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Planting cheaper perennials

March 22, 2014 By Jim 4 Comments

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When you have a large area you want to fill with drifts of perennials you can soon realize your vision exceeds your pocketbook. Lets look at the ways of buying perennials and saving a few bucks along the way. The question to ask is:

How many perennials do you need?

Sometimes Buying Big Healthy Plants is Best

If you only need three plants to fill a spot in your garden, you should buy nice big and healthy plants in 1 Gallon containers from a local nursery.

Perennial May-Night-Salvia

Sharing Perennials is even better

An alternative is to divide some in your or your neighbor’s yard when shes out of town (just kidding Dawn). Getting plants that need to be divided are one of the best ways to fill your yard with perennials.

I have some dwarf variegated Solomon’s seal from my neighbor’s yard that were overgrowing their place in her yard. Not surprising they are doing great in my yard too.

Perennial Variegated solomons seal
Variegated Solomon’s seal
photo credit: blurdom via photopin cc

 

Buying Plugs when you need a lot of plants

If you need more, then consider buying smaller sizes such as plugs. Plugs are smaller, younger, and cheaper plants than those in 1 Gallon containers.

My favorite source of plugs are wholesale growers, but plants can be found in smaller sizes at some retail nurseries. You can also order plugs through mail order nurseries. This is a good way if you are looking for hard to find plants. Somebody is growing it and will ship it to you.

Buying perennial plants as plugs
Plugs save money over larger transplants, but makes you wait longer for the plants to reach a decent size.
photo credit: autan via photopin cc

Another way to get smaller plants is to have your local nursery order them for you from their wholesaler.

It is best to talk to them early in the season, so that they can add your one or two flats of plugs to an order that they are already making. You may be able to do this throughout the season.

Need lots of plants with little money

What if you want LOTS of plants? Not a dozen, but a dozen dozens for a new garden bed? In this case, you may want to consider growing your own plugs from seed. The best way to do this is to start them indoors early.

Not all perennials are easy to grow from seed. I am certainly not a perennials expert, but I have succeeded with a few of the easier plants. These have included: Purple coneflower (Enchincea purpurea), Shasta Daisy (Leucanthemum × superbum ‘Becky’), Blanket Flower (Gaillardia), and Tickseed (Coreopsis)

Perennial plant Tickseed
These Tickseed flowered their 1st year!
Perennial Purple-Coneflower
These Purple Coneflower took a three years to get to this size from seed started indoors, although they did flower the 1st year!

Some will flower the 1st year

Perennials that are grown from seed usually will not flower the 1st year. If you are patient, this might not matter to you. If you want to see flowers the first year, you should start the seeds indoors at least 6 weeks before your last frost date and pick species that flower their 1st year.

They will not bloom at their normal time this first year, but will be later in the season. Some plants that can be started indoors and bloom the first year include:

  • Snowdrop anemone (Anemone sylvestris)
  • Sea thrift (Armeria maritima)
  • Butterfly weed (Asclepios tuberosa)- I have heard conflicts about whether this one does flower the first year planted.
  • Alpine aster (Aster alpinus)
  • Early Sunrise coreopsis (Coreopsis grandiflora ‘Early Sunrise’)
  • Cheddar pinks (Dianthus gratianopolitanus)
  • Blanket flower (Gaillardia)
  • Baby’s breath (Gypsophila paniculata)
  • Becky Shasta Daisey (Chrysanthemum x superbum ‘Becky’)
  • Black eyed Susan (Rudbeckia fulgida)
  • Speedwell (Veronica spicata)

Growing a Monarch garden from Seed

A few posts ago, I talked about how I had decided to plant some of Butterfly weed (Asclepios tuberosa) to provide food for both the adult and the caterpillars of the Monarch Butterfly.

My plan is to remove a peach tree that suffered some storm damage and plant a butterfly garden on the south side of my house.

