Stripping them off plants, yeah thats just damaging the plant itself and is shitty behaviour.
Off the ground? Now its crossing from damage into being pedantic about stuff that would go into a mulcher.
And I highly doubt that those with the patience and skill to propogate make up any significant margin whatsoever.
In my limited experience (I found a succulent leaf on the street) the only skill one would need is to remind themselves to water it, like once a week maybe. All you have to do is drop it into a pot with some soil and water it every now and then. Maybe some succulents are more finicky though. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
*Also, it’s pretty cool to watch. Like the original leaf slowly shrinks and dries out as the new leaves are formed.
I have succulents on my balcony that outgrow their pots. I break off chunks long enough to have a few root-hairs attached and drop them into the scruffy area at the side of the building. They can’t really root themselves there unless we get a bunch of rain, but I’ve seen a few people take one and it always makes me happy.
To add on to this: a lot of customers are probably people who have the patience and skill to propogate. (As others have said, propagation isn’t really that hard, so it’s more about patience and time.) At the same time, if you have the patience and skill to propogate a plant and are still at a greenhouse buying plants, it’s probably because you’re specifically looking to buy a plant where someone has already done that work for you. You’re not going to proplift a plant instead of buying it, because you’re there specifically to buy something instead of doing that work.
Propagating plants and growing them from seeds is a longer process that’s prone to failure and can take time. It’s very common for gardeners to propogate/grow from seed some plants while also buying others that are already more mature in order to eliminate that process or because all their tomatoes this year died and they need new ones.
Sure, maybe every now and again you get someone who’s there to buy something else, sees a dropping from a plant they want that they might have otherwise bought, and grabs it, but as you said, that’s really not common enough to cut into their margins. You’re consistently paying for the saved time and effort when buying plants at greenhouses.
Now, if the greenhouse itself makes a habit of taking fallen plant bits to propogate new ones, that does change things a little bit, because you’re taking something they were going to use. But if it’s just going into the mulcher, who the fuck cares.
Idk my neighbor has four different kinds of lemon tree. They spend a lot at the nursery
We got free water at Lowe’s outdoor lawn and garden so I’d stuff plants I found throughout my shit in one.
I hope this is a typo.
Ya gotta admit, it’s a great typo.
They found plants in their shit and tossed them in their water what’s unclear
Funny enough though if they’re snipping a cutting off of the plant to propagate, the plant must be healthy enough to purchase…
what an ingenius way to make sure people propagate more plants
Innocence in this world often surprises me. Consider the sort of person who would post that sign and how they think the world works.
“I bet if people knew this was theft they wouldn’t do it. I shall rush to inform them! I’ll even make it nice by saying ‘please’!”
Don’t feed starving kids for free! A business somewhere might profit from their hunger and you are depriving them that opportunity!
It’s called “ProfLifting” because you are STEALING the businesses opportunity to potentially profit.
Profiting by checks notes taking dead leaves off the floor.
Never would’ve quite considered that the software open source movement, and gardener groups, would have such a fight in common.
FREE OPEN SOURCE PLANTS!!! (FOSP)
Oh man, you have no idea. There is SO much in the gardening world about copyrighted seeds and cultivars.
I have cloned indeterminate tomato plants using my fingers. Snap off a sucker and stick it in some wet dirt, you’ll have a whole new tomato plant.
Just a reminder, lots of public libraries have seed exchanges! A little library of seeds free to be taken and encouraged to be dropped off!
If you didn’t want me to do it you shouldn’t have given it such a cool name.
There used to be a really cool project called Free seed ring earth, that distributed seeds for the cost of shipping, with seeds aquired through donations. Not sure if it’s still active, but I loved participating some 15-20 years ago.
my city has a native plant association that will ship you seeds for free, and has multiple free plant giveaways each year
it’s a wonderful thing. I’ve bought from them for the past few years
so buy one, propagate the hell out of it, and give it all away. make the stores seek greed satisfaction elsewhere
Lmao I’ve done that. Walking your dog is a good way to find succulents to propagate too
Plucking is wrong anywhere. Taking fallen off props at an independent nursery? Only of theyre cool with it. Big box store? Have at it
What is this about now?
This was a developmental psychology professor who demonstrated to her students how NOT to teach kids to dislike something
I mean, she’s not wrong
I’ll bet my next paycheck that this store also sells “root starter”.
