why is there not a campaign to get supermarkets to treat plants better

im really not sure the store would see it like this, id suggest not doing this as it could be interpreted as tampering with goods owned by the store.

 

to be honest i rarely watch tv now but if you go on tiktok or youtube etc there are loads of gardeners presenting . Maybe some of the forum users

 

Garden centres water plants, I cant see why supermarkets cant, it just not something they are interested in doing, its a side line and not their main income.
They probably pay next to nothing for the plants anyway.

Supermarkets are the biggest wasters of food anyway, so why would they bother watering plants.

 

Problem is they don't have hosepipes, just watering cans filled at a tap somewhere and then carried to the plants, any spillage is a trip hazard and has to be marked until dried up.
They weren't designed to cope with plants.
Why sell plants? it's a combination of customer demand and peer pressure, soon as one starts the others don't want to be left out.

 

Well there you go a career opportunity, you could be a Tik Tok gardener campaigning for supermarkets to water their plants.

 

In my Morrisons the floors are always wet anyway. All the fridges/freezers seem to leak, and then there's mystery wet patches too. They put the wet floor signs up but don't seem to do much else about it. I tripped over a wet floor sign once!

 

I have a long running feud with those death traps.

 

I like how you talk about demand, part of the reason the plants look so poorly is that noone is buying to take home and care for them so i wonder if supermarkets are overestimating the demand. Even when they reduce the price of these plants (partly because the look like they are dying and partly because no one bought them ) i dont think all plants are sold .

 

Supermarkets don't even sell all their food so they are hardly going to worry about whether their plants sell or not. To an extent, they also rely on "impulse" buying hence the constant change of where different products are sited - customers have to wander round the store looking for what is on their list and often end up spotting a product which they hadn't considered but pick it up to take to the checkout. It's called Sales Technique and lots of us fall for it whether we like to admit it or not

 

They also charge suppliers more for certain positions on the shelves, the most expensive being eye level, anything down the bottom or right up the top is not the place to be for your product.

 

Fair question. It's not something I do on a regular basis and, on those occasions when I've felt so sorry for the poor plant/s in question as to feel compelled to give them my water, no-one's said anything. I am health & safety minded so no spilt water and I'm careful not to make a mess. If I were to be asked not to do it I would, of course, comply.

 

The customers demanded that it be something they could buy at supermarkets like household items such as, glasses, cutlery, bedding BBQ accessories. Unfortunately plants are perishable.
The house plants are often better treated as these are higher value.
Our local Morrisons has a separate outdoor area open spring and summer, where the plants always seem to be reasonable, but they have water available from a stand pipe.
The local Aldi also has some good offers at times and depending how busy they are there are sometimes signs of watering.
I look forward to seeing your petition doing the rounds in the near future @hi2u_uk , but as I never buy bedding plants from anywhere or plants from supermarkets in general I couldn't sign it with a clear conscience.