Buying Plants for Your Local Conditions
Select for Your Garden
As a general rule, you need to select plants that will do best in the conditions that exist in your garden, for example:
- The kind of soil you have such as clay, sand, loam, alkaline, acid
- The prevailing climate, which must also take account of extremes of weather that you experience - hot, dry, cold, wet
- The uses you intend for your garden such as show garden, play ground, garden parties
In practice, local nurseries and garden centres are likely to stock plants that are suitable for your area and staff are usually only too pleased to offer advice for more specific requirements such as shady corners or boggy areas of your garden.
Of course, you can often compensate for adverse conditions but this invariably means additional work or cost.
You also need to take account of your own preferences, such as mini-work gardening, routinely pottering about or serious amateur or professional gardener.
Do a Little Planning
Whilst you can randomly introduce individual plants from time to time that happen to catch your eye at the garden centre, you will create a much more satisfying result by doing some initial planning. Some of the more obvious criteria to consider are:
- Colour and texture
- Height and spread
- Expected time to mature
- Time of flowering and for how long
Sources for Plants
If you plan to buy most of your plants from a garden centre, it is worth checking out those that are conveniently close to establish the quality of the plants they stock.
It is also worth asking for a guarantee with plants, since nursery-people who have confidence in the quality of their work will be glad to replace anything that dies early or fails to grow in the location they have recommended.
Don't forget about other sources of plants. You can often persuade neighbours to part with a cutting or some seeds from their gardens. Such sharing helps to build good friendships.
However, never ever take cuttings without permission. Apart from being unethical, it can also cause a great deal of bad feeling.
Allotment Supplies
There may be a long waiting list to rent a plot from your local allotment society but that does not mean you cannot join the allotment trading shed.
For a small annual membership fee of a few pounds you can purchase seeds, composts, fertilizers and other gardening supplies at significant discounts.
You will also be making the acquaintance of people who are experts on growing conditions in your area and who can offer advice that is worth many many times the value of your membership fee
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