Big Picture

Whether you're blessed with a sweeping backyard or a few sunny windowsills, planting is a great way to bring nature into your home and do the earth a good turn. Cultivating the right plants offers birds and insects food and shelter. But before you let your green thumb loose at the nearest garden center, take a moment to consider how their garden grows. Where do the plants come from? Is the garden center promoting colorful flowers that will last the summer or hearty perennials that will last for years? What does the garden center do with damaged and dead plants? Even basic elements of plant care such as watering and pest control should be taken into account when asking, IzzitGreen?

Factoids n' Stuff

• Large garden centers sell thousands of plants, shrubs, and trees a day during the peak planting season, but may throw away hundreds when the weather heats up.
• Quart-size pots, used primarily to house annual flowers and vegetables, can dry out in as little as three hours in direct sun if they don’t receive adequate water.
• Planting native species of plants reduces the need for pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizer.
• Careful watering generally prevents plants from molding or rotting.
• Ladybugs, nematodes, and praying mantises can effectively combat a wide range of pests, reducing the need for pesticides.
• Many garden centers buy plants from nursery vendors and give them a cut of the profit. The vendor is often completely responsible for covering the cost of dead and damaged plants.

What Goes In?

It wouldn't be a garden center without plants. If they weren’t grown on site, they were trucked from somewhere, so make it a top priority to ask where they came from.

The biggest commodity that goes into a garden center is water. It takes thousands of gallons of water to keep fragile potted plants alive, especially in mid-summer. If plants don’t receive a thorough drink once or twice a day they can say goodbye to their shot at finding a happy home. Customers tend to pass over bedraggled plants in favor of fresher stock. Many plants are pulled from the racks and tossed in the trash because they have little chance of being sold. Sadly, perennials and biannuals often have a perfectly viable root system even if the part above the soil looks dead or badly damaged.

To make matters worse, if plants are watered from above and not from close to the base of the stem, water can pool on the leaves, making them susceptible to sunburn or creating the perfect conditions for a mold epidemic which can spread to other plants throughout the garden center. To do the job right, a garden center should invest two or three hours several times a day to thoroughly watering the plants. Is the garden center making watering a top priority or getting the job done as quickly as possible?

What Comes Out?

A plant is a lovely investment to beautify your home. So are your potential investments thriving or withering away? Do they soak up water and flourish when you get them home or do they remain sad and stunted? If they don’t prosper once planted, there’s a chance they didn’t receive proper care at the garden center.

How's it Run?

The right people can make all the difference. Does the garden center have at least one full-time waterer, if not two during hot weather? Are the waterers giving their full attention to effectively watering the plants, or lackadaisically spraying the plants from above or stopping often to help customers?

Does the garden center employ several experts who can recommend the right plants to customers for their outdoor conditions, and who are knowledgeable about native species?

When the plants are no longer in pristine condition, does the garden center have a discount rack or let customers take dead plants home for free? If they don’t, do they compost the dead plants and potting soil or does it all end up in the dumpster? Does the garden center use natural preventative measures like ladybugs to control potential pests?

What They Care About

You want a garden center that cares about the health of the plants above all else. Does the garden center invest their time and energy, regardless of whether they’re financially responsible for dead or damaged plants?

What to Ask

• How far away is the nursery that supplied the plants?
• How often are the plants watered?
• How many waterers does the garden center employ?
• What does the garden center do with damaged or “dead” plants?
• Does the garden center have experts available to provide customers with planting advice?
• Do the experts make it a priority to recommend perennials and native plants?
• Does the garden center release beneficial insects like ladybugs and nematodes to prevent pests?

What to Do

• Let the garden center know immediately if you spot plants that look dry.
• Alert a manager if you see a waterer doing a sloppy job.
• Ask an expert to recommend hearty annuals, perennials, and native species when shopping for plants.
• Get a jump start on the growing season and cultivate your own plants from seeds, it’s the best way to guarantee the health of your garden and it uses significantly less resources.
• Make a point to ask a manager what happens to dead and damaged plants. Let them know how wasteful it is to toss them in the garbage if they do so.
• Ask if the garden center uses beneficial insects and recommends them to customers.

Find Out More

• How to Green Your Garden, from treehugger.com
• 6 Steps to a Water-Wise Garden, from Sunset Magazine
• ladiesinred.com, suppliers of beneficial insects
• organicgardening.com, a variety of planting resources