I am always supportive of the horticultural industry and know that small nurseries, in particular, work hard. The multinationals, that increasingly dominate the industry – well I am not so sure all the time. But gardeners are generally nice people and so are the professionals. 

But I am getting increasingly annoyed when I buy something that is not what I thought I had bought. It happens a lot with bulbs and also with seeds. I know it is impossible to avoid errors completely but these ‘mistakes’ are just too common. Last autumn I bought tulip bulbs and at least one batch was misnamed so my ‘careful’ colour scheme was not as expected. It was not the end of the world but annoying. Dahlias are also often not what expected when bought as tubers.

And many seeds lately have not been what it said on the packet. This year a batch of rudbeckias, still to bloom, have proved not even to be rudbeckias at all but gaillardias – I can see that before they have flower buds. They are mixed in the border so it is not awful but annoying. But I am really annoyed at the cosmos ‘Candyfloss Pink Sunrise’ that forms a big part of some formal bedding in pink shades. The plants should be all the same colour and 60cm high. It was actually a change from my plan and I was going to plant ageratum ‘Pink Ball’ in these places but the germination was poor (probably my fault) so I had to change plans. As it turns out, even these are not quite what they should be. I love ageratum but detest the very dwarf kinds and this should grow to about 30cm. But the seedlings I have planted out and have started to bloom vary from dumpy little monsters to quite tall and attractive plants. 

And the cosmos? Some have flowered at a young age with few branches and will die soon because they do not have any more growth. Others are big and leafy and will obviously be much taller. And they are various shades of pink and white. They are not what I thought I had paid for. 

In a far less important place i planted some tropaeolum ‘Raspberry Fool’. I planted them to add new blood to the nasturtiums that self seed. The flowers should be dark pink and light pink. Very few actually germinated, which was a slight surprise. If you can’t grow nasturtium seeds it is probably time to give up. But five plants grew and the first flower to open is orange. I know who the fool is.

It is an increasingly common problem with annuals and with cosmos in particular and is surely down to poor selection and rogueing in seed production. The seed companies may do germination testing but not testing for quality. And I am starting to even doubt the viability of seeds. I know that I can fail with healthy seeds as well as any gardener but this year I struggled with a batch of onions, failing to get many plants from three separate sowings over three months and from a packet of canary creeper – usually easy to grow – I got no seedlings. Strange. 

Of course there are other hazards for more unsuspecting plant buyers. A few months ago I was entering a discount store and saw a person leaving with a trolley loaded with some bags of chipped bark and some apple trees. The trees were ‘root-wrapped’ and completely dead. I was tempted to stop her and tell her but, to my regret, did not. I am afraid I am rather scared of abuse, in the same way that I wanted to challenge the BMW driver who drove into the car park this morning busy talking on the phone in her hand. As a victim of someone driving while texting I am always annoyed by this illegal behaviour but they are obviously more important than me if they have to be talking while driving and we know that BMW drivers are not restricted to the usual rules of the law and they need our sympathy because they don’t have indicators fitted to their cars (along with Audis) like the rest of us. 

But I digress. Today I saw some roses for sale in a discount store. I have no idea how long they had been there but the poor things had tried to grow, many months ago, and died. But they are still for sale. Does the store manager not care? Or is not aware that they are dead? 

buyer beware, cosmos candyfloss, dead plants for sale