Please don't get me started on rootless Xmas Trees. I had a huge row with the local green grocer years ago on the subject. His arguement was they will grow more for the following Xmas so no problem!
I have worked as a Gardener for 24 years. My latest garden is a new build garden on heavy clay.
It's the giant pumpkins that really get to me. Think of all the land, water, fertiliser and pesticide used to grow them. Then they are carried on lorries to central distribution points. Then more lorries to the supermarkets (where I imagine several members of staff per year get back injuries dealing with them). Customers take them home and carve them (and usually don't eat them). Then the rubbish/recycling lorries have to cart them off on a final journey!
It looks as if they were also for sale in October 2022 @GardenerSuze so there must have been enough take up to repeat this year. Very sad that plants are deliberately sold as novelties to be quickly disposed of.
I guess I'd rather biodegradable plants got thrown away than plastic tat. The paint is probably plastic though.
And obviously I'd rather stuff wasn't made to be thrown away at all.
And don't get me started on plastic tat. I used to volunteer in a charity shop when we lived in the UK and the amount of plastic tat that got donated then binned because people prefer new plastic tat to second hand plastic tat made you want to weep, especially after tat fests (Christmas in particular). Thank goodness here you don't get the constant seasonal tat shoved down your throats so much, although I fear it is changing.
I remember looking in a shop that sold the tat you find in boot sales and charity shops, new. It had never really occurred to me that people would buy the stuff new. Probably duty presents for someone they didn't really like
@B3 but it's so cheap a lot of it, and it's all shiny and sparkly (ugh, glitter), it's like ultra processed food, made to be tempting. No, people buy it for themselves too.
Just look at the price tag on those succulents £3.99, it's made to not matter, to be binned. That's the problem.
Just as bad are the sellers of lollipop Bay trees, those horrible flat bushes on high sticks for instant privacy (can't remember what they're called ) 'indoor' olive trees special needs houseplants all destined for the compost heap or the dustbin.
@B3 Just under £ 400.00 on line for an espalier Photinia but as I mentioned on another thread how often do you see them growing really well? The nurseryman nurtures and keeps them under glass and then it is out into the real world. If one in a row of half a dozen fails what then?
How does the sale of beautiful, sustainable plants in Garden Centres end up sharing the same space as lots of tat?
I have worked as a Gardener for 24 years. My latest garden is a new build garden on heavy clay.
@B3 Just under £ 400.00 on line for an espalier Photinia but as I mentioned on another thread how often do you see them growing really well? The nurseryman nurtures and keeps them under glass and then it is out into the real world. If one in a row of half a dozen fails what then?
How does the sale of beautiful, sustainable plants in Garden Centres end up sharing the same space as lots of tat?
To sate the ever increasing desires for instant gratification - no thought or effort involved - and acquisition. I do not understand the need to buy for the sake of it.
Here I go with a bit of Devils Advocacy … TBH I’d far rather folk have a rootless Christmas tree than a plastic one. They are grown as a crop, just as cut flowers are, and provided they’re composted afterwards, are they any worse?
After all, how many times have we had a query accompanied by a sad photo of a Christmas tree in a small pot, sadly turning brown in a back garden … they bought a tree with roots so they could keep it in a pot and have a ‘forever Christmas tree’ . We have to explain gently that a spruce tree won’t be happy in a pot and they can’t turn those brown branches green and their tree is dying.
The alternative is for them to plant their tree in the ground … where? Few gardens are big enough for a Norway spruce … (we’ve had questions over the years asking how someone can reduce the size of a twenty foot spruce in their garden without it looking ugly) and certainly not this year’s tree, and next, and the next.
The alternative I’ve come across is for folk to take their loved potted Christmas tree into the countryside and ‘liberate’ it by surreptitiously planting it on land belonging to someone else … (where hopefully it will die anyway as no one will water it until it’s established).
I think the ‘green credentials’ of the rooted Christmas tree are fundamentally dishonest.
While many of us don’t like ‘painted’ succulents it would appear that some people do. There’s loads of tv programmes I choose not to watch, and styles of clothing and home furnishing that I think are unattractive … (and we all remember when liking dahlias was regarded as ‘common’) … but lots of folk appear to like them and that’s up to them, and I try not to sneer (at least not in public) at their lack of style, education, sophistication, taste or whatever you want to call it … and there’s always the chance that, having been tempted into buying a painted succulent someone might just be tempted to find out a little bit more about them, rejoice in keeping theirs alive, ask a question of a neighbour or on here when it produces offsets, and then, who’d have thunk it but … we have an embryonic gardener 😃 🌱 🪴
Just a thought … I warned you I was playing the Devil’s Advocate didn’t I? …. Maybe I’d better get my coat …
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
@Dovefromabove No not Devil's Advocate at all. Anything that gets people into growing is always important. Another step on from my way of thinking and well worth the purchase if it interests a budding gardener. What one person loves someone else hates that has to be good. Just to add that even the food in supermarkets has more of a 'tut look'. I went in a supermarket for the first time in spring my first visit since early 2020. It was a new shop full of expensive prepacked food. To me very noticable, yes they did have fresh veg but that took up just a small area. I reluctantly own a plastic Christmas tree that goes up most years, No one is bothered with it always up tp me and I hate it. Not a big Xmas fan would swap for a beautiful spring day in the garden.
I have worked as a Gardener for 24 years. My latest garden is a new build garden on heavy clay.
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And don't get me started on plastic tat. I used to volunteer in a charity shop when we lived in the UK and the amount of plastic tat that got donated then binned because people prefer new plastic tat to second hand plastic tat made you want to weep, especially after tat fests (Christmas in particular). Thank goodness here you don't get the constant seasonal tat shoved down your throats so much, although I fear it is changing.
It had never really occurred to me that people would buy the stuff new. Probably duty presents for someone they didn't really like
Just look at the price tag on those succulents £3.99, it's made to not matter, to be binned. That's the problem.
How does the sale of beautiful, sustainable plants in Garden Centres end up sharing the same space as lots of tat?
The alternative I’ve come across is for folk to take their loved potted Christmas tree into the countryside and ‘liberate’ it by surreptitiously planting it on land belonging to someone else … (where hopefully it will die anyway as no one will water it until it’s established).
I think the ‘green credentials’ of the rooted Christmas tree are fundamentally dishonest.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Just to add that even the food in supermarkets has more of a 'tut look'. I went in a supermarket for the first time in spring my first visit since early 2020. It was a new shop full of expensive prepacked food. To me very noticable, yes they did have fresh veg but that took up just a small area.
I reluctantly own a plastic Christmas tree that goes up most years, No one is bothered with it always up tp me and I hate it. Not a big Xmas fan would swap for a beautiful spring day in the garden.