A hands-on guide to plug plants: the secret to varying your bedding
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Roses and snowdrops? Until now I have never seen them in flower outdoors at the same time. Meanwhile I am plugging on: I will explain and suggest you do the same. The snowdrops in flower are the robust Galanthus S Arnott, poking through roughly mown grass since mid-January and brightening a long run of grey days.
The rose is my champion plant of this winter. Rosa x odorata Bengal Crimson is about 5ft high and wide with single crimson flowers from beautifully rolled buds, paler in winter than in summer. It is considered to hover on the edge of full hardiness in urban southern England and to cease flowering when frosts begin. In Oxford our Bengal Crimson has refuted the rules. It is still flowering freely even after that icy week in early December.
It is presenting a red-carpet welcome to the snowdrops, perce-neige in chic French. Uplifted by them, I am looking ahead. Thinking of summer, I want to vary my bedding plants. I need to act now, as in late May the choices will be narrower and the prices many times higher.
To anticipate, I will be plugging.Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side of articles. Copying articles to share with others is a breach of FT.com T&Cs and Copyright Policy. Email support@plantscientist.org to buy additional rights. Subscribers may share up to 10 or 20 articles per month using the gift article service. More information can be found .
The lockdowns in 2020-21 introduced hordes of housebound gardeners to plug plants sent out by post. Since then they have become an entrenched resource. Plugs are well-rooted seedlings, sold in trays from which they can be taken out, little root cubes and all. Major seedsmen have become major plug suppliers to meet the demand, Thompson & Morgan, Suttons and Dobies to the fore.
Brookside Nursery also offers plugs galore: trays of small plants are excellent value this month before trays of bigger plugs come on stream in late March at a higher price. Deliveries of living plugs are at risk to postal hazards and delay. Suppliers will refund late or damaged arrivals but claims are a bother for both parties: 80 per cent of my first-ever order of lavender plugs arrived late and then rotted. Another hazard is delay by the recipient. Within a day or two of delivery the packs must be opened and the upper lid of the inner container flicked off so that the plug plants, lying horizontally inside, can be stood up vertically and given air.
Plant them in pots within three days of receipt. Deliveries of living plugs are at risk to postal hazards and delay: 80 per cent of my first-ever order of lavender plugs arrived late and then rotted Two excellent options for plugging-on are begonias and geraniums, but they arrive in differing states. Begonias usually sweat in the closed plastic case, whereas geraniums are usually sent out when dry. Let the begonias breathe for a day before dipping their roots in water without submerging the leaves.
Dip the geraniums likewise, immediately after opening their pack. Hold the plugs round their root-ball, not their fragile top growth. If the roots are cased in paper, leave it in place as it will rot away after planting. If a leaf has turned yellow or a side stem has been broken, do not worry. Cut them off and others will soon grow on. Then fit each plug plant into an individual small pot filled with compost. Pots with a 9cm diameter are ideal.
Avoid bigger ones as they are hard to water to a small plug’s satisfaction. The better the compost the better the growth: John Innes or Arthur Bower composts for cuttings and seedlings are good and Thompson & Morgan’s new Incredipeatfree has already won high praise in independent consumer rankings, although a 70-litre bag costs £24.99, about three times more than other peat-free options. Fill each small pot with your chosen mix and tap the bottom of the pot to help the soil settle.
Then, poke a hole into the compost, matching it to the depth of the plug plant’s roots. Yesterday I used the bone handle of an old kitchen knife for this job and found it worked well. The plug plant then drops easily into a hole of sufficient depth to hold it: the level around the plant’s neck should lie flat with the compost’s level in the pot. Press lightly round it to make the compost firm and then water well.
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