Nursery Plant Information

Cacti at a plant nursery

Nursery plants provide the gardener the option to begin the home garden with seedlings or full-size plants without seeding garden beds. Choosing a reputable nursery and checking for a healthy plant will ensure a successful experience when using nursery-bought plants.

Considerations

Nursery plants have been cultivated by paid professionals and generally appear healthy and disease-free due to regular watering and fertilization. If a plant appears sickly or contains pests, select a different specimen or variety of plant to avoid passing on diseases to other garden plants.

Roots

Nursery plants have strong and firm roots if they have been properly cared for. The strong roots of nursery plants improve the odds of survival.

Misconceptions

Not all nurseries cultivate their own plants. Many nurseries purchase their plant lines from distributors and ship container plants from larger growers to their smaller garden center.

Irrigation

Plants grown in nurseries are often watered by overhead sprinklers. Nursery staff have such a large inventory of plants that an immense irrigation system is typically needed to complete watering tasks.

Benefits

Shopping at a nursery for plants saves the grower time. By buying started plants, the grower need not wait for seeds to germinate or face the possible failure of seed germination.

References

• Biodelice: How to Select Healthy Plants
• Purdue University: Starting in the Nursery Buisness