HelpfulGardener.com

It is the best time of year plant buying day! I would love to hear your tips!

[youtudotbe]https://youtu.be/U4wejcck9CE[/youtudotbe]

On one of my most anticipated days of the year I thought I would share some of my tips for picking the best plants at the Greenhouse.

1 Come with a Plan: Planning can help you avoid a lot of troubles when planting your garden. I find planning helps me research what I want to grow and cook with while making sure I get all of the varieties and I have space for them all. Impulse buys can be challenging and fun but having a plan can help curb or direct your buys to fit your garden.

2. Check the Hardiness Zone: This is more important with perennials (plants that will come back year after year) but can have an impact on your annuals (live only one year) as well. If you are unsure what your Hardiness zone is you can search the internet for your Town or City it should be able to tell you which zone you are in. Growing Zones are set using a number of factors including number of frost free days and average coldest temperatures. You can plant plants that are not hardy to your zone but they will take a lot more work and some times not produce at all for you. Making sure your perennials are hardy to your zone will help give you the best possible chance of success.

3. Compare Plants: I garden in Zone 3 and have a short and intense season. In this zone I recommend getting the largest plant possible. This will give you the best chance to out run the fall and get produce. In higher growing zones (warmer climates) the smaller plant will take less transplant shock and do better in the long run. That is if the long run does not include freezing temperatures.

4. Leave Room in your Garden Plan for impulse purchases: I know this is kind of counter intuitive to Tip 1 but it is the reality of most gardeners. We have a weak spot that makes it fun for us to grab that cool plant that we did not know about. This year I picked up a Northland and Northcountry Blueberry plants and an honeydew melon plant. They are lots of fun to grab but make sure if you get perennials you have permanent space for them!

5. Carefully Transport them Home: Now that you have your haul of plants you want to make sure you bring them home carefully. carefully packing them together using containers and flat surfaces will give you the best chance of not damaging them when you move them.

I would love to hear your tips for picking plants! Please feel free to post them in the comment section of the YouTube Video or email me through the websites contact me portal!

Happy Gardening!

Great video. Lemme add one...

#6 - Shop local!

At a big box store, there is nobody to ask for advice on what grows locally, and 9 times out of 10, the plants they have are the same Bonnie's varieties seen nationwide from Oregon to Vermont to Tennessee and may not be appropriate for your climate. At the nearest Lowe's, most of the onion transplants were Long Day, which make no sense for South Carolina. The blueberry varieties were totally wrong. After a few times asking employees at big box stores when they would have X variety in, I got tired of the response "No idea, we just sell what comes in on the truck" and just stopped asking. It's not worth saving 10 cents to lose the variety and expertise available at a local nursery!!

All of the local nurseries in Fort Mill and Rock Hill, SC have closed but one (A.B. Poe Farmer's Exchange). One nursery for 100,000 people.

#7 - use a known, reputable nursery and talk to the senior staff when selecting. Many times while picking out shrubs and plants the senior staff person has suggested for us to take one over another because it is in better condition. They notice things about the plants that you can miss.

I could not agree with 6 and 7 more I always go to a family owned garden centre. They were nice enough to let me in early to shoot this episode! They might be a little more costly but well worth it as they have experts whom are paid a living wage in every department!

I had a lot of fun doing this episode Thanks for adding in!

I go to the local nurseries, not the stores. If you look at the plant tag, sometimes the nursery name, and phone number are on the tag and some of them sell retail. Nurseries take better care of the plants than the stores do. Otherwise, I ask what day their plants come in so I can get the freshest stock.

Other places to get good plants are at plant sales. The vendors are usually the growers, the plants are sometimes worn from transport but are usually very good. It is also where I will find unusual and new introductions or natives. Here ONGA (Oahu Nursery growers Association) sell at different events throughout the year. Most are specialists. The orchid, Anthurium, Rose, Bonsai, and Cactus and Succulent societies all have their annual sales and offer classes on care as well.

That's a great tip I never thought of going to the growers !!

You have shared some good tips on plant buying. I prefer to support the local store over the box store when possible. I have also worked at garden centers (local) and see some things from the other side. Just because it is a local store, doesn't mean plants are regional. The main supplier of bedding plants and herbs for stores here is Hybels out of Kalamazoo, hardly regional to the mid-south! The box stores have Bonnie. Advise from clerks at the store is a mixed bag. If you shop at one on a regular basis, you may find one more knowledgable about veggies, herbs, shrubs or whatever.

At the last small place I worked, the boss would sometimes give me a few $ and send me 'shopping' at a couple of other places. I would walk around, mentally cram notes of inventory, prices, condition of plants, customer service etc etc, and of course buy something. He knew I shopped one for some herbs and the cotton burr compost, and after my trip would report all of the above, and who might be working there (employees pop up at different places.)

All of this FWIW!

Susan thank you! I always try to end up finding the people who work there all year usually they are the experts ! Good tip my friend.

I usually shop around but price is only one thing like you said !

I am glad you enjoyed it !!

Do your homework. Do go with a plan and a backup plan, but especially on impulse buys, make sure it is a plant that will grow in your zone or your soil type. For the folks that have iphones, there are apps that make it easy to look up information.

Check the plants out before you bring it home. Look under the leaves make sure you are not bringing home unwanted hitchhikers and that the plant looks healthy. Check the bottom of the pot and squeeze if the pot is hard and you see roots coming out of the bottom it may have been in a pot a while. Adversely, many times a grower will up pot a plant into a larger pot right before bringing it to market so it can be sold for more. It is better to have a plant that has at least been established.

This is not at the greenhouse but when you bring a new plant home, isolate it for a while to make sure it is healthy and gradually acclimate it to its new home.

Good points! I always look under the leafs but I forgot to say it

Isolation is a good idea as well. I don't currently do that but I am going to start to!