Important tips for buying flowering plants

If you're not ready to commit to buying and planting trees, or you'd like to pick out some plants for container gardening, it's important to know what will do best in your area. Some key tips before you start:

• You’ll find many perennial flower choices, be aware that some won’t thrive, in spite of what the tag says.
• Plant materials are very tender when they are fresh from the nurseries. Give them a few days to adjust and make sure you give them temporary shade in the hottest part of the day.
• Pick plants from the center rather than the edges of the displays.

Select a variety that is suited to your environment
Mass buying of perennials also means that there will be varieties are not going to succeed in the harsh conditions and alkaline soils of the Western Slope. Be aware of tags that indicate a plant likes full sun. Many plants thrive where full sun is not desert sun. Planting some of those species in partial shade is a great solution, especially if it can be shaded for the mid-late afternoon, the hottest time of day with our summer sun.

Hardening off your new plants
Before planting, especially if you are planting later than spring, you need to harden off plants. This is simply putting them in a partially protected area for a few days before planting. Another technique that I use is covering them with a box during the hottest part of the day for a couple of days after you put them outside. This also eases the transition into new soil. It looks funny in your yard, but your plants will thank you. If you plant in mid-summer, expect some leaf damage, like sunburn, even if your plants are given some sun protection.

Annuals are less of a problem than perennials all around because they only live for a summer and are cheap to replace if they don’t make it. But they also need to be hardened off if they will be in the full sun.

Remember that these plants were grown in a nursery somewhere else, like Oregon or the Midwest, where growing conditions are easier. I like to read the tag to find out where the home nursery is. That lets me know how tender the plant is and what kind of hardening off I will need to do to help the plant make the transition into my yard.

Pick plants from the middle of the display

And while I am talking about nurseries, keep in mind that these box stores get cartloads of plants straight from their perfect growing environments at the home nurseries. They are unloaded onto hot pavement and left in the sun. When you pick out a plant, pick one from the center of the display. These are more likely to have had enough water and are protected from the wind and the reflected sun that the edge plants get.

As with buying new trees, local nurseries will be more familiar with species that do well in your area. If you're uncertain about what to start with, they are a wonderful resource to help you out!

How to shop for a young tree

If you only have a limited amount of money and are looking for a tree, I will always shop at a local nursery that has a good reputation and a sales staff that knows plant materials. These nurseries have experience with what thrives in your area and reliable information to answer your questions about species selection, how to plant, how amend soil or whatever else you might need to know. Buying at big box stores can also be an interesting and useful experience.

A quick summary when you’re box store shopping:

• They have lots of tree variety, but many species are poorly suited for long term success.
• Look for trees with a good leader
• Avoid trees with damaged trunks.
• Plant materials are very tender when they are fresh from the nurseries. Give them a few days to adjust and make sure you give them temporary shade in the hottest part of the day.
• Pick plants from the center rather than the edges of the displays.

Box stores have the advantage of mass buying and therefore lower prices. They also get plant materials that are often so poorly suited to the high desert that I wonder who does their purchasing.

If you are shopping for trees, here are a couple of links that give some basic suggestions:

http://www.fast-growing-trees.com/Colorado.htm

https://www.arborday.org/trees/

For annuals and some perennials, it is not such a big deal, but if you are investing in a tree, a bit of research on what species can thrive in our merciless sun is very important. Having said that, I will admit to seeing trees doing fine that I would never have expected to survive three years. So if you have the heart of adventurer and want to try something a bit risky, go for something unusual.

I always look for a young tree with a strong lead, because most young trees, whether they are evergreen or leafy, need a strong lead to produce a good-looking tree. The lead is the top center growing branch that is heading skyward. Some smaller trees, like crabapples or specialty trees have more side branches and a less visible lead but large trees should have one. I can’t stress enough – if there is not a good lead, don’t spend your money on a tree.

Trees should have a good leader if you are going to buy them.
From istockphoto.com.

As always, there are exceptions, like fruit trees which have the leader cut off to stimulate branching or weeping varieties.

Weeping trees...an exception to the leader rule for tree buying.
From sscornelius.

Many years ago, I had a friend show me a tree that she was thinking of buying on sale. It was a linden, and had been so badly pruned that it looked like a lollipop. The lead was gone and the other branches that would have formed the beautiful structure of the grown tree had also been hacked off. (My guess was the tree had fallen of the delivery truck and had been really damaged.)  But it was cheap.

"Yikes," I warned her, "that tree will never outgrow its really bad haircut." But the price was too good for her to pass up. Sure enough, this poor linden was the oddest looking tree and never grew into a good shape. She told me 8 years later that she should have gotten another one.

The problem with buying a questionable tree is that besides money, you also invest time. After when she finally admitted to herself that the tree was never going to outgrow its bad pruning, she had invested many years. It is worth paying for a young tree that has a good shape when you think about the investment of time that is intrinsic to a mature tree in your landscape

When you are buying a tree, it’s also critical to make sure that the trunk is not damaged. A badly damaged trunk is damaged forever. It does not fix itself like human skin. If there is damage deep in the bark that goes down to the wood, the bark will never grow across the trunk to repair itself. It will heal along the edges of the damage, but there will always be an opening or scar in the bark. If you start looking at tree trunks around you, you can find examples of trunk wounds that are years old and still visible.

The bark on the tree trunk is the way that water and minerals from the soil move up to the leaves and plant food move from the leaves down to the rest of the plant and the roots. Because of this, a damaged trunk will always affect the vigor of your tree. In short, if you get a crummy trunk, you will have a crummy trunk, forever.

Even small nicks or dings can cause problems. It’s definitely worth it to buy a tree with an undamaged trunk- take the time to shift or remove the wrapping on the trunk at the store. When you plant it at home, you want to do it in such a way that you can keep the lawn mower and the string weed eater away from it.

If you have questions, it's always great to shop at your local nursery. They'll have trees suited to your area and expertise to share!