In article GP%0d.31054$MQ5.16548@attbi_s52, "Warren"
wrote:

Cereus-validus wrote:
If the plants were any good, they would have been vigorous when you
bought
them without the need to coax them along for years.

Buying sick plants is a foolish thing to do regardless of your
ultimate
results. The risks far outweigh any possible reward, especially when
you are
buying generic plants of little value in the first place.

For some people, the reward of gardening *is* taking something that has
little chance of living, and turning it into a beautiful thing. At risk
was the 30-cents paid for the three plants, and some compost, mulch and
water. The pay-off was three years of enjoyment. The positive results
were a bonus. Even if they had not survived, the experience of trying to
save them was the real pay-off.

Anyone can go out and buy healthy, vigorous plants. That's no more fun
than going out and buying new socks.

I've never in my life met anyone who enjoyed buying unhealthy sickly
plants. Unhealthy plants invite disease, which spreads to healthy plants.

I do know many who prefer to start their own things most inexpensively
from seed, & nurture a plant through its entire life cycle. But shopping
for stuff other people have started, but waiting until it is abused &
sickly & on sale, just sounds loony, & nothing at all like buying new
socks.

If socks was the comparison, going for the unhealthy sickly plants would
be like buying dirty socks with big holes in the heals from hobos for the
sheer joy of seeing if you could successfully get rid of the fungal
diseases before you pulled them parasitized & disease-ridden over your
feet.

-paghat the ratgirl

--
"Of what are you afraid, my child?" inquired the kindly teacher.
"Oh, sir! The flowers, they are wild," replied the timid creature.
-from Peter Newell's "Wild Flowers"
Visit the Garden of Paghat the Ratgirl: http://www.paghat.com