experiences with free offers of plants
Jennie McWalter
Posts: 1
From time to time I succumb to the free offers in the magazine, and have mixed results, which makes me wonder how other people get along with them.
Late last year I ordered 4 Papaver plants, paying only the postage, as usual with these offers. They arrived quickly, ie in winter, when it did not seem a good idea to put them in the ground, so I potted them up, but nothing has happened as yet (mid-March) and the plants look completely dead. I also ordered a collection of herbaceous plants, and while most of these are growing, 9 out of 21 show no signs of life. Maybe I have not dealt with them in the right way, or maybe I am unlucky, but I do have a reasonably successful garden. I would say that the instructions that come with the plants are not all that helpful or detailed.
I wonder if other subscribers have similar experiences?
Posts
I don't do that any more,as applied for many free pkts and I only had one weedy pkt and no reply from the others.
All my orders with the just pay postage has been rubbish. They all seem to have died and when they state you will be getting plug plants, they are literally 2cms from top of plant to bottom of roots and they normally all die for me. However, I got some free strawberry plants and had a nice harvest from them last year
The thing to remember if the offer is too good to be true-it is buyer aware- this is just a way of getting rid of unwanted stock-cannot see that it does the supplier's reputation much good-they are not doing the customer a favour
Results are mixed. the plug plants are miniscule, so I normally avoid these now, I can get similar things a lot bigger from either the supermarket, B&Q or if I'm really desperate for something and I have the cash, it's the garden centre. I am a bit of a sucker for free stuff that will produce a harvest (fruit plants and seeds etc), so I normally succumb to those. Although I have ordered some strawberry runners that were 'free' with my clubcard vouchers, mainly because my little boy has a voracious appetite where strawberries are concerned, so putting those in a hanging basket, where it can go out out of his reach
I ordered quite a bit of stuff from T&M, I think it was about 200 plants and it cost me roughly £10 in postage. At the end of Feb I recieved a bush which was basically bare twigs but now its trippled in size and looks great. 72 plug plants arived which were about 2cm like Ryan mentioned but they are all growing quite well. Delays on some of the others stuff. All in all I can't really complain yet as they didn't cost me a penny (used tescos vouchers).
I ordered the climbing rose in GW a couple of months ago. I had a letter to say it was out of stock. I'm still waiting - and they've got my postage money. If it is bare root, which it must be, and does not come soon I presume I'll have to wait til next year.
I haven't done any of these offers as I'm not sure how great the quality would ever be, no such thing as a free lunch etc. As Verdun says better to pay a bit more and you can often buy something bigger which will split into 2 or 3 plants. I've often bought small plants from supermarkets which have been really good value but I guess it also depends on what facilities you have for protecting and bringing them on.
I've never been eligible for the GW plant offers because of living in France, but I've always wondered what they were like. So I've read these replies with interest and relief.