Why You Should Go Native

The plants best suited to your area are those nature put there. Check with your County Extension Service for ideas and sources. The trick to incorporating native plants is to get rid of any images of perfectly mowed grass surrounded by a neatly trimmed hedge. Wander out into the country and look at how nature arranges plants. A word of caution is necessary here. Not only is it bad manners to go out and lift plants from the wild, in many cases it is downright illegal. Check with your local Audubon Society Chapter or native plant society to determine whether a plant is endangered. Removing endangered plants from the wild is prohibited, and even collecting seeds from such plants may be restricted. In the case of others, you must have permission from a private property owner before digging up desirable natives. You can, however, make note of the plants you want, and gather seeds in the fall. Going native doesn't necessarily mean including only local plants in the landscape. Your hometown surely is unique, but there are other regions throughout the world with similar climateslatitude, altitude, and distance from large bodies of water. Plants from similar zones often grow equally as well in one as in another. For instance, Rugosa roses, native to the Far East, thrive in seaboard towns everywhere. Alpine plants from Switzerland flourish in rock gardens in Minnesota and Oregon. Cacti from Arizona prosper in any dry area. The idea is to use plants found in similar regions.

Nursery Shopping Strategy

The very best way to get top-quality plants from your local garden center or nursery is to get the best service. The people who work there are your most valuable resource. They know the quality of their product, their wholesalers, when the plants arrived, how they were cared for, and any problems that may exist. Do yourself a favor; get to know these folks.

Know When to Shop
Plants arrive at the garden center from the supplier in the best possible condition, given the rigors of shipment. They sometimes go downhill from there. When scouting for plants, call and ask when the store expects to receive their shipment from their best supplier, and show up when the plants arrive. Not only will you get the healthiest possible plants, but you will also get first pick.
You won't get a bargain if you wait for plants to go on sale. If a plant has been sitting on a rack for months, especially if it doesn't receive proper care, then it probably won't amount to much. The best bets among such plants are perennials, but only if the price is really low. If you feel you can bring a plant around, then by all means take a cheap gamble. Otherwise, spend wisely, and buy early.


Signs of a Good Investment
Blossoms are the one feature that attract buyers most readily. Yet seedlings that have been forced into bloom in order to make them more tempting to buyers can actually result in less productive plants in the long run. The stress of life with few roots and a big head slows plant vigor.

Look for compact, vigorous plants that appear healthy. Pass by plants with dead or yellowing leaves or those that have grown leggy. Be wary of unstable stems or plants that look poorly rooted. Well-rooted plants will recover from transplant shock much more quickly than those with poorly developed roots. If you can find plants that are not yet in bloom, consider them first.

When buying perennials always look at the roots, because that is the future of the plant. A healthy root system ensures the plant will live to bloom for years to come.

No matter what type of plant you are buying, look it over thoroughly for any signs of pests or diseases. Never buy sick or infested plants at any price.

Two More Tricks to Cheap Seeds

Once upon a time I ran a bedding plant business. I think I made about $200 that year. But from that experience I learned something so obvious it's embarrassing. Wholesale is cheaper than retail. And nowhere is that more obvious than in the seed business.
Owning a small greenhouse business has its advantages, not the least of which is you get to write things off on your taxes and maybe even realize a profit. You also get to buy from wholesale distributors. The price is always much less than retail. The catch is you must buy in quantity. This is not really a problem since most seed keeps for years, or you could resell some, perhaps at a reasonable mark-up, to gardening pals.

If you are not interested in going into business, then watch those seed-rack displays. Seed companies only sell seed packaged for the current year. At the end of each season, you can get mega-bargains on this year's product. Often seeds that sold for $1 a packet, sell at ten packets for $1 when the stores are clearing inventory. Garden centers offer the least drastic discounts, while grocery stores, hardware stores, and other stores not normally in the garden supply business just want to get rid of them. A word of caution, however, is remember that the perfect environment for storing seed is a cool, dry place. Don't buy from seed racks exposed to rain or excess summer heat. The seed may be ruined.

Dealing with Seed Bargains

Mail-order catalogs and display racks everywhere from garden centers to grocery and hardware stores sell seeds. Which sources offer the best bargains?

