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Expensive pot plant

foxfish

foxfish

Member
Joined
11 Oct 2009
Messages
5,273
Location
Guernsey
I spotted this plant in our local garden centre, offered at half price in the January sale.
I dont know anything about it apart from it is expensive!
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Pink princess is a variegated cultivar with pink variegation. If you've seen any philodendron or variegated houseplant price recently you will see they have gone for crazy prices. It's quite lucky I hate variegation but in the example you have seen at the garden centre, you can see that the variegation can be non existent in some leaves, even some plants, but can develop in others.
I'd personally buy a rojo Congo, if you like the colour as they are far cheaper and far more beautiful imo.
 
MirandaB said:
When I worked at one sometimes we would dump thousands of pounds worth if a growing contract got cancelled and the garden centres didn't want them
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Hi @MirandaB

Is it the case that the garden centre (where you worked) preferred to dump thousands of £ worth of perfectly good plants rather than give them away? I suspect I know the answer to this question.

JPC
 
jaypeecee said:
Hi @MirandaB

Is it the case that the garden centre (where you worked) preferred to dump thousands of £ worth of perfectly good plants rather than give them away? I suspect I know the answer to this question.

JPC
Click to expand...
The nursery is where I worked and yes they'd rather have dumped them than give them away even though most of it was contract growing so they'd already been paid a fair proportion of the plants value beforehand.
 
Well the centre in question normally keeps their skips out of sight but back in October I noticed a skip in the car park and it was full pf plants!
Sarah was going mad at me for embarrassing her by rummaging around but I did not feel guilty in any way, happy to save a few pot plants and glad to get one over on the center where I have spent thousands of £s …..
Unfortunately this guy started shouting at me but by then I had already filled my car boot.
 
Hi all,
jaypeecee said:
Is it the case that the garden centre (where you worked) preferred to dump thousands of £ worth of perfectly good plants rather than give them away?
Click to expand...
Same business practice when I worked on a <"large commercial nursery in the 1980s">. We must have destroyed 7 out of 10 of the plants we produced.

cheers Darrel
 
Most of the problems are down to people wanting plants to be like tins of beans,all the same size and shape...we used to grow for the likes of Homebase and they were an absolute nightmare for rejecting whole lorry loads because a few plants were not up to their unrealistic standards.
 
Hi all,
jaypeecee said:
And what was the nursery's rationale for doing that, if you don't mind my asking?
Click to expand...
It was explained to me as:
  • Not selling a product for what it cost to produce, plus a profit margin, but
  • selling it for what <"the market would stand">.
If you sold the trees cheaply it undermined both their value and the value of the brand.

I believe the manufacturers of <"exclusive brands"> (and Viagra) still use the same business model.

cheers Darrel
 
Hi @dw1305 & Everyone,

What kind of world are we building for ourselves? I find it difficult to believe that these business practices are sustainable in the long run.

JPC
 
dw1305 said:
Hi all,

It was explained to me as:
  • Not selling a product for what it cost to produce, plus a profit margin, but
  • selling it for what <"the market would stand">.
If you sold the trees cheaply it undermined both their value and the value of the brand.

I believe the manufacturers of <"exclusive brands"> (and Viagra) still use the same business model.

cheers Darrel
Click to expand...
there was a similar story on the luxury watches made by the Swiss, only a tiny percentage of high end watches sell, yet shops all over the world hold stock, at a certain time the brands buy back the stock and smelt them down etc and so keep the range limited and exclusive, obviously the high end are not willing to wait for the time taken to make a watch, so its cost effective to over produce and destroy, since they get rare metals and stones back,

I have seen shipping companies destroying tonnes of unused PPE when the logo changed, though with the last 5 odd years of oil downturn there was a company flying people in, to unstick logos and then apply a new one, in the area in the south of Norway where a very high number of survey boats have been cold stacked for years.

the nursery and outlet I worked in once, also had the policy of no clearance sales of plants, if they were not in top form they went on the compost heap, or for a little while on a fire at the nursery, plastic pot and all :mad:
 
jaypeecee said:
Hi @dw1305 & Everyone,

What kind of world are we building for ourselves? I find it difficult to believe that these business practices are sustainable in the long run.

JPC
Click to expand...

Whilst I completely agree with your moral standpoint I’d have to say that it is not always easy to change.

The business can sell 10 plants for £10 each or 100 plants for £1 each but the questions for that business have to be, is there a market for those 100 plants, do I have shelf space to only sell higher quantities at lower prices, is it economically viable to pay staff and pay rent and so on and so forth without bolstering income with a certain amount of high profit goods.

Whilst they could sell them off cheap rather than just bin them, what impact does that have on their overall business model. Are people going to pay £10 or £20 or £50 for a plant that they can pick up for a song on the day before bin day.

I think businesses are more conscious of waste than ever, primarily because their customers are demanding that they must be, but ecologically and environmentally sound practices can also still demand a higher price point than many can afford or are willing to pay.

Ultimately it’s a tough call but the upside is that ultimately, any change will likely be led by customer demand, so we all have the power to vote, with where and how we spend our pennies.
 
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