Plants without Plastic Pots

Worried about all those plastic water bottles? Think about your gardening life too and ask, why do new plants have to come in plastic pots?

They don’t.  Some plants don’t even like plastic pots — so you can’t even buy them in nurseries. I love potless-plants because they’re easy, cheap, they have stories and because in the process of getting them, I get to visit with and connected to other gardeners.

Seed-in Pass-along-plants Keep You Connected. New varieties of larkspur offer spectacular double flowers. You can find these in nurseries, for $4 or so each — each plant in its own plastic pot. Or you can get pass-along-seeds and have a whole slew of plants for $4, from a compostable, paper packet. And you can reinforce a connection. My Momma, Gloria has grown old fashioned purple larkspur for 20 plus years. You can get some of hers, since we collect seed to sell in late May. But her plants simply seed themselves in — she shares tons and she hasn’t paid for her waves of cobalt flowers in decades.

Another charmer leaps from thread like seedlings to a cheerful pastel groundcover over winter. Direct sow in a pot or border now, by March you’ll see thousands of tiny snapdragon like flowers. Since it’s related to Carolina Toadflax, I call this Chinese Toadflax. Click to enlarge photos.

Bulbs Save Plastic Too
Elephant garlic pops up in old home sites in the South while almost all other ornamental Allium rot in our soil. Thick silver leaves come up as soon as you plant your bulbs in the fall. Plant three in a pot on your patio, the sprinkle Chinese Toadflax over the pot. You’ll have foliage all winter, flowers through May and some garlic to roast in July. The trick to getting this to spread and make more is to NOT water it in July, August and September. Rain is enough, to much irrigation and the bulbs may rot. (Photo above is by Virginia Weiler, professional garden photographer) It’d be hard to sell a pot of dirt and bulbs but there’s a second reason that bulbs are sold dry. Under regular nursery watering regimens most bulbs would succumb to root rot and die. So why can’t you order Elephant Garlic from a regular bulb nursery? That one’s baffled me for years, but we’ve found it for you for under $2.80 per giant bulb.

Garden Design without Pots
Plastic pots are sure convenient. Just a decade ago, nurseries used interchangeable, reusable black plastic pots. Any pot, used over and over, for any plant. Now, many plants come in branded pots, with trademarked colors and logos. Not only do these cost more but they cannot be reused by nurseries since the trademark owners and plant branders don’t allow anything else to be grown in ‘their’ pots. I try to buy from old style black pot plants. As a garden designer, who likes to use pass-along-plants, I also keep a stock in my crinum lily field nursery of old plants. So, when I design and plant someone’s garden, I can provide some bare root plants that remind them of old times and country gardens.
See pictures of a garden I’ve designed in the October 2012 Southern Living Magazine.

Make Your Garden by Hand & Seed