I KNEW IT would happen, it always does every year. As I put away my membership card and walk into the store, there were beautiful, cool-sensitive impatiens in front of me for sale.
Why? You’ve been set up.
It’s human nature to want to take advantage of the first warm and sunny days of spring to grow pretty things. Then there’s me, pushing you every week to buy and plant. How can you resist those pretty red geraniums or bright yellow marigolds and especially impatiens?
You’d better find a way. With the exception of geraniums, selling those plants should be an act of gardening treason, because the plants won’t last! (I’ll get back to geraniums.)
Here’s the scenario: After a long winter, people are enticed by thoughts of summer gardens. Then retailers put these lush, soft, forced-blooming annuals right in front, where you have to look at them and see the very low price tags.
The treachery continues when the sensitive plants are mingled with items like primula, winter pansies or bulb combo pots — all proper now for the Peninsula’s time and weather. This makes the buyer think that now is the time to buy these plants, because they wouldn’t be on display otherwise — right? Wrong.
This act borders on criminal, because the public believes if an outlet sells plants, then it is marketing proper items at the proper time. This is called an implied warranty — an item sold to the public has an automatic warranty that it is what it is, and will perform as it’s supposed to.
Season not ready
If you were to plant marigolds, geraniums, salvias, impatiens, coleus or zinnias now, they would not perform as implied because the season is not ready for the plant. We buy these annual plants over perennials, roses or bushes because of the profusion of flowers over the summer and fall season.
The flower count is directly linked to their annual reproduction cycle, which means they die each fall as temperatures drop below 50 degrees. Think: What is the only time of the year we get 24 hour temperatures consistently above 50? Answer: The end of May to the beginning of June.
Subjecting one of these annuals to temperatures below even 54 degrees causes the plant to “harden off.”
The plant will become woody and turn bronze, purple or reddish in its foliage. It will also become stunted and produce almost no new flower buds. And because of our cool summer nights on the Peninsula, they may never fully recover.
This is made worse because mass-marketers and plant producers used greenhouses to force these plants into early bloom. They use high night temperatures (72 to 78 degrees) and lots of injected fertilizer in the watering system. These producers even use night lights sometimes to push plants to bloom early and fast. This is great for the greenhouse, because the crop is grown, sold and a new crop of marigolds or zinnias can be finished — ready and bedding packs for (properly timed) May sales. Now you know, be careful, consumer.
Now it’s time for some practical advice. First, know what plants are right and when.
Items like petunias, pansies, primula, snapdragons, various perennials in small pots, dianthus, alyssum and Dusty Miller could all be fine now. Inspect them, pick them up and shake slightly.
Well-conditioned plants should be dark green, thick, stocky and very compact or dense.
Be careful though, petunias or pansies might be junk if they were forced for sale. You can tell a forced plant because it is spindly with light or yellow green leaves.
The plant will have weak growth and elongated spacing between the nodes (branches and leaves).
When to buy early
Avoid these plants, because even pansies will brown-out if not conditioned at this time of year.
When is it okay to buy early? When you want a plant to “grow on.”
Geraniums are great for this, just don’t plant them in the garden yet.
To “grow on” is a one shot way to force a size increase.
This process takes a plant with an already established size, say 3½ to 4½ inches, and forces its growth to a bigger size. This way a $2 or $3 plant becomes a $10 or $15 specimen.
The “grow on” process occurs inside, which makes it different from the forced plants you see at the store.
If you “force a plant,” do it for a specific purpose — like a Memorial Day flower box or a cemetery urn — and don’t put it in the ground until soil temperatures are about 52 degrees.
When bumping up a plant to a larger pot in order to “grow on,” make sure to cut away all flowers and flower buds. They take up much desired energy for growth. Also cut away all large, old leaves and pinch away the growth tip.
This is what greenhouses do, with outstanding results.
Always use extremely good potting soil and fertilizer.
Now go out and buy wisely — and timely.
And above all, be well all!
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Andrew May is a freelance writer and ornamental horticulturist who dreams of having Clallam and Jefferson counties nationally recognized as “Flower Peninsula USA.” Send him questions c/o Peninsula Daily News, P.O. Box 1330, Port Angeles, WA 98362, or email news@peninsuladailynews.com (subject line: Andrew May).
