How to shop the clearance rack

Start at the roots, not the leaves

Leaves are the loudest part of a struggling plant and the least reliable. A plant can drop every leaf it owns and come back. It cannot come back from a rotted crown.

Slide the plant part-way out of its nursery pot. Healthy roots are firm and pale — white, cream, or tan depending on species. Rotting roots are brown or black, slimy, and pull apart between your fingers. A sour, swampy smell is the clearest terminal signal there is.

The thirty-second check

Run this in order. If the first two fail, walk away.

• Squeeze the stem or trunk just above the soil. Firm is good. Soft, hollow, or squishy at the base is crown rot.
• Smell the soil. Earthy is fine. Sour or sulfurous means anaerobic rot.
• Look for any green tissue — a green stem, a single healthy leaf, a firm growth point. Green means alive.
• Turn leaves over and check the leaf axils for webbing, white cottony spots, or brown bumps.
• Check the drainage holes for a solid mat of circling roots, which is fixable, versus mushy roots, which often is not.

Good buys

Sunburn, leggy etiolated growth, dropped leaves from underwatering, pot-bound roots, salt crust on the soil surface, and cosmetic damage are all recoverable with time and nothing but correct care.

Walk away from

Mushy base with no firm tissue anywhere. A heavy, persistent infestation on a plant you'd have to bring home to other plants. Complete root loss on a species that will not root from cuttings.

Walking away is a valid rescue decision. Your energy is finite and there is another plant on that shelf that will actually make it.

Asking for the markdown

Most big-box stores mark down plant stock on a weekly cycle. Ask a garden associate which day it happens and what they do with plants that don't sell — many stores discard them, and many will hand them to you for free rather than throw them out.