Seed Scams!

As a typical consumer who shops, zombie-like, online every single day, it is hard for me not to notice ubiquitous marketing that looks a lot like this:

Uniquely colored roses, rainbow carnations, neon begonias, true blue orchids. Colors that nature simply has not formulated yet, all being sold for incredibly low prices. Many friends of mine have been taken into this scam, thoroughly believing that, at their whimsy, they could order the seeds for a rainbow rose bush or jet black devil’s trumpets. It is almost heartbreaking to have to explain that unfortunately, 99.999999987% of these products are totally scams. There are surprisingly a few outrageous and lovely plants that are totally legitimate and easy to grow from seeds! However, most of these are absolutely not.

It is difficult to ascertain the quality of seeds via the internet because, well, most reviewers can only comment that they ~received~ a packet of what appears to be seeds. And, there are so many factors that may kill seeds or cause them not to sprout, that a company could claim it is the fault of the buyer that they did not end up with rainbow roses. Besides that, some plants take many years to reach full flowering maturity… which means that you won’t know you’ve been duped until after you’ve cared for the plant for many years. Some reviews comment after the seed has sprouted, but not after fruiting or flowering… so they are totally invalid reviews because they cannot confirm the item is even what they ordered!

While the biotechnology and plant breeding industries have taken on the challenge to produce unnatural colors, the bottom line is that there is no way an obscure seller from China or Thailand would be selling you seeds to this plant, especially not for rock bottom prices!

Some of the critical thinking questions I asked myself when I first saw plants like this are: How come they don’t sell these in the store? Are these images photoshopped or are the flowers fed artificial color? And the answer is pretty simple, as many, many disappointed reviewers are finding out: If it’s too good to be true it’s too good to be true. People are reporting packets of dust that never grows, packets of seeds that grow into totally different plants, empty seed packets, and in rare cases plants that grow into the same species as described on the listing… at least until it finally comes into blossom as a beautiful, white or red rose / carnation/ etc.

Some plants do have naturally blue blooms, of course! But roses and orchids simply do not naturally come in blue (most varieties that are sold as “blue” are actually purple. There are no naturally occurring varieties of phalaenopsis that show up in big box stores around the holidays with blue blooms… Unfortunately when those blooms fall off , the plant will never bloom that color again unless you take it upon yourself to dose them with unnatural pigment once again.

Here are some outrageous plants that are quirky and weird but who actually will live up to your expectations of unique colors or features:

-Akai Ryu “Red Dragon” Venus flytraps: Amazingly, this variety of Dionaea becomes a lovely burgundy red color in full sun. It’s quite unnatural looking and very pretty.

-Caterpillar bean plants: grow adorable creepy beans that look like caterpillars, and often arrive in pretty colors before they dry out. Snapdragons really do have skull-shaped seed pods as well!

-Tacca chantrieri, otherwise known as bat plants are delightful and totally real!

-Sundews (most of the red, yellow, orange, green and white varieties can be trusted despite how spectacular they are!) A good source is California Carnivores: a reputable advocate of carnivorous plants and conservation.

-Succulents and bromeliads can come with foliage of shades of white, black, orange, yellow, pink, red, purple, etc. Be wary of any that advertise truly neon or pure colors. Tropiflora is a great supplier of bright, amazing plants.