SIZABLE OPTIONS

SHOULD YOU STICK TO PURCHASING PERENNIALS IN CONTAINERS OR SEEK OUT TRAYS OF PLUGS? HERE, THE PROS AND CONS OF EACH

- Shannon Currey

Most garden centers typically carry one size of any given perennial. So why spend time thinking about perennial sizes if your choices are limited? Because learning about them can help you plan better and plant smarter, and changes in the industry’s supply model are giving gardeners more options.

FROM START TO FINISH To understand sizes, it’s helpful to know a little about plant production. With perennials, young or bare-root plants are stepped up into larger sizes until they reach the final “finished” size. The starter plants are supplied by wholesale growers who specialize in producing starter plant material. Further down the supply chain the “finished growers” take the starter plants and grow them into the larger sizes destined for retail sales or the landscape.

In this article we’ll focus on the perennial sizes that are most likely to be available to an end consumer—essentially, what you find at retail sources. Those sizes fall into two categories: containerized plants and plugs.

In a garden center or other brick-and-mortar retail setting, perennials are usually containerized, meaning they’re in nursery pots. Plugs are actually starter plants, once a wholesale product that was typically sold only to those in the nursery trade. They’re now increasingly available through retail and online sources.

CONTAINERIZED PLANTS

Plant shoppers know that the look and shape of nursery pots vary widely. They’re square, they’re round, they’re short and fat, tall and thin and everything in between.