by Lindsay Bond Totten
Scripps Howard News Service
Garden centers make it look so easy, don't they? Row upon row of beautifully-grown plants--so many it's hard to choose between them!
Then there, tucked among a block of shrubs marked "Viburnums" sit a few rather straggly-looking specimens. Compared to the other varieties displayed, Prague viburnum (V. pragense) is not likely to catch your eye. With a gangly growth habit and sparse foliage, it's obvious why shoppers might pass it up in favor of Koreanspice or one of the other more robust viburnums.
Therein lies a conundrum for garden center owners. Prague viburnum is a wonderful plant! It just doesn't look terrific at a young age in a pot. Balled-and-burlapped specimens would be more appealing, but customers prefer the convenience of containers.
Only knowledgeable gardeners will give that straggly Prague viburnum a second glance. It will, they know, morph into a vigorous dense pyramidal shrub with shiny evergreen leaves once the roots reach real soil. Someday it will enhance a shrub border; several together will mature into a large handsome hedge.
Further down the same row rest a few pathetic pots of Viburnum 'Summer Snowflake', in another section of the sales lot a flimsy Dragon Lady holly, or maybe two. Without the right customer, those ugly ducklings will still be sitting there at the end of the season.
You can't blame the proprietor for his reticence. Customers buy plants that look good and shun ones that don't. They assume those that look best in the nursery will also perform best in their gardens at home. And the packaging of the roots makes a difference--it sure is easier to lift a potted plant into the car than a heavy, muddy rootball!
Without realizing it, gardeners have participated in a shift from balled-and-burlapped to container-grown nursery stock. Filled with soil-less mix, pots are lighter for nurserymen and their customers to handle. They're also easier to water, and they take up less space.
By eliminating the labor-intensive step of digging and tying the rootballs, nurserymen can keep prices competitive.
Nearly lost in the shuffle are great plants like Prague viburnum, Dragon Lady holly, and many others that grow fine in field soil but can't be coaxed to perform as well in a pot. Balled-and-burlapped specimens may look better, but they just don't fit the new program.
To complicate matters further, some plants simply respond better to transplanting when they're sold as balled-and-burlapped specimens than they do as containers. It creates quite a dilemma for "petal pushers."
On the other end of the horticultural assembly line, growers are sensitive to the challenges facing retailers and their customers. As a result, many of the plants we purchase in the future may be "hybrids," grown for part of their lives in the ground and then finished in pots, en route to our landscapes.
One technique--still experimental--marries state-of-the-art fabric starter "pots" and old-fashioned in-ground nursery production methods. Fibrous feeder roots that penetrate the fabric are stripped away (like Band-Aid being pulled from skin) when the fabric pots are yanked--literally--from nursery rows.
The plants, quickly potted, push new feeder roots within days. Soon they're ready for sale, displayed in pots, but with crowns nearly identical to field-grown stock. Everyone wins. Gardeners get better plants at about the same price. And because they're potted, the window for planting stays open well past the typical spring planting season.
While we're waiting for these "wunderkind" plants to make their debut, pay special attention to amending the soil for container-grown shrubs and trees. Loosen the roots before planting. Gently pull them apart or slice once through the rootball with a sharp spade if the roots are matted at the bottom.
Separate the halves and place the plant on a cone of soil in the ground so the roots are forced towards the edges of the hole. Treat the roots of balled-and-burlapped specimens with care. Lower the rootballs to the ground, don't drop them from the tailgate of a truck or car or the rootball may break apart.
Untie the cord securing the burlap to the stem of the plant, and loosen the top of the fabric. Peel it back about one-third of the way and tuck it into the hole, making sure that all scraps of burlap are covered by soil when you backfill.
(Lindsay Bond Totten, a horticulturist, writes about gardening for Scripps Howard News Service.)
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