The flowers shady sellers love to sell most are either fake flowers or dead seedlings - be on your guard when buying plants
Lately I've been seeing gardening friends show off beautiful pictures in the community every day, and I'm so envious! Whenever I have time I sneak off to the flower market, and if I don't buy at least 1 pot, I just don't feel right~ But I've discovered a lot of tricks at the flower market. When you run into these strange flowers, you absolutely must see them clearly, or you'll be the one getting scammed!
Vegetable lotus and bowl lotus
The bowl lotus that was all the rage a while back - many gardening friends said theirs never bloomed, and nine times out of ten you bought vegetable lotus. Look carefully at the picture below: the bowl lotus seeds on the left are a bit smaller and plumper, while the vegetable lotus seeds on the right are bigger and more slender.
Vegetable lotus can bloom when grown in a pond, but when we buy it we at most put it in a bucket. No matter how strong the sun is, it only grows leaves and never blooms - no wonder gardening friends waited months and still got no flowers!
Red flowers stuck on Elephant Bush
Every time I go to the flower market, I see a bunch of "Elephant Bush" (Portulacaria afra) with small red flowers. Actually, Elephant Bush is a variety from Africa and is very hard to get to bloom in China. So how on earth did these flowers bloom?
Look closely - these little red flowers are all made of paper, stuck between the leaves with wire. If you don't look up close, you really can't tell!
Besides these tricks, some also spray Elephant Bush with chemicals. After spraying, the leaves turn pink and catch your eye. Once you take it home, the color slowly fades and it turns back into a pot of "greens"~
Pepperwood passed off as Fragrant Wood
As soon as summer comes, sellers start hyping up "mosquito-repellent plant," which is actually Fragrant Wood (Pistacia weinmannifolia). But 80% of the Fragrant Wood on the market is actually Pepperwood (Zanthoxylum) passed off as the real thing. Can you tell them apart?
True Fragrant Wood has 1 pair of leaves at the tip, not just a single leaf, and it also has a faint fragrance with a slight mosquito-repelling effect. But Pepperwood has hardly any scent.
Colorful succulents sprayed with chemicals
In succulent shops there are always some colorful succulents. These are called chemically-induced variegation. I've covered this specifically before - they're sprayed with chemicals that affect the succulent's photosynthesis. After the color change they're very hard to keep and have a very short lifespan!
If you've already bought a chemically-induced variegated succulent, I suggest putting it in a shady spot right away. Whatever you do, don't put it in the sun, and water it sparingly too. If it can survive the color fading, then you're all set!
Strange blue Christmas Cactus
Breeding techniques are advanced now and flowers come in more colors. Many unscrupulous sellers use this to their advantage, selling rare colors to attract you - but they're all fakes, like this blue Christmas Cactus below.
When I saw it, people were actually buying it! Everyone must remember: Christmas Cactus currently comes in red, rose red, pink, white and orange - there is no blue variety!
Poplar branches turned into Four Seasons Plum
This one below looks like it has a well-developed root system and comes with bright blooming pictures. The vendor says it blooms in all four seasons and calls it "Four Seasons Wealth Plum."
It's actually made by sticking poplar buds onto tree roots - it can't survive at all, and the pictures are Photoshopped too. The elders in the family are the easiest to fool, so be sure to watch out.
Various leafless seedlings
When buying plants, it's best to buy seedlings with leaves. If you come across these bare-stem seedlings with no leaves, claimed to be roses, camellias or bougainvillea, they might just be some wild tree root.
These plant-buying traps
Have you avoided them all?
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