This garden’s purpose is to help the quickly heading toward extinction Monarch butterflies, therefore it will be mostly their caterpillars host plant, the Milkweeds (Asclepias).  There will be a little bit of the Common Milkweed (Asclepias syriaca), the aforementioned Butterfly weed and the Rose Milkweed (Asclepias incarnata).

I will also be growing Black Eyed Susans (Rudbeckia ‘Goldstrum’), Blanket flower (Gaillardia) and Early Morning Coreopsis (Coreopsis ‘Early Sunrise’) in addition to feed the adults.

I also plan on moving some Purple Coneflower, Wild Bergamot (Monarda fistulosa), and May Night Salvia from another area, but I will be growing most of the plants for this garden from seed I started this weekend.

Perennial Seed-packets

 

So what are the economics of my plan.

  • 1 pack of Early Sunrise Coreopsis $1.59
  • 1 pack of Blanket Flower $1.49
  • 1 pack of Black Eyed Susans $1.49
  • 3 packs of Butterfly Weed $4.71
  • 3 packs of Rose Milkweed – Free from a local conservation group
  • 2 packs of Common Milkweed seed – Also Free
  • 2 Jiffy Pro Hex trays $11.00
  • 12 Quarts of soil starting mix $4.79

Total = $25.07 plus tax

I already had a 4 foot shop light and the bulbs to provide light to the seedlings. If you need one you may need to spend another $25 or so.

Planting perennial milkweed
Growing plants to help save the most iconic insect in the world. That’s a job for a 10 year old!

I will grow them for a couple of weeks until I put them under the light with one warm and one cool temperature bulb. These are not grow lights, but comes pretty close. I will gradually acclimate them to the sun and temperature after the it starts to warm up.

This will hopefully yield 144 plugs ready to plant by May 17th which will be 8 weeks. Plenty of time for most of these plants to be well rooted. Some like the Butterfly weed may be planted earlier.

If I only get 100 plugs at a cost around $25, I am looking at close to 25 cents a plant. They will take a few years to grow in but $0.25 sure beats $3 plant deals you can get at the Big box stores.

If you need a lot of perennials this year and you act quick, you still have time to start them indoors from seed and could end up saving yourself some money. You may also have some fun with your kids or grandchildren. Heck you could even help save the Monarchs.

For more information on the Monarch butterfly’s current plight see monarchwatch.org

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Filed Under: Conserves Money & Resources, Gardening, Perennials and bulbs Tagged With: milkweed, Monarch, perennials, saving money, seeds

Comments

  1. Sal Finelli says

    July 18, 2020 at 11:04 am

    Jim…for years I have been creating a Japanese garden with all the help of Magazines,planted what recommend
    And now all my plantings are overgrown and need pruning.Needless to say I’ve been trying to hire a qualified
    Person to undertake the project with no success.A ordinary gardener makes a mess of things and it’s a nightmare

    Do you have any suggestions,or recommend anyone,or anything to solve the problem??

    much appreciated. !!!!!!!!

    Reply
    • Jim says

      July 19, 2020 at 2:25 pm

      Where are you located?

      Reply
  2. Sarah says

    March 28, 2016 at 1:15 pm

    Any tips on success with perennials from seed? I started a flat of lavender one year and only got 4 plants, this year I’ve tried daisies.. Netted about 25 plants out of a flat, and only 3 out of 25 hollyhocks. I successfully start all of my peppers and tomatoes and herbs indoors every year, but these perennials are making me rethink that seeds are a possible way to go…

    Reply
    • Jim says

      March 28, 2016 at 6:34 pm

      I would stick with some of the more reliable ones, the four I mentioned in the post, Purple coneflower (Enchincea purpurea), Shasta Daisy (Leucanthemum × superbum ‘Becky’),Blanket Flower (Gaillardia), and Tickseed (Coreopsis) would be good ones to give a go. Probably Black eyed Susan too.

      I would probably also baby them in their flats a bit longer then you think is necessary rather then rushing then into the ground.

      Reply

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