Topic: bargain wednesday

[ACE]

I just popped into B&Q to get some cable ties, noticed a big dutch trolley being filled with all the neglected bedding plants all priced at £1 a tray some with 24 plants in. Grabbed £20  worth as I have to plant out a garden that I have a contract to plant up now and again. They have been repotted and bunged in the poly to recover. Coming out I noticed the turfs at £1 a shot, sorted out 25 good ones, just enough to cover a bank I rebuilt with a digger last weekend. The extra bonus was being wednesday and oap discount day. As it was hissing down I dropped into the local wholesale nursery to pick up 5 limelite hydrangeas I needed to lighten up a shady area. The owners informed me it was closing next week and all the stock was on offer. That was it, £600 later we had the truck and trailer treble stacked and loaded to the brim. I have quite few jobs coming up and this lot saved me at least £3000 I still have not sorted it all, just bunged it in the nursery but there are at least 100 escalonias, 30 or 40 camelias, 100 hostas, loads and loads of clematis, passion flowers, jasmine, wisterias, honeysuckle and climbers I can't remember. 2 or 3 hundred ornamental firs, 20 white periwinkles and so many different sorts of shrubs it is going to take ages to catalogue it all. I have to go back tomorrow for a few dozen crates of perenials that they are going to sort out for us just to clear their nursery beds. I better not forget the limelite, I got 20. everything worked out at less than a 50p a plant plus all the freebies. Once I have worked my magic on them and got them up to the  show standard I like to sell them at, I should make a tidy profit, plus the garden is going to be crammed full.

[rosebud]

   Well done you Ace, Good luck with it all i hope everything survives & you make a few bob.

[cambourne7]

brilliant sad for the owner but at least they know the plants have gone to a good home :)

[Poppy Mole]

Isn't it a lovely feeling when you have been in the right place at the right time? - Well done!

[caroline7758]

I assume you'll be passing the savings on to your clients, Ace? ;)

[ACE]

I assume you'll be passing the savings on to your clients, Ace? ;)

Cough! splutter, you owe me a new keyboard. ;D

brilliant sad for the owner but at least they know the plants have gone to a good home :)

They are retiring so no too sad. I did look into buying the business a few years ago but a little bit out of my price range £950,000. I expect all the polytunnels will be let and go over to salad production.

[Deb P]

Whose a jammy g*t then! Sounds like z terrific deal, if you hadn't taken advantage someone else would have..... ;D

[bridgehouse]

That was great Ace .
   June.

[antipodes]

nice one! ;)

[jaggythistle]

 Fall in shoite comes up smelling of roses comes to mind !!!!! :o :o ;D ;D ::) ::) :P

[shirlton]

 Fall in shoite comes up smelling of roses comes to mind !!!!! :o :o ;D ;D ::) ::) :P

 ;D

[mentallot]

And there was me thinking this was in the wrong forum and waiting for the punchline !

Nice one :)

[Borlotti]

If it ever stops raining might just take a walk to B & Q and have a look at their neglected plant trolley, do love a good bargain, and all they need is some loving care.

[Borlotti]

Well that was a waste of time, dead basil for 30p not much else on the reduced B & Q trolley and very quiet in there today,  but then went to lovely Morrisons and spent £2 on plug plants, and got chives, sage, parsley, rosemary, mint and thyme. My lovely rosemary bush got massive so I binned it (in the compost, of course).  Obviously I have mint.  I need some oregano which seems to have disappeared from my allotment, but my lovely Italian friend will give me a root/cutting. Have planted them all up in a big tub at home and covered with hard plastic and a brick (for the wind) and to stop the cats sleeping/weeing on them, so am a happy bunny. Don't believe the prices for herbs in B & Q, about £3 each.  Loads and loads of bedding plants in B & Q, so will go back later in the month to see what doesn't sell, better to grow your own from seed me thinks. Must say their tomato plants looked better than my poor specimens, but perhaps they will pick up soon.

[Ellen K]

After reading this I had a look and got 3 good healthy Sunrise Petunias (and 3 dead ones) for 50p and a few other things to plant up the hanging baskets.

But there was a load of stuff that looked beyond recovery - though I moved some trays out into the rain to give them a chance.

Very very tempted by the grafted Aubergine plants, even though I don't actually like aubergines  ??? after listening to a guy on the plot saying they run away from anything you can grow yourself.  £4 each - he had stretched the budget to 4 plants and that is a big recommendation as my neighbours are all as tight as a camel's posterior in a sandstorm.

Might go back at the w/end .....

[ACE]

Repotted  all the B&Q stuff and took all the flower buds off to get them to bulk up, lost one plant out of 22 trays and they all picked up a treat in the poly. took the new guinea impatiens home to give them some heat in the conservatory. The only plants that might not make it are the hanging fushias as they were really waterlogged. I'll give them a week and see. All the stuff from the wholesale nursery are a bit potbound so I have sieved the compost heap and made up my own mixture so I can split and  repot the perenials I am not putting straight into the garden. They will sit in the nursery until they start looking good. We are allowed to sell at the front gate for 28 days a year. 14 weekends worth and loads of gardeners keep coming back to buy our 'rejects' as they say they better quality than the garden centres.

[cambourne7]

sounds brilliant :) but why not set up a newsletter to your customers so they can know when you have loads to sell and then order via email would give you extra trading time :)

[antipodes]

I went shopping in Lidl on Saturday and they had grapevines for 3.99!!! As my attempts with cuttings hadn't worked, I grabbed one. They had Italia and a French variety called Alphonse Lavallee which I had never heard of. I prefer black grapes so I got one of them, but when I got to the checkout I saw that I must have picked up the last Hamburg Muscat instead, which is a lovely grape! SO I was very pleased. Got home, potted it into a bigger pot of compost and i will go down tomorrow (Labour Day holiday) and put in a post for the future trellis and stick it in.
At garden centre they wanted anything up of 12 euros for one, so I thought I got a good bargain.

[chriscross1966]

I went shopping in Lidl on Saturday and they had grapevines for 3.99!!! As my attempts with cuttings hadn't worked, I grabbed one. They had Italia and a French variety called Alphonse Lavallee which I had never heard of. I prefer black grapes so I got one of them, but when I got to the checkout I saw that I must have picked up the last Hamburg Muscat instead, which is a lovely grape! SO I was very pleased. Got home, potted it into a bigger pot of compost and i will go down tomorrow (Labour Day holiday) and put in a post for the future trellis and stick it in.
At garden centre they wanted anything up of 12 euros for one, so I thought I got a good bargain.

grrrr.... I thought my Lidl might have cheap grapes for a minute until I checked your location... you are a tease Antipodes :D

[antipodes]

OOps sorry about that!!!  I do get jealous of a lot of your bargains so time for pay back  ;D  ;D Actually DIY and gardening things are very much cheaper in UK than here, where it is horribly expensive. Which is why I took to getting seeds online from UK, because here, cheapest price is over 2£ for basic seeds!!!  :o  :o B**ger that!
I was going to plant the grapevine yesterday but a neighbour warned me off, saying that the least cold weather could be fatal to it. So I have just potted it on and it will stay on the windowsill for another few days until the bright spell looks sure to last. It has loads of little shoots on it already.