Picking a Healthy Plant
When it comes to getting started with your garden, you have two
choices; planting seeds, or buying entire plants. Both have
their own benefits. If you plant seeds and care for them every
day, you will find it is a much more rewarding experience when
you have a full, healthy plant. However, this method is a lot
more risky. I can’t tell you how many seeds I’ve planted and
never seen any trace of whatsoever.
If you choose to buy the plant from a nursery and install it in
your garden, it reduces a lot of the work involved in making it
healthy. However, I have found in the past that many incompetent
nursery workers will absolutely ruin the future of the plant by
putting certain chemicals or fertilizers in. I have adapted to
this incompetence by learning to choose the healthiest plant of
the bunch. Here I will discuss some of the techniques I use in
my screening process for plants.
It may sound superficial, but the one thing you need to check
for on your prospective plants is how nice they look. As far as
plants go, you can truly judge a book by its cover. If a plant
has been treated healthily and has no diseases or pests, you can
almost always tell by how nice it looks. If a plant has grown up
in improper soil, or has harmful bugs living in it, you can tell
from the holey leaves and wilted stems.
If you’re browsing the nursery shelves looking for your dream
plant, you want to exclude anything that currently has flowers.
Plants are less traumatized by the transplant if they do not
currently have any flowers. It’s best to find ones that just
consist of buds. However if all you have to choose from are
flowering plants, then you should do the unthinkable and sever
all of them. It will be worth it for the future health of the
plant. I’ve found that transplanting a plant while it is
blooming results in having a dead plant ninety percent of the
time.
Always check the roots before you plop down the money to
purchase the plant. Of course if the roots are in absolutely
terrible condition you will be able to tell by looking at the
rest of the plant. But if the roots are just slightly out of
shape, then you probably won’t be able to tell just by looking
at it. Inspect the roots very closely for any signs of
brownness, rottenness, or softness. The roots should always be a
firm, perfectly well formed infrastructure that holds all the
soil together. One can easily tell if the roots are before or
past their prime, depending on the root to soil ratio. If there
are a ridiculous amount of roots with little soil, or a bunch of
soil with few roots, you should not buy that plant.
If you find any abnormalities with the plant, whether it be the
shape of the roots or any irregular features with the leaves,
you should ask the nursery employees. While usually these things
can be the sign of an unhealthy plant, occasionally there will
be a logical explanation for it. Always give the nursery a
chance before writing them off as horrendous. After all, they
are (usually) professionals who have been dealing with plants
for years.
So if you decide to take the easy route and get a plant from a
nursery, you just have to remember that the health of the plants
has been left up to someone you don’t know. Usually they do a
good job, but you should always check for yourself. Also take
every precaution you can to avoid transplant shock in the plant
(when it has trouble adjusting to its new location, and
therefore has health problems in the future). Usually the
process goes smoothly, but you can never be too sure.
