I can't believe they put a deadline on it.
Buy something big, that uses up all your voucher. Then return it. Maybe they will put your credit on a Walmart gift card. Then maybe you can wait till spring to use it.
I hope that doesn't sound bad.

Bad? No! Very clever!

I would even try talking to your local Walmart to see if they'll exchange the voucher for a gift card. Anything's possible.

I'm so sorry for you Katkin and for all that had to remove their trees. What a terrible, worthless program that was.

Kate

The voucher has to be used for trees, shrubs or garden stuff. I can't buy a tv or anything else like that with it.
I just put down mulch, cause I couldn't wait any longer, and there's not much in the garden center now. I couldn't even get gloves in my size the other day. I know other people got the voucher in June so they had more time to use it. And more of a choice in plants.

Oh my gosh. This makes me want to run out on my next day off and spend the rest of my voucher. I was disappointed when we went to the Walmart Supercenter's garden center near us. Not much of a selection in plants. I got two Texas sage at half off, and two golden dew drops. Now we're going to the regular Walmart closer to us to see what they have. I can't believe they are doing away with the garden area to make way for Christmas already. That sucks, if will you pardon the expression. I smell a rat!

FlowerLady

We refused to use our *"!@X*x vouchers. We lost 5 prize mature, deliciously fruit-bearing trees and one sterling ornamental, one of the most beautiful trees I've ever seen, a sour orange tree with a perfect canopy that always had oranges in it, a tree that looked like an English Christmas card.

We saw the vouchers as a phony payoff effort to 'buy us off', a move that absolved them through a pittance payoff; refused to collude with that worthless move. At the time they had an ENORMOUS reserve fund. Ha! Walmart didn't have anything to buy that even came close to matching the loss anyway. We only received a nominal payment for one or two trees anyway.

Later the county made up for it some by offering trees free, to help homeowners, a re-canopy Broward program with weekend tree giveaways that went on for months. That was a little better restitution effort.

The citrus canker eradication program was all about saving the Florida citrus industry. A move toward honesty and fairness by the citrus industry to balance out the sacrifice they were demanding from homeowners would have been to give us vounchers to receive free all the oranges and grapefruit and key lime we could ever want. A fair swap for the lifetime supply we had in our yards.

Grrrrrrr!
Arabesque

Arabesque, I am appluading! I couldn't have said it better.

Why didn't they give us a gift card to be used at any nusery for plants and shrubs. I have been gardening here for years and have most everything Walmart's offers. I guess I stock up on fertilizer, top soil, mulch and stakes.
Then I have to have a place to store it.

Arabesque ~ I understand where you are coming from. We only had one small ruby grapefruit tree that had it's first real crop, not ripe yet, but getting there. The voucher to Walmart's garden center was a huge disappointment, as we were told it would probably be to Home Depot, which definitely has a much wider variety of plants. The thing that got to us about this whole citrus canker thing is that they would grind the stuff up right in front of your place. We didn't have the canker, someone else did, supposedly in the neighborhood. The whole program seemed like a scam. Now they have quit the program, and lots of gardeners like you have lost many mature, fruitful, and beautiful plants. I am sorry for your loss. DH does not want to buy anymore citrus in case they decide down the road to pull this stunt again.

FlowerLady

Well they won't "pull this stunt again" because citrus canker is no longer the big problem. Citrus greening is and unlike canker that only affected the fruit, citrus greening will kill the tree eventually.
Still Fla could give lessons on how NOT to stop citrus canker. What a waste. What a shame. :(

From our research, the fruit was not affected but only the surface appearance of the fruit, which made it unmarketable.

did anyone read
"State's citrus crop tops $1 billion for first time in six years"

it was in the sun sentinel

0_o

You have every right to vent! What a disaster!
Kat

Flowerlady,
I hadn't heard about citrus greening. We optimistically planted a ruby red grapefruit, Meyer improved lemon, and Valencia orange trees in early summer. Well, there was something I heard about that is carried by orange jasmine shrubs (which we have a hedgerow of.) Hmmm, wondering if that is linked to citrus greening?
-Arabesque

Arabesque ~ I had never heard of citrus greening either until Coffeemom mentioned it. I hope your wonderful fruit trees will do well for you. Good grief, what next? Orange jasmine shrubs the carrier of citrus greening! I have some of them too and love them. There is always something that we can or can't do, should or shouldn't eat, then they turn around and say it's ok afterall.

FlowerLady