I went to a big independent garden center with an large indoor line and then went to a H.D. to get a sink plunger. While there I went out to the garden department and found many of the same seasonal pot crop items to be significantly shabbier looking. As usual there were still-unloaded racks of potted plants still sitting in their plastic shipping wrap, in this case poinsettias inside the hot main part of the store. This was in the evening, not in the morning.

Even the large section of cut trees filling up what earlier was the landscape plant area looked dried out. And it's not even December yet. The whole angle must be people who are pleased with their plant purchases because they're a few bucks less than at an independent, a false economy because the quality it often markedly lower.

It is a crime, but you can't blame Home Desperate. Blame the people who line up for those .99 Poinsettias. Blame the growers that give up a product at a price no local grower could compete with AND THEN take back every dead or unsold plant giving the box store a credit.

Plus, those trees are harvested in October. Maybe not even in the states. Every year, tons of unexpected consumers buy those bargain trees. Then they get them home and the tree sheds it's needles so the consumer equates that bad experience with all cut trees and sets out to buy a fake one next year.

Our greedy commercial consumerism will destroy us all.