Four tips for bringing home the best plant
1. Buds not blooms. Choose a plant with lots of buds over a plant that is in full bloom. Blooming plants are stressed by transplanting, and often drop all their flowers. Plants with buds can be replanted easily and provide color over the entire season.
2. Tiny is Mighty. Choose 6 packs or 4" over a gallon plant. Smaller plants will establish more quickly, be easier to plant, save you money, and often catch up to their larger counterparts in a single growing season. The exception to this rule is slow growing plants like Manzanita.
3. Labels matter. The label tells you the mature size, water, sun, and soil requirements, and spacing. Is this plant a good fit for your garden?
4. Root to shoot ratio. Choose plants that are about one and a half times the size of the pot they're in. A plant with leaves and flowers much larger than the size of the pot is probably root-bound. I'll cover root-bound plants in another post.
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