Anyone else rescue half dead supermarket plants?

[ToClimb]

I've found I can't walk past a half dead plant. I take them to customer service and ask them to heavily reduce them. A few times they have just given them to me for free. I have about an 80% success rate at reviving them, although sometimes I have to wait until the following year before they rebloom.

Pic attached of last week's rescued bonsai tree.

Also.... Why do supermarkets not just water the plants??!

I’m the same at garden centres. The half dead reduced stand near the entrance gets me every time

Nope.

Not something that's ever crossed my mind but will be much more open to the idea now and dotn even know if there is a reduced section.

Do you just pic up the dying plant and ask for a reduction? Or do they have a reduced section?

I can't resist a reduced plant although I'm v hit and miss with them. One of my best containers is a dog rose I bought for 2 quid!

I think I need to start doing this

Garden centre horticultural person here. That bonsai is totally saveable but bonsai need more frequent watering than anyone thinks due to their reduced root system. Rainwater or cooled boiled water will give it the best chance. I also love saving poorly cared for plants!

Always buy the reduced plants.

All the time! Most of my plants are half dead when I get them. Quite often I buy a healthy plant and take a couple of half dead ones to the counter and say “if I buy this can you throw these nearly dead ones in - nobody is going to pay money for them anyway..
My friend pots up hanging baskets for charity and gets a lot of dying plants from supermarkets for free.

My mother & grandmother have turned this into an art form over the last 5+ decades. They love a challenge & I reckon have about the same rate of success as you @ToClimb 😀

Unfortunately the green fingeredness is not hereditary as I can kill a spider plant by looking at it. I keep to yellow stickered food in supermarkets as I can ‘revive’ that into a good meal!

I see a dead or half dead plant, and ask for a discount on account of it being dead! Don't ask, don't get.

They often come in lovely pots too so we'll worth asking. In my local Asda I think they are onto me. "Are you on a one person mission to save dead plants"? 😂

Thanks for this advice. I've dunked it in water and will be keeping it well watered, especially in this heat!

I only get perennials

i think they die because staff don’t know how to water properly. Just Chuck it in the top not into roots

Yes I do, I I find it very difficult to walk past a pleading plant or a fading flower! I don't really have green fingers, but have had some surprising successes in the past with plants that have recovered against the odds and and hung around for many years!

I think supermarkets should stop selling plants if they're not going to look after them until they sell. In the past two weeks I've been in aldi and asda and they've each had several 5 tier trolleys of dead plants. They wouldn't leave their food produce out to rot.

Always a sucker for a resurrection plant!
My best ever was a 50p, 3 leaves wilted agapanthus from the reduced section at Morrisons which took 3 years to get to flower.
Now I have clumps all-around the garden and at least 30 buds about to burst open.
You don't seem to get bargains like that anymore but occasionally I see a perennial on its last legs that I take on as a challenge.

That’s me - I always head to the ‘shelf of death’ to rescue some poor plant in a supermarket or garden centre.

I feel so sorry for them and have had many success stories.

I love to do this. Not just to save money, but because you can't really feel connection or real ownership until you have affected a plant with your nurture of it.

Plants that are sold perfect, especially if they are sold with a perfect set of flowers that you will find it very hard to achieve again next growing season, feel kind of fake, almost like buying artificial plants.

Rescue plants are real, and I like to think that they will feel extra-loving and grateful, rather than snootily turning their noses up at having to slum in on a windowsill instead of living in an optimised industrial greenhouse.

Bonsai grower here. That there plant of @ToClimb is a buxus harlandii and the best hope for survival for that one right now is to put it outside in the shade and keep lightly moist. Fingers crossed and you might some see some fresh growth, but they are slow growers. It can be brought inside in a cool (and I mean cool) place over winter.

'Bonsai' trees sold in supermarkets and garden centres in the house plant section are 90% doomed to failure before you even buy them, but it is worth a reasonable go.

What REALLY gets me is when garden centres are selling plants that have little broken off bits all around them that you KNOW you could grow a whole new plant from.

I don't generally take one of these broken off bits because it is really shoplifting. But I know they will just be swept up and it breaks my heart to see them go to waste. Especially when the full-size plants are being sold at a rip-off price

Sainsburys are shocking with the non watering of plants, I swear they buy them in half dead anyway. All us older ladies stand around tutting at the neglect.

But I do have to praise Sainsbury's for their top tier air con, it was Baltic in our Local on Saturday🥶👍

Your Sainsburys too? Ours is appalling. They just let all the plants die.

Yes. Though, admittedly, that's the only way I can afford to buy plants some of the time, rather than pure plant altruism.

Thanks for the advice. I'm about to go away for a few days so my garden is likely to die over the next 2 days of heat, but I'll put it out and hope for the best

Me too! I have loads of rescue plants, including many that I got from neighbours and are now thriving (the plants, not the neighbours) and others I got at Morrisons and at the garden centre in the discount aisle. A monstera I picked up on the pavement is now six foot tall; a fiddle leaf fig is now pushing lots of new leaves.

Some plants are very easy to resuscitate: tradescantia will root from a single broken leaf; ferns and Alocasia may look dead but be just dormant; sempervivum and succulents are among the easiest to grow from a cutting by just neglecting them.

I move most of my houseplants outside in the summer, and they just explode into growth. The £1 tradescantias I got from Morrisons over winter are now enormous with vibrant purple and pink leaves.

DW once asked the manager in our local Morrisons why they let the plants dry out.
His answer gave two reasons:
*Management had taken away his budget for paying a member of staff to water.
*Customers don’t like buying soaking wet plants as they drip everywhere.

Capitalism at play, everyone abs everything expendable.

I love a reduced section but I’m going to follow OP’s advice and ask for reductions.

Save the Plants! 🌺🌼🌸💖