Avoid Buying Bloomin’ Plants

If your strawberry plants have flowers on them when you buy them, you need to make sure you pull off the flowers before you plant them. You'll be glad you did.

The worst time to plant a plant is when it’s in flower. It’s kind of ironic because a nursery will often try to get their entire inventory to be in flower because that’s one way they makes very good money. They’re attractive and people often think that if it’s in flower, then the plant must be healthy and doing well. Flowers sell… in fact, they sell big. It’s totally fine to buy plants that are in flower, but you must be sure to pinch off all the flowers before you plant them.

The problem is that when plants are in flower, they are not focused on growing vegetatively.  Flowering plants are not growing roots, branches, or leaves because they’re focused on putting their energy into reproduction, i.e. flowers and the forthcoming seeds and fruit. This is a problem because in order for your plants to grow well and survive they need to establish strongly in the ground where you plant them. This requires good root growth, as well as new branches and leaves to get the energy the plant needs to make it through the stressful transition of transplanting. All this desirable vegetative growth needed for planting won’t take place if the plant is in flower.

A petunia plant can produce an astounding number of blossoms... if it is given the chance to properly establish itself first.

Plants that are in flower are already diverting some or most of its energy into producing flowers, so really, the best solution is to find healthy plants that aren’t in flower.  So what do you do if you can’t find any plants that are not in flower? Buy plants that have fewer flowers and pull the flowers off once they’re yours. This may seem harsh but it really helps. Pulling the flowers off will divert the plant’s energy away from reproductive growth and put it back into vegetative growth, which is exactly what we want. Even annual plants, like this petunia at right, that are expected to live for only one season still perform better when planted without flowers than with flowers.