garden centers I worked at during previous decades has largely died out. One independent garden center I worked at during the 1980's even had a rule that you never talked about customers while on the job, in case you were overheard and would cause offense. It was said you never knew when or where a shopper would appear.

Let alone would you ever ignore one or say something that might be taken the wrong way.

Now, when I go to the same place (same owner as then) I encounter clerks who stand and make loud small talk to each other, then walk away without addressing me as I approach them hoping to get their attention, and various other indications of "attitude".

This approach does not seem to be holding this (and the other local garden centers presenting the same "tone") operation back.

One of the owners of the last place I worked at even told me once that "we put the plants out and if they buy them fine, if they don't that's fine too".

That operation brings in multiple millions of dollars per year. One small family owns it.

A man came into my nursery and said that he cut his Clematis back every year, and it would grow tall and bushy but it never flowered. I said that it might be a variety that need to bloom on old wood. He said, my wood deck is ten years old, is that old enough? After I rephrased my answer he had to sit down because he was laughing so hard and commented me on my straight face.

My 'stories' are about other supposedly professional gardeners. I work at a wholesaler. I had one buyer for a local independent garden store call and ask me to tell her the color of every single variety of annual that we had sent her on an availability list. Guess she couldn't look them up herself. I told her the Samantha lantana was yellow and she wanted to know if it was the exact same yellow as another variety we had. I then said that it had variegated leaves. Her reply: "what's variegated mean?"!!!!

A professional landscaper came in and said she needed a flower for sandy soil. I asked her if she wanted a perennial. Her reply: "What's that?" And I'm still trying to figure out where she has sandy soil. I live in SW Ohio and there is nothing but clay, clay and more clay.

We sell retail too, but by far the worse questions come from the 'professionals'!

A woman here billing herself as a Japanese garden expert used to think scouring rush was bamboo. Her landscaping company appeared to be doing some fairly big ticket jobs. I've encountered a hundred other similar examples over the years. Some you wonder why they are in the business at all. But I think there are many people working occupations in all fields that do not interest them particularly.

To an extent, if you know how to operate a successful business it does not matter what, exactly you are doing. Building houses or landscaping them, same difference. Selling plants or furniture, same difference. Some places sell plants AND (outdoor) furniture.

We plant most of the perennials we grow for sale in gardens so that our customers are able to see what the plant will look like, its true colour, size, pest resistance, or problems, etc. There are, at a rough count, approximately 15-20 gardens of various shapes and sizes dotted among the plant material for sale. All in all, there are several acres of gardens.
Just to get here, after parking, customers have to walk past a wildflower meadow that is an absolute blaze of colour this time of year. The gardens are well-tended, and the plants are labelled. And it's August - glory time for perennials. There is not a single garden that is not in bloom right now. We grow approximately 2,000 perennial varieties and always stuff many more than we grow for sale in the gardens. Lots of words just to say there are a lot of gardens here.
And yet, in the past week, three different groups have come and asked "Where are the gardens?"
It's all I can do NOT to say "Duh, were standing beside one right now." But I have restrained. Or been restrained.
Still, I can't help but wonder what these people are looking for. And since they come here to see the gardens, how come they can't find what's in front of their faces?

Well, you see ninamarie: 'garden' has a very specific meaning for some people and obviously what you have didn't meet their expectations.

What you have sounds absolutely fabulous BTW.

Not far from here is a city where impatiens, lawn and cedar constitute 'garden' for a lot of people, radical would mean using only one tone of pink, try explaining to them what a perennial is. I once had a request for an English Garden full of wild flowers so sometimes you are starting from behind with the education thing.

I've found that to be a frequent behavior, that is that the personal idea of what constitutes a thing is all there is. They became aware of the version they keep within them at one time and then that may be the only version they will have for a long time - perhaps all their lives. With plants and gardening it manifests in statements ranging from ones like Rosa multiflora must be a blackberry, because "it does not look like a rose at all" to the above "Where are the gardens?". With this subject area at least it is very easy to surprise people in our culture, as despite all the commercial activity involved we really are not a people of the soil at all. When I used to work in garden centers, before it was widely known that amending of planting hole backfill was counterproductive the word "humus" came up frequently in discussions with shoppers. We were told to work those tie-in sales, send them out the door with extra purchases of soil amendments etc. on top of what they paid for plants. (Some outlets of course still tell people to leave rootballs undisturbed, amend planting hole backfill etc.). This enabled me to discover that a lot of educated Americans had no idea what humus was, were liable to express concern at being subjected to such weird lingo.