It is often said that gardening teaches us patience. We wait three years for perennials to fill in, we amend soil to create the best growing environment for our plants, we plant trees knowing that many years down the road we will have gorgeous, mature trees that add value, beauty and shade to the neighborhood, and when a landscape is generous in size, we turn to plant plugs.

This is the case with our new location’s front landscape. As I shared in an earlier video, we are using potted plants for instant impact and to define where the bands of plants will go and then we are going back and adding flats of plugs.

(Above: Early plantings at the new locaton. Potted plants for some instant impact.)

Let me tell you, the plugs are small. The Rattlesnake master may be three leaves that look more like a weed grass than a desirable prairie plant, and the Rudbeckia maxima looks like it was grown for a salad not an impactful pollinator plant.  Last season I added plugs to our Ault Park Focal Garden: tiny plants I feared well-intended park visitors would mistake for weeds and pull. Luckily such rogue gardening never occurred. What were once very small plants are now standing quite well on their own.

(Above: A sample of a typical plant plug.)

As our understanding of the relationship between gardens and the environment evolves and more homeowners, businesses and municipalities are responding with the addition of larger, more natural landscapes: it’s good to know that to create a generous landscape, we aren’t reliant on potted plants. We can couple potted plants with plugs to save money, which can be used to create an even larger garden space.

As for the plugs at the new shop: I added quite a few. Should some not take, I have others planted close by that will fill the void. If they all thrive, being perennials, I can transplant some to open garden spaces.

(Above: What was once a very tiny, unimpressive plant is now attracting attention in the Focal Garden.)