Question regarding blooming plants sold at the big box store

How do growers and suppliers to Lowe's / Home Depot deliver blooming plants that are small in the pots and are lucious green and blooming profusely?
Example - short Echinaceas in small pots that are in full bloom. My experience is that these plants grow tall before blooming. Also, Gerbera Daisies, same thing. When these plants are taken home, they proceed to grow tall and the blooms are also on tall stalks.
They must be doing something to inhibit the growth and promote blooms. What are they doing?

Don't know from store to store or grower to grower, but remember they are professionals, have the very best growing conditions and are more experienced at getting plants to germinate, to the shop ready conditions for all us gardeners to be persuaded to rush out and buy them, the results are sometimes the flowers come on the plants when they are still small/young and a bit tender, any plants that I do but in the conditions you describe, when I get home, I just nip off the flowers/buds so the plants use all there energy to grow more roots or foliage for another few weeks or so, plants use a lot of their energy making blooms, so by removing the flowers, they get more growth going and always send out more flowers, the stems get hardened a bit and more roots to support the plants, but that dont mean to say the plants are not of good quality, just their timing is a bit off because of the growing conditions in the nursery they started off at. good luck. hope you got some bargains and enjoy them. WeeNel.

It could be any number of things. http://www.jrjohnson.com/home.php?cat=287 I'm not sure how many of these are available to the home grower tho. You might check with greenhouse supply companies.

I used to work for a grower that supplied plants for HD and Lowes and those stores only want plants that are showing color on their tables. If the plants don't show color, they don't accept them and send them back with the drivers.

The growers here grow most everything under glass and use growth retardants and high phosphorous fertilizer...that's how they get plants that would normally be 2 (or 3) feet tall to bloom in 6 packs, and at the wrong time of year as well.

It's a deceptive practice, but the bottom line for those stores is profit.
Non-gardeners will buy anything if it's blooming... i.e. Zinnias in December...then they plant them outside and they do nothing.

The "old days" when nurseries carried bedding plants with NO blooms yet, from wooden flats, are a thing of the past...(at least here, anyway). You basically had to know what they were beforehand because of their lack of blooms and small size. Back then, they weren't treated with growth retardants, either.

The exceptions of course are things like mums, azaleas, hydrangeas, gloxinias, etc. etc. in 6" pots sold as blooming plants...those have been a "staple" for years and have been treated with retardants to keep them small and attractive to buyers. Then, they just started using the same growing practices with bedding plants because they sell faster that way.

People that are "in the know" about plants can usually discern the deception that these growers are pushing on the consumer.

It's also interesting to note that a huge variety of the old fashioned annuals and perennials are hard to find anymore...everything nowdays at the big box stores are dwarf varieties which don't have the charm or quality of the traditional old fashioned strains. Luckily, there are specialty nurseries where you can find non-forced, old time varieties, but they are few and far between, unfortunately. (Just speaking generally for the So. Cal. area...maybe it's different elsewhere...)

This message was edited Aug 28, 2008 9:01 PM

These growth retardants- do they wear off, or do the effects last for the life of the plant?

Unless applied every season, they wear off and the plant resumes it's normal genetic growth pattern and size.

Whew!!!!!!! TKS

A textbook example, if you want to see how it works, is to buy a blooming potted mum plant like you see in the florist section of the grocery. When you get it, it will probably be about 14" tall and full of flowers.

After the flowers die, cut it back to about 4 inches and plant it in the ground.

Next fall, it will be about 3 feet (or more) in height.

What you're actually getting when you buy it, is about 6 plants in the same pot....not just one. The container has 6 ( + - ) rooted cuttings which have been pinched to get bushy, growth retardant applied, and force fed with a high phosphorous fertilizer...like steroids for plants.

Interesting thread - I never thought much about why my baby plants were already blooming So what's a beginning gardener to do? Is is better to buy from local nurseries or from seed companies offering starter plants?

it doesn't matter where you get them from. The plants bought at stores are just fine, they have been manipulated to have blooms on small plants but thats not a big deal. Plants are also grown in cooler conditions or warmer conditions in a greenhouse depending on what crop they have. what you have to remember is that your probably not going to get that plant to look the same next year. I have to say that the perennials that I get at lowes are just fine. I have found HD's flowers worse. They got in a bunch of hostas here in nashville and it had the hosta virsues X in them. So, buyer beware. I have also had client s go to nuseries that supply HD's and lowes and the plants are covered in white fly. Trial and error.

I'm so glad I looked at this - I never really thought about these things before - very interesting!

Good topic and great answers!

Interesting. I bought a short New York aster smothered in blooms, and the label actually said that it would come back much taller next year. Now I know why!

I agree with everything Jasperdale has said in his information, I dont know if it just me, but I would never buy a plant that was in full flower then plant it out in the garden, I much rather have the plants get settled into my garden conditions before they reached flowering times/conditions, from the stores, the foliage is normally far too tender for planting then set outdoors, but I could be wrong, the fun for me is the chalenge, care and pleasure in watching the plants perform, instant gardens are normally a few weeks wonders for this area of UK, when Jasper mentioned the old fashioned growers who had the plants on sale before the flowers came is also a thing of the past here too, I can remember buying old fashioned wall flower every September/October to plant out for a spring display of flowers and the anticipation waiting for this display of perfumed blooms was a treat to the nose and eyes, almost all those old timers have been bought over by the big stores here too Jasper, more the pity. good luck WeeNel.

And another thing about the big box stores: Ever noticed how they put racks of hanging fuchsias on blacktop, in BLAZING full sun, crammed onto a pole and then not water them for days ? If you get one the day they arrive, you have a chance, but otherwise, forget it.

They do the same thing with shade loving ferns...crammed onto pallettes and plopped out in the hot sun on asphalt.

These places are only concerned about mass movement of merchandise...only the strong survive.

Too right Jasperdale, my husband refuses to go with me to these stores as I end up picking up toppled over plants that are as dry as bones, or I have been known to grab the hose and give some a drink, then find the store is about to close and forgot what I went in for, they never seem to employ anyone who takes proper care of the plants, sometimes at closing time there is a kid walking about with the hosepipe and I think they just water the floor so the boss thinks everything is OK, then a few days later these poor plants are sitting on the reduced sale stand, in the end, the customers pay for these losses anyway, the amount of water these plants get is like throwing an aspirin into the Atlantic ocean and expecting it to work for you. I wish all the old time garden nurseries would make a comeback and soon, but I guess their costs cant compete with the mass produced factory growers. Can always dream eh. WeeNel.