Plants on my Doorstep | Doug's Organic Solutions| OrganicGardening.com

« What's on the Minds of Gardeners | Main | Planting Vegetables in the Season of Mud »

April 12th, 2011

doug I believe in supporting my local garden centers, but they don’t always sell all the seeds and plants I’m interested in growing at home. That’s where mail-order comes in. Garden catalogs and online retailers give me access to nearly infinite plant choices. This time of year, the UPS guy leaves boxes of plants on my doorstep a couple times a week. It’s better than Christmas.

Trying to keep up with plants as they arrive can be a challenge. My advice: Open all boxes and immediately deal with anything that has been shipped bare-root. If I know where in the garden I want a plant to go, I’ll get it into the ground that day. If I don’t have time to plant until the weekend, I cover the roots with damp compost or potting soil in a big metal washtub—a process called “heeling in”—and leave the washtub next to the windows in my cool garage.

For many of the plants I order, however, I’m not sure where I want them to reside permanently. Some purchases, like the 15 grafted Japanese maples I ordered this spring, are still too small to go directly into the ground. So I pot these up in plastic nursery pots. Growing perennials, shrubs, and small ornamental trees in large containers for a season allows them to bulk up before they go into the garden. And it gives me a couple more months to make up my mind. —Doug Hall

Tags: bare root, heeling in, mail order

About

Senior editor Doug Hall answers questions from readers on best organic gardening practices.

All Organic Gardening Blogs

Ethne Clarke's Garden Pages
Editor-in-Chief Ethne Clarke shares all that’s good, and sometimes surprising, in the garden, from the garden, and about the garden.

Doug’s Organic Solutions
Deputy editor Doug Hall answers questions from readers on best organic gardening practices.

From the Test Gardens
Regional advice and timely reminders from Organic Gardening's test gardeners.

The Garden Ephemerist
Findings from Organic Gardening copy editor and ephemera collector Nancy Rutman. Garden flowers and insects are one of the many themes of Nancy's collection.

This Imperfect Plot
Follow along as Organic Gardening's online editor, Eric Hurlock, tries to maintain an organic garden while also balancing a career and a growing family.

Mario's Peace Corps Journal
Mario Machado is a Peace Corps volunteer serving as an agricultural educator in the rural Paraguayan community of Guido Almada.

Garden Fotos
Go behind the scenes with OG photography editor, Patrick Montero, to see what happens in the studio and the garden.

The Guest Blog
Fascinating entries from contributing editors, interesting voices, and expert gardeners.

The Green Earth Girl
Katie Walker, Organic Gardening’s Associate Editor and Amateur Foodie, learns to cook organically, locally, sustainably, and—hopefully—deliciously.

Homesweet Homegrown
Robyn Jasko, founder of Grow Indie, shares her adventures in DIY food, from seed to plate.

Are You for Real?
Publisher, Jeff Tkach explores the many ways to take the real route to health by making healthy lifestyle choices and demanding organic.

The Accidental Farmer
What's growin' on at Stonegate Farm, Organic Gardening contributing editor Matthew Benson's Organic micro farm.