Young plants need a little help in adjusting to outdoors
Racks filled with bedding plants are enticing, and you're eager to buy while the selection is top-notch. Yet you know it's still too early to plant most annuals, vegetable plants and herbs. What's a gardener to do?
This dilemma might be a blessing in disguise. Young plants delivered to retail stores straight out of a greenhouse are in no shape to withstand the brutal reality of outdoor life. They need a little time to adjust, and time is what you have.
One easy way to help plants adjust to sun and wind is to put them in a child's wagon and pull it outside for increasing amounts of time each day. If frost threatens, it's easy to pull the wagon back to a protected spot such as a garage.
I have several places where I keep my plants in the interim between buying and planting. The best is a coldframe with an automatic vent that lets in a little wind and protects my plants from cooking on hot days. The other is a potting shed that has an acrylic south wall to let in sunlight, and a screen door that allows my plants to get used to the breeze.
A friend uses a screened-in porch. Another keeps his plants together on the deck. The exterior wall of the house offers some shade and protection from wind, and the closely-grouped plants are easy to cover when frost threatens.
Once the danger of frost is past and the potted plants are accustomed to living outdoors, it's time to plant. Watering plants several hours before planting helps the roots and soil slip out when you turn the pots upside down. Any roots growing outside a pot can hold things up; cut them off before trying to remove a plant from its container. If necessary, squeeze the bottom of flexible plastic pots or "spank" rigid pots.
When you get a plant out of its pot, check the bottom of the soil ball. Sometimes, a plant has been growing in its pot so long that the roots are circling the bottom. In that case, just jab your finger into the bottom of the soil and pull down to untangle the roots. You don't have to be gentle; plants are better off with a few broken roots than with roots allowed to continue in an unbroken circle.
After planting, firm the soil around each plant and water thoroughly and gently.
If I question whether plants are completely acclimated to life outdoors, I use bottomless milk cartons or paper cups, or propped-up shingles, as temporary shelters for a few days. Or, if I've been doing any shrub or tree pruning, I might "plant" a pruning by each new transplant. By the time the leaves of the cut prunings shrivel, the plants no longer need protection.
In dry weather, new transplants need water every two or three days. I've killed more than a few plants by forgetting.