What to Watch Out for When Buying Plants at Yard Sales, Plant Sales and Flea Markets

It is always great to get plants at reduced prices at yard sales, flea markets and the local garden club plant sales. It's even better to get them free from friends and neighbors but there are a few things you should know to protect your gardens, ensure success and avoid wasting your time and money.

1. Make sure the plants look healthy. Examine dead or dying leaves for signs of disease (see link below). If no disease seems apparent, pinch back any dead or dying leaves and flowers to see what you have left. If the plant does not appear to be in good health (no new leaf shoots or flowers buds), don't buy it even if you think it needs a good home and can be nursed back to health. You could be bringing disease into your garden and endangering your other plants.
2. Pop the plant out of it's pot. How root bound is it? A plant that's looking a little haggard would be just so root bound there is no longer any soil in the pot. This plant will probably not do well even when freed from the pot as it will have been starved of nutrients for too long. If you do take it home, you will want to free those roots when planting by cutting through the mat of root matter and even cut away a lot of the old roots. You will need to baby such plants in the garden to ensure they get a good start with new root growth.
3. Be wary of plants with too little root matter, they may have been recently potted up and not have adequate roots to survive. I recently bought a blueberry plant at a flea market. By the time I got it home it was completely wilted even though the soil was moist. I unpotted the plant only to find it had virtually no roots.
4. Buying plants that have been dug up from other gardens or getting plants free from other gardens come with the possibility that you could be bringing disease or pests into your garden along with the plant. Check the plant thoroughly, especially the underside of leaves, for bugs, leaf spots and signs of ill health. Check the roots for growths clinging to the roots (possible  nematode infection) or root rot. You will want to discard any plants infested with bugs or with leaf disease or root infection into the trash not the compost.
5. When planting any new plants in your garden, check for foreign roots like creeping charlie or grass rhizomes. Remove these and watch the plant closely over the first few weeks after planting to be sure nothing unwanted spring up in your garden. Treating the soil with a pre-emergent such as Preen can guard against weed seeds germinating in your garden with the new planting.
6. Be sure the plants you are bringing into your garden are not on your state's invasive species list. Such plants can take over your gardens and spread into adjacent properties and cause you many headaches and unhappy neighbors. Thistle is one example of an invasive species that you could be battling for years to come if you introduce the wrong species into your garden.  (See link below for more information).
7. Know how the plant will reproduce in your garden and where you should plant it. If the plant will spread readily from the roots like evening primrose or lily of the valley, give it enough room to spread or put it in a confined space where its spread will be checked by hard boundaries. If the plant will readily reseed like cone flowers be sure to harvest the flowers before seeds form or harvest the seeds before they broadcast to avoid unwanted seedlings throughout your garden the following spring.

Helpful guide in diagnosing plant health
https://extension.psu.edu/diagnosing-poor-plant-health

Invasives in Wisconsin
https://dnr.wi.gov/topic/Invasives/what.html
https://hort.extension.wisc.edu/topics/other/weedsinvasive-plants/

Where to find free and cheap plants
https://www.thespruce.com/get-cheap-free-garden-plants-2736879

Article and photos by Pam Davies, North Country Master Gardener Volunteer.

Evening Primrose will spread from roots.

Feverfew will spread from seeds.