Thursday, November 21, 2013

How to make potted plants last longer.


Click on this image to see a slide show of this week's Spec. Load.  

Monday 25th November, exactly 1 month 'til Christmas. We planned heaps for this Christmas season and coupled with the Calibrachoas and Alfrescos coming ready later than we planned (because their roots wouldn't grow) we have beautiful, bright colourful stock coming out of our ears. Petunia, Calibrachoa, Verbena (you really have to look at the Verbena), Gerbera, Bracteanthus, Bacopa and the Alfresco Blends.  We have just added Alfresco See Red to the list this week, See Red is so Christmas it jingles and the plants are beautifully matched.


Verbena Magdalena

One of the reasons we are so proud of this year's Christmas offering is the consistent quality of the plants and the colour. The mild conditions we have no doubt been generous to growers, protecting our plants from extreme heat if not from extreme wind and the stock looks fabulous. This is at least partly due to changing our potting mix.  Bryce recommended we try increasing the water holding capacity of our mix so we discussed options with a couple of potting mix suppliers and we have ended up using a whole lot more coir peat.  So far we haven't had any issues with stock being too wet and the results on the few warm days we have had have been stunning.  Even better, Coir is a by product of the automotive industry where it is used for seat stuffing. Super effective and saves the material going to waste.  Take care if you want to try it at home, too much fine coir dust can really choke a potting mix or soil. Try about 10% with standard potting mix or soil. 

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