Growing Plants from Plugs

What are plug plants? Is there some definite advantage in buying plants this way? What is the recommended after care? Here are the names of some new varieties for 2001.

Buy-and-grow

Plug plant is a general term for seedlings or rooted cuttings that have been started in trays of individual cells. Kinder Garden Plants and Plug-u-grow are trade names of wholesalers – each company markets its plug plants using a specific design for the packages. The plants are presented differently.

Kinder Garden Plants are easily recognised by the butterfly trademark. This firm sells plants in greenhouse-shaped packs. Plug-u-grow seedlings and plants are assembled in packages of a different shape and marketed through retailers. Many garden centre and nurseries also produce their own plug plants. For example Ashwood Nurseries sell their hellebores, hepaticas and lewisias as mail order plug plants. All the gardener has to do is grow on the young plants.

Latest research

The seed chosen by nurseries for sowing in module trays comes from carefully bred plant lines. Plant breeders and nurserymen aim to match the likely market demand for each type of plant. Seed is sown under very controlled and well-researched conditions.

Computers in large nurseries help control the raising of plants. There is little wastage: every seed is counted into cell-like sections of trays - an exact number to a tray. One of the latest electronic developments in the horticultural industry involves robotic vision. A branch of this research has also led to innovations using electronic vision in the seed sorting process for world food supplies, rice, beans, etc.

Identical plants from cuttings

Many plug plants are propagated from cuttings. The plants are propagated in this way to keep the new young plants identical to the original cultivar.

In modern nurseries, the whole process of raising seeds (or plants from cuttings) is timed, so that the number of weeks from germination (or rooting) to point of sale is known. The ‘plugs’ are ordered in advance and ready to go to the customer, via mail order, at a date when success in growing the plants on is most easily achieved.

Postal perfection

Plants arrive through the post in excellent condition. The packaging system has been perfected in recent years. A container sometimes called a ‘blister’ pack, slides out from a slim cardboard box. The whole package has been addressed, labelled and posted. Plants inside are packed flat, in rows, as neatly as chocolates.

Planting up and potting on

Plug plants arrive fresh and ready for transplanting easily into pots. Each plug slides smoothly out of its polythene cell; each plant growing separately with roots in gel. The gel ensures a longer shelf life. This is gardening that can be executed in slippers without getting mud anywhere - it couldn’t be easier! Simply pot on plugs into baskets or larger containers, or transplant them later into open ground as bedding plants.

Advantages for the home gardener

Purchasing plugs

• The gardener is able to produce an attractive display with minimum effort
• The exact number of plants required can be purchased – little or no waste
• It is cheaper than buying flowering-size specimens for pots and bedding
• Uniformity of size, shape and colour of plants is useful for carpet bedding

Sowing seed

• There is greater variety to suit all tastes
• A sense of achievement is gained by raising new plants from seed to flowering-size
• Collections of many species of a genus like Cyclamen can be obtained economically. (Cyclamen come fairly true to species from seed and are not raised easily from cuttings).

Young plants to grow from plugs

If you go to your local garden centre you should find a full range of spring bedding plants and patio plants. Popular varieties are also available from mail order firms.

Top of the plant charts

Plants selling well this season are Fuchsia ‘Blue Mirage’ which has a bluish tinge, and Petunia ‘Tumbelina Priscilla’. The latter is a double hanging variety for baskets and tubs bred by Cambridge plant breeders D.W. & P.G.Kerley. Fragrant violet blue rosettes are carried all summer. In the same series, Petunia ‘Julia’ (deep rose) is being introduced to garden centres this spring.

Sweetpeas the easy way

Suttons Seeds are marketing ‘Horizon Mixed’ as the ultimate sweet pea. A variety of colours – speckled etc., flower forms, and flowering times, will be sold in packs of 10 plugs. Unwins Seeds are offering their sweetpea collections of 30 Maxiplugs

Most nurseries sell plug plants. Busy Lizzies of variety ‘Accent Mixed’ F1 are listed in Thompson & Morgan’s 2001 Spring Plant Catalogue, for delivery in March or April. Here is good value at 100 ‘Miniplugs’ + 50 free  larger size ‘Plugs’ 35+ 15 free; and garden-ready size plants for delivery in late May/early June.

Other ‘Plants’, supplied as cell/Jiffy rooted Young Plants in the T&M catalogue include Gazania ‘Kiss Mixed’ and Lobelia ‘Cascade Mixed’.

Aftercare of young plants

*Protect from frost

*Water when the compost feels dry to touch

*Move seedlings into the light and turn trays to facilitate even growth of the stems

*Don’t forget to feed plants if they remain in the same container for weeks

*Feed growing plants about every week as spring advances

*Increase watering as the weather warms up

New for Spring 2001

Scaevola ‘Blue Ice’ produces dark blue flowers over a long season, has a compact trailing habit and performed well in trials. And lilac-flowering Scaevola ‘Blue Sky’ is likely to be on sale this year.

Petunia ‘Moonshine’ – strong contrast in the variegated foliage with deep purple flowers. Generally well received as an exciting new introduction in plant trials.

Marguerite (Argyranthemum) ‘Venus’ - compact in growth and suitable for display as a flowering pot plant or for the garden

New orange speckled geraniums

‘Bill Holdaway’, white petals speckled with orange, and ‘Orange Splash’, from the Vernon Geranium Nursery, should please geranium (Pelargonium) growers, who would enjoy the numerous photographs illustrating this firm’s catalogue. Pictures of every kind, including scented-leaf varieties, are included. Fuchsias are also available by post until March.