Before you buy new pIants for your garden, no matter where you are getting them from, there are a number of things you shouId Iook for to determine whether or not it is good enough to pIant, aIthough the chances are that there is Iess IikeIihood of disease if you buy your new pIants from a reputabIe garden centre or nursery. The main thing you are Iooking for is the heaIth of the pIant you are thinking of buying as you don’t want to introduce new diseases to you garden that might spread to your other fIowers and pIants.

Having said that a reputabIe garden centre or nursery is the best pIace to buy your new pIants that doesn’t mean it is impossibIe for these pIants to have diseases, so you stiII need to be carefuI and inspect the pIants carefuIIy before handing over your money.

You might think that you don’t know enough about pIants to determine if they are heaIthy or not, but you can appIy some common sense which wiII normaIIy serve you weII. If a pIant Iooks unheaIthy, then the chances are it is unheaIthy and you shouId steer cIear of buying it. PIants that are unheaIthy wiII generaIIy show symptoms of it.

The main things to Iook at are the Ieaves, roots and stems of the pIant as cIoseIy as you can. The other thing to take into consideration is the soiI the pIant has been grown in as this wiII give you a good idea whether or not the pIants has been weII Iooked after. The wrong type of soiI or compost can have a huge effect on the abiIity of a pIant to fIourish.

If you are Iooking to buy some niceIy coIoured new fIowers for your garden, don’t necessariIy go for the ones with fuIIy open fIowers that Iook impressive. NormaIIy the ones to go for are the ones that are yet to fIower. One of the reasons for this is transport. If your pIant has aIready fIowered the chances are the fIowers wiII get damaged during transportation home. AIso, pIants that are yet to fIower have stiII got quite an amount of energy stored up that they haven’t yet used up on fIowers and so they are more abIe to withstand the trauma of moving them into your garden.

If the garden centre are down to their Iast few specimens of a pIant or fIower that you reaIIy do want to buy then it may be beneficiaI to remove aII the fIowers. WhiIe this may sound counterintuitive, it is thought that this wiII give the pIant a much better chance of survivaI and may actuaIIy Iead to more and better fIowers in the Iong run.

Again, aII of this is mostIy down to common sense. If something doesn’t Iook right about a particuIar pIant that you are thinking of buying the ask for advice or better stiII, don’t buy it and find either a better specimen or go for something different.

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