What you find in a garden center in Germany

My trip to Germany last week went by in a heartbeat, and there wasn't much time for exploring. However, my mother and I made it to an OBI garden center one morning. OBI is a major chain of home improvement stores, much like The Home Depot or Lowe's in the U.S. (In fact, Wikipedia says OBI is #3 in the world behind these two.)

I wasn't expecting any huge surprises, considering that the average OBI customer is more interested in low prices than unusual plants, but I was still hoping to find something a bit out of the ordinary. Let's see if I did!

Outside the store there was racks upon racks of the usual bedding plants (geraniums, petunias, marigolds, etc.) as well as vegetables. In the garden center proper, more bedding plants but also some very nice lupines and hostas. (I shouldn't be surprised; hostas grow well in Germany, as opposed to California.)

The only succulents I saw in the outside area of the garden center were sempervivums. That's par for the course since many of them are native to the mountains of Europe. They tolerate a great deal of cold and don't need much water. I saw some in the cemetery up the street from my mother's house, and I think they should be used even more in landscaping.

Here's one plant I had never seen. I could have sworn I photographed the label, but I didn't. For all I know, it's a common bedding plant, but it was new to me. Does anybody know what it is?

I was surprised by OBI's large selection of conifers. I've had a simmering love affair with conifers for a long time now. If I lived in the right climate, I think I'd get into collecting dwarf conifers.

The biggest surprise was a monkey puzzle tree (Araucaria araucana), a conifer from Chile. This is one of my favorite trees of all, and seeing it in a big-box garden center made me very excited. Maybe they're becoming more common in the general nursery trade now? It was not cheap (€45, about $50), but it's a very slow growing species so the price is fair. My mother said my brother bought one at a discount supermarket a few years ago (even more surprising to find one there!) but that it had died (no idea why).

Monkey puzzle tree (Araucaria araucana)

OBI also had several varieties of clumping bamboo, including this Fargesia scabrida. Fargesias do really well there (my brother was two in front of his house) and would look so much better than the boring shrubs so many German homeowners prefer.

Fargesia scabrida

OBI's indoor plant area (heated) held a few surprises too. The first one was a dwarf bamboo. It looked like plastic, but it was real. The label said Bambusa pogonatherum, but a quick Google search revealed that that is incorrect. The plant is Pogonatherum paniceum, a grass from the Seychelles. It's as closely related to bamboo as lucky bamboo (Dracaena sanderiana) or heavenly bamboo (Nandina domestica)--i.e. not at all. 

My mother loves orchids and I wanted to buy here the one below but she proclaimed it to be too demanding (my mom is no-nonsense and doesn't have time for fussy plants):

The real draw for my mother was the cactus table. She can only grow them inside, on her window sill.

Cactus babies in terracotta pots (much nicer than plastic, I think)

See the brown stump behind the plants? That's an old agave flower stalk! I definitely did not expect to see that at a garden center in Germany!

My mother picking out a moon cactus

I really wanted to hate these (plant torture!!!) but they did make me smile

No, we didn't buy any

But I did buy this hanging kokedama cactus arrangement for my mom

Here's my mother with her new cactus babies

They'll join a motley gang on her living room window sill, like this Haworthia

I guess it's no surprise from whom I got my love of plants. Happy Mother's Day, Mutter!