Comments on: Breaking: Something Good to Say about Home Depot

By: donna

donna — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 05:23:34 +0000

I like to pick up the bulb and rhizome plants when they are tossing ‘em after they’re done blooming…

By: Barefoot in Pa

Barefoot in Pa — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 13:30:11 +0000

I am one of those folks who stops in Home Depot every Saturday morning at 8:00 a.m. to pick up what ever plants I actually want before they die of neglect. I will conceed they are generally neglected. But I feel so sorry for the little buggers, I consider it a rescue mission. And sometimes, I even pick up the desperately neglected ones at a HUGE discount. Now that I think about it, I don’t think I’ve every actually lost a Home Depot plant. For instance, I bought five Knock Out Roses for 25 cents a piece, two years ago, that were pretty dried out and barely rooted. I kept them in a mostly sunny spot for a couple of years, while they grew strong. And I just moved them to a very sunny spot along the stairs that lead to my front door, where they seem to be thriving. I bought an Althea standard years ago, for a dollar, that was in such bad shape that it was nothing more than a stick with a three pronged stick root system. After a few years in a large clay pot, and lots of TLC, that Althea was transplanted to a nice spot by my garage where she became a large flowering traffic-stopping beauty. The really lovely Red Bud and Red Maple that have grown tall and strong in my front side garden were purchased for less than $10 each one sunny Saturday in October. I admit that my best plants (like my Serviceberry) were purchased at the local nursery. But I love my Home Depot orphans, too.

By: Sylvana

Sylvana — Sat, 24 Mar 2007 06:00:15 +0000

I only buy plants from Home Depot when they are fresh of the truck.

By: Natalia

Natalia — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 19:53:27 +0000

I have a Home Depot and a Lowes right next door to each other near me (literally next door, they are in the same strip mall development thing, and there are no other stores between them!)

The Home Depot has miserable, crummy plants, but the Lowes seems to have gotten lucky with hiring some great garden center staff. Like Bogie’s HD, I’ve never been in there and not seen something either being watered or having just been watered.

By: Bogie

Bogie — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 17:27:13 +0000

Last fall I was very surprised to see that HD had set up a sprinkler and was watering all the trees, shrubs and perennials. In fact, every time I visited the store (different days of the week, for several weeks), they were either watering or had obviously just watered.

I had been eyeing a couple of shrubs that I was specifically looking for, but didn’t buy any at first becaus I figured they had been abused. After seeing how well they were cared for, I figured I might as well buy from them as opposed to mail order – at least I could inspect them and pick out the best ones.

Of course, that is one HD – I don’t even know if any of the other stores in the state took care of their plants, but at least some do.

By: ginger

ginger — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 23:49:40 +0000

Timely blog as I stopped in at the local HD yesterday for some market research. Since it is still too early to plant in this area, frozen ground and snow still, there was little there except a few Bradford pears, apple trees and some cherry trees all still dormant so not yet dead. I was really surprised at the prices, $19.95 for a 7′-8′ container tree. I will be watching for those elms! I was actually looking for some large containers and they hadn’t yet arrived but those left over from last year were overpriced and chipped and not even worth the 50% discount. I think it interesting that they actually have customers pay them to haul off their garbage!