Plants dying
Last post 13-08-2009 10:56 PM by bogweevil. 6 replies.
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05/05/2009 01:17 PM
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- Julie
- London
- 28 Apr 2009
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27
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Just got back from the garden centre and it annoys me to see beautiful new Veronica Royal Candles for £7.49 when I bought 3 last year and they appear to have died. They are cosseted and fed like mad, look great in the garden centre and then die in a real garden - and cost so much! Has anyone had success with these? I also bought a Veronica Red Fox which also died. I hate spending money on perennials when they behave like annuals. Any suggestions? thanks
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05/05/2009 01:46 PM
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- miranda
- Oxfordshire
- 17 Nov 2004
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2,977
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I can think of a couple of reasons why your plants have died, Julie. They may not have established themselves before that cold winter we've just had, or you may have over-fed them. They like a modertely fertile soil, but wouldn't react well to being 'fed like mad'. It's often best to err on the side of caution with feeding as overdoing it can, unfortunately, easily kill a new plant.
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05/05/2009 04:19 PM
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- Julie
- London
- 28 Apr 2009
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27
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Actually I didn't feed them at all. I meant the nursery that produced them did. I think of veronicas as being tough and not being killed by cold but maybe that did affect them.
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11/08/2009 08:46 AM
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- Julie
- London
- 28 Apr 2009
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27
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An update on the veronicas. I had bought 3 last year and it looks like 1 or 2 have survived. They bloomed later than the ones I saw recently for sale. The red fox has not survived. The hydrangea I also bought last year has withered and died, as have a number of other small plants. Some have survived but the success rate is not acceptable to me. What success rate do other gardeners have?
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12/08/2009 07:53 PM
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It is said that up to 80 percent of garden centre plants succumb within a year or two - cynics might say that it is fundamentally unsound to raise pots in polytunnels, feed them well in soil-less potting media and then sell them in flower from April until September - but that we are told is what the public want.
Boggy
Beware the bat-eared bogweevil
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13/08/2009 09:48 AM
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- Arrem
- West Midlands. UK
- 12 Jul 2009
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90
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Fair comment on the customer driven "supply & demand" issue bogweevil but I wonder if the Garden Centres would react differently if everybody took them up on their promises to replace plants that fail?
I suspect that not many of us actually do return failed plants even though the guarantee of success by garden centres often exists.
There is no such thing as useless - you can always be a bad example.
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13/08/2009 10:56 PM
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Guilty as charged.
Boggy
Beware the bat-eared bogweevil
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