Home Depot Tour
Milford Home Depot
11/9/2004
10 AM to 12 PM

I set up a tour of Home Depot for the girlscout troop a couple of weeks ago and had firmed all the details up with a woman named Stephanie. Things had been rather busy here so I never bothered to call back and reconfirm. BIG MISTAKE! When the girls and I got there, we found out that Stephanie had been terminated and that there was no record of the tour being scheduled! The girl at the service desk was wonderfully helpful and found us a "substitute" tour guide, a wonderful woman named Mary!

Mary had been with Home Depot for 6 1/2 years and had spent most of that time in the garden center so she centered our tour around the plants and plant care. I was AMAZED to learn that a whole 2/3 of Home Depot's business is their garden center which takes up just a small corner of the store and some outside patio space! We learned how to tell healthy plants from unhealthy ones, how to salvage a plant, how to detect root rot (and how BAD it smells) the signs of underwatering, that most plants prefer NOT to be placed in a window, the need to feed plants and also a bit about christmas trees (the balled and burlaped trees were out on the patio). It was amazingly informative and fun. Hannah even commented after we were back in the car that it was "way better" than she thought it would be, because all she thought we would do was look at "boring tools" not "cool plants".

As the finale to the tour, Mary let the girls pick a plant to divide and repot so they could each take on home. We decided to have a "contest" to see who can keep their plant alive and who can make it grow the best. Anyone with a still living plant in March with bring it to a meeting and the winner will get a small prize! Hannah and Emily also picked out a couple of plants to bring home (an aloe vera plant and some hen and chicks) to see if they can get them to grow!