Thursday, September 24, 2009

Buying Ready Grown Flower Plants

Buying Ready Grown Flower Plants: Plants can always be bought. Garden centers and other outlets are full of them from around the middle of April until the end of June, and the quality can vary from good to very bad. These plants are often offered for sale too early for them to be taken home and planted outside. Mid-May is the earliest planting-out no time, not before. If boxes of plants are bought before that, the correct thing to do is to keep them as they are, well sheltered against a wall or fence, regularly watered, and possibly covered at night.

Many commercial growers are also guilty of pricking out too many plants per container. The spacing is a clue. If they seem overcrowded, don't buy. If they look pale and drawn, don't buy either, as they will probably have been forced and hurried along in too much heat, and not hardened i properly. Such plants suffer badly when set out.

Look for strong, good-colored, well-spaced plants. The big disadvantage of buying plants, however good they are, is that as far as varieties and colors are concerned, you have to take what is on offer. Of the hundreds of different subjects and varieties, only comparatively few are sold as plants. Commercial growers are not too keen on growing dozens of different varieties. It tends to complicate their operations, so they concentrate on growing a few of the most popular. And they may well be the most popular simply because the buyers and growers aren't aware that anything different exists.

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