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Garden
Centres and The Precautionary Tale of Impulse
Buying
By Kim
Lenaghan
There
was a time when I could most easily be seduced
into spending vast amounts of money on numerous
products I didn聮t need and would never
use by the scents and smells of department store
cosmetics counters. Now my secret shopping vice
is garden centres. The second I drive into the
carpark my hands sweat, my heart pounds and
my plastic cards are practically sprinting out
of my wallet toward the till. It聮s like
the cry of a manic City trader "buy, buy,
buy" as I load up my trolley with hellebores,
potentillas, bougainvillea and clematis with
exotic sounding names like 聭Perle d聮Azur聮
or 聭Etoille Violette聮. 聭Chanel
No. 5聮 and 聭Elizabeth Arden聮
just can聮t compare
 Most
garden centres are now so attractively and thoughtfully
laid out that it聮s a joy to walk around
them. All those healthy, beautifully tended
plants, that riot of colour, it just sends me
and, judging by the queues at the checkouts,
everybody else into a complete buying frenzy.
The problem is that you don聮t always stop
to think what exactly you聮re bringing home.
I聮ve bought trees that will grow and spread
like Jack聮s Beanstalk for a tiny urban
garden, I聮ve bought plants that love the
sun for tubs on a shady patio, I聮ve bought
acid loving shrubs to plant in a garden that
has an alkaline soil - all because I got carried
away by the wonder of it all and threw caution,
advice and common sense to the wind.
So
try and overcome that urge to buy everything
before you by deciding in advance what kind
of garden you currently have and what sort of
look or plan you want to achieve. If you want
a cottage garden then stick to buying plants
like climbing roses, delphiniums, poppies, foxgloves,
honeysuckles, whatever. No matter how attractive
the clipped box and the succulent yuccas look
in the garden centre they definitely don聮t
say cottage garden.
Determine
what kind of soil you have, where the shade
and sunshine are and don聮t buy plants that
are inappropriate for the conditions just because
you like the look of them. They may well survive
but they聮ll never thrive. When the label
says 聭full sunshine聮 it really does
mean full sunshine. As for containers, some
things just have to be planted in the ground,
however much you wish it otherwise. So don聮t
take some poor, unsuspecting plant and try to
adapt it to the wrong conditions, just find
a better alternative for your particular situation.
Think
of gardening as being like fashion - if you聮ve
legs are like tree trunks you wouldn聮t
wear a mini skirt so why would you be daft enough
to plant a Fremontodendron 聭California
Glory聮 on an exposed north facing wall
that never gets any significant sunshine. Well,
I wouldn聮t wear the mini but I did kill
the Fremontodendron and that聮s why I聮m
sharing this cautionary tale and hopefully learning
from my mistakes.
I聮m
not saying that I should or could stop going
to garden centres - I聮d need to go into
rehab for that - I聮m merely reminding myself,
and anyone else who might suffer from a similar
tendency, that impulse buying is as expensive
and fruitless in a garden centre as it is at
the make up counter in Boots.
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