Mail-order seed companies are big business. Pick up a catalog and wander through those glossy pages of perfect plants; you can't help but be tempted to order many. Rule number one is to take the pictures with a grain of salt. Your plants probably won't look just like the picture-perfect ones.

Compare several catalogs, and you will quickly find that most are selling the same seeds, packaged a little differently in a range of prices. Look for the best-priced varieties with the color, flavor, texture, growth habit, or other traits you desire. Hint: It's not always the biggest company that offers the smallest price. Furthermore small seed companies often focus on local conditions and offer varieties that will thrive in your immediate area. Check them first if there are any near you.

Gardening magazines often have a seed-savers exchange section. Someone has saved variety X and would like to trade for Y. These are a great way to get seedsoften rare or heirloom varieties that are hard to find elsewhere. There are seed-saving clubs, such as the Seed Savers Exchange, the members of which trade thousands of seed varieties. (See page 156 for address.) Finally, plant associations abound for nearly every kind of plantfrom alpines to water lilies. National groups usually send out a newsletter in which members often list plants they have to offer. If you have a real passion for a particular kind of plant, get involved with the local chapter of the appropriate association. (Of course, the really cheap way is to become friends with someone who is already a member and borrow a copy of the newsletter!)

Where to Find Homeless Plants

Digging up someone else's landscape is obviously a bad idea, but there are a number of valuable resources for finding unwanted plants. Landscape companies frequently redesign existing plantings, both residential and commercial. Construction firms remove existing plants everyday when expanding structures, usually with a bulldozer. If you make contact with these people and offer to remove unwanted plants for free, you may find yourself with more plants than you can handle.

No matter what the source of a secondhand plant, transplant only healthy-looking specimens. A free diseased plant can become quite costly.

Slightly Used Plants

Another way to save on plant costs is to ''reuse" grown plants from your own garden, or those unwanted by others.

One of the best reasons to belong to a garden club, apart from the friendship, is that members give each other or sell cheaply perfectly good plants. Plant swaps or sales are standard among clubs and a great way to increase your plant collection. If you're not a member of a formal club, create the same opportunities simply by talking with others about your garden and theirs. Once people know you are a plant nut, they offer you all kinds of plant items.


Plants move around some people's yards more than the people. A shrub just doesn't prosper in a particular corner. A rose bush might clash with a climbing vine. It's actually a lot like moving furniture around until you create just the perfect setting in your outdoor room. Furniture doesn't suffer transplant shock, however. The first rule of thumb for digging up and relocating any plant is to wait until the plant is dormant. This causes the least possible amount of stress on the plant. Fall is usually the best time. For most perennials, dig down around the perimeter of the plant to create a rootball large enough to accommodate the plant. For shrubs and trees, a burlap wrap will help hold the rootball in place. Dig a trench around the perimeter of the plant branches, the dripline, and use a fork or spade to pull as much soil away from roots as possible to create a ball of soil. Tip the rootball up with the edge of a shovel, and shuffle the burlap underneath. Repeat around the plant, shifting the burlap until it encircles the roots. For heavy shrubs or trees, you may need to slide a board or two underneath the rootball to create enough leverage to move the plant. Lift the plant carefully and transport.

You can dig up plants routinely sold bare rootsuch as roses, grapes, raspberries, blueberries, and many shrubsand treat them the same way as a bare-root transplant . A younger plant has better chances of survival.

Bulbs, Corms, and Tubers

These are underground plant parts used to store energy for the coming year. Plants that grow from bulbs include common favorites, such as crocus, daffodil, narcissus, and tulips, as well as a range of others. They routinely develop offsets, smaller versions of themselves that you can separate from the parent.

Reap the bounty of tiny bulbs by lifting a clump with a fork and carefully pulling the bulblets free. Pot them and let grow for a year or two before planting outside. Some of the more common bulbs reproduce as follows:

Lilies form little bulbs along the length of the stem, which you can pluck and plant.

Gladiolus grow from corms, similar to underground bulbs, and you can separate them the same way.

Dahlias grow from large, fleshy tubers. In most parts of the country, you must dig them up every fall and bring them in from the cold. In the spring, as buds form, cut the tuber into sections. Make sure you include a couple of buds on each section.