Re: urgh! Planting day.

Donna, I'm with you on this. (This isn't the nursery that has the parties and plant bucks, is it?)

Plants do have to be potted on from one size to the next at some point. We do this, from quart to trade-gallon (3quart) size, immediately after our first sale in the hope that some of the gallons will be reasonably rooted by the June sale, a month later. If they're not, they don't get put out for purchase at that sale, they wait until our last sale at the end of August. We'd rather sell well-rooted quarts than gallons with a quart plant in them. and some plants, that have not filled out their quarts, just stay in the quarts until they're ready to move up.

I've read "nursery buying tips" articles in magazines, that tell you to loosen the plant, tip it out of the container to check the roots before buying. This may seem like a hassle or embarrassing thing to do, but it's a good idea.

Also remember that many nurseries hire new people each year to do the grunt work of potting and can either neglect to train them properly or to make sure the new hires understand the techniques. Someone who isn't really thrilled with this work may just plop the 2 inch plant into a gallon without teasing out the roots either because they don't care or they don't really grasp the reasoning behind it. You should notify the owner of the problem so he can both rectify the problem and make good on your purchase.

Kitty
neIN, Zone 5
----- Original Message ----- From: "Donna" <gossiper@sbcglobal.net>
To: "gardenchat list" <gardenchat@hort.net>
Sent: Sunday, June 04, 2006 12:50 PM
Subject: [CHAT] urgh! Planting day.


Well I guess it is time to find a new nursery. I
started planting today (yeah, it took me another 3
weeks to get things ready- weeded amended- so plants
would have a nice home).

I have never been so disapointed in the plants I
bought 3 weeks ago from a local nursery. Yeah, they
look great in the pots still, but when I dumped them
to plant- what is this!- The dirt just fell off and
yep, I can see that small pot compact size in the
gallon container... Gosh does that piss me off! I
EXPECT plants to be rooted by the size of the
container I purchase. They obviously just stuck them
in the pot, not even spreading the roots!

Does this bother anyone else or am I being picky
again. Not sure if I will be purchasing there again...
or say something ... or just what.

Well now that the ragging is over - thanks for the
vent-

On the other hand---

I was happily surprized by some other plants I
purchased from Chris. The ones I have planted were
well rooted, better than I thought they would have
been... great job Chris... let me know when you go to
a brick and motur store- cause I really can't take
this mail order thing.- it is just not how I shop.

Donna
breaks over- back to work....

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