The Highs and Lows of Buying My First Succulents - Succoholic Series #1
I've wanted to grow succulents for quite a while now but the local supplies can be a bit pricey and I just couldn't justify the expense to myself. Last week, I unexpectedly received some money and it's been itching to get out of my "mental pocket" since then (cue for the personal finance gurus to come in).
Five days ago (Friday), bored and restless and feeling rich, I window-shopped on facebook and came upon an affordable seller (Cactus and Succulents for SALE). She was very responsive and helpful and offered me succulents for P35/pc if I bought 35 pieces, plus P310 shipping fee for the whole package. So I took the plunge. My OC tendencies took over from there. It became a hectic day: browsing though the seller's albums, downloading photos, comparing, deleting, downloading again, comparing again, stitching the photos, deleting again, until I finally came up with the 35 different varieties I wanted. Here they are:
After ironing out the details, I sent my payment via Cebuana Lhuillier on Sunday. The seller only accepts payment via Cebuana or Palawan Pawnshop. I paid a total of P1535 + P30 (service fee) = P1565. Then I sent the proof of payment to the seller and she sent me this photo of the prepared succulents (34 of my 35 orders, 1 TBD):
This got me super excited. 😍😍😍 But of course I noticed that there were four of the dark-colored rose-shaped succulents, so I requested that she replace the three (there was mention of unavailability of the other varieties so I said I was okay with different varieties as long as there was only one of each). That settled, I was told that my succulents will be uprooted and shipped on Monday, and in my mind I was> 😱😱😱 ???uprooted???
Then I rationalized it and realized that of course they had to uproot it; otherwise, they'll be shipping the soil and it would cost me sooo much more in shipment fee (my succulents will be sent directly from my seller's supplier in Benguet to me). So I started my research on how to plant succulents, what kind of planting medium to use, how to water, etc.
And we roamed the stores of Dumaguete looking for affordable pots, pumice (I had no idea what this was but the blogs & instagram accounts of other succoholics mentioned this a lot), rice hull (my brother said this was a good planting medium if mixed with soil), pebbles (for decoration). In the end, we didn't buy anything that day because they were either expensive or unavailable (black plastic pots -- not available in Novo or Lee, P18/pot in Cangs; rice hull & pumice -- we didn't know where to find any; pebbles -- P35 for a few handfuls at Lee).
So my mother, whom I've recruited in my new-found hobby, had to buy the pots on Monday (I was at work). She bought it for P5/pc (6" dia. black plastic pots) from 143 Store (not sure what the actual name of the store is). She didn't find any pumice or rice hulls.
When I got home from work on Tuesday, my somber mother told me our succulents were lacking. She looked reeaaally disappointed. The succulents were already unpacked and laid on our table. They did look disappointing lying there with tissue wrapped around their roots. I was really disappointed too. Considering it was already 5PM, we had to shake off the sad mood and my mother and I started planting.
Since we didn't have pumice or rice hulls, we used a sand-soil mixture as planting medium, with a base of gravel. I read or heard this somewhere and I'm really hoping this wasn't a wrong move. It took us more than two hours of planting the succulents and when we finished close to 8PM, we had a total of 22 varieties (and lots of mosquito bites). If we counted each stem, including the tiny ones, we had 34 plants. 😞😞😞
We tried to check which of our orders arrived, and which ones didn't but it's really hard to identify the succulents based on the photos so I had to put this off 'til sunrise when I can see each one better (also, we had a party to attend).
This was the "prepared succulents photo" my seller sent me. The underlined items didn't arrive. That's 15 varieties missing, excluding the cactus and the four-of-a-kind and A5 which was TBD.
I even tabulated it to check. (I did mention I had OC tendencies 😁).
Armed with these facts and figures 😉, I contacted the seller for an explanation. She suspects that my order was switched with the other costumer's 23-piece order. When she sent me this photo of the other order, it was confirmed (this looks exactly like the items I received):
So now, as I'm writing this on my lunch break (less disappointed, a lot relieved), my seller is trying to contact her supplier and her other costumer. She mentioned a refund, but I said I didn't want the money, I wanted my succulents (I said that in a lot nicer way, in Bisaya, where I'm more eloquent 😁).
Note: this was a first time for the seller to have this kind of mix-up and she was really apologetic and accommodating despite her busy schedule. She also assured me she'll have this resolved.
In a few days, she'll give me an update and hopefully send the lacking items next week. I'll post an update by that time as well.
If you have much-needed suggestions and tips, please leave them in the comments. Thank you! 😄
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