Plant Shortages in the Coming Year

Azalea Northern Lights Series 'Electric Lights™ Red'

 It is nice in a weird sort of way to peruse seed selling sites and see "sold out" banners on various varieties. After years of decline in the horticultural sector, suddenly everyone is gardening. Growing some cut flowers for your own summer supply is becoming a "thing". It means people and their businesses will make money on the plants they hold. It means more plants will be available to more people rather than held tightly in the hands of a few collectors. It means more plants will be hybridized and more research on plants will be done. It is pretty much a big win all around.

In the short term, however, with more demand comes shortages. With shortages, comes rising prices. Last year, it seemed there were no clematis to be had. A scant few rose varieties were available. What was available, seems to have high price tags attached. There were some poor quality plants out there, in stock; and everything was smaller. A particular shrub cultivar?  Good luck sourcing it-- anywhere.

This year the costs of shipping are going add to the price tag of the plants at your local independent and big box store garden center. I work at a local independent garden center. Last spring we had numerous varieties of perennials sell out in just days from our Open for the Season Day. Your independent garden center buyer is already getting in line for their 2023 and even 2024 orders for everything from plant plugs to pottery.

So words of wisdom, if you see it and you really want it-- buy it. Don't assume you will see it cheaper at the big box store. Make your plan. List the plants you are looking for and have an alternate plant listed. Look for the alternatives at the same time you are looking for your favorites. Expect sticker shock. 

Dahlia 'Penhill Watermelon'

Last year when we could get a particular plant, it was often a smaller size or grade than we had previously offered. For me personally, I was shocked at the small size of the dahlia tubers I received on orders placed in January, and the number of varieties that I was shorted after having previously had a confirmed order. Approximately one out of every three tubers, did not have an eye and did not sprout. Only half of the remaining tubers actually pushed out a flower or two. 

One Impatiens 'Big Bounce Lilac' filled a whole container with a 16" diameter.

Don't expect sales. At the garden center, in early June, we have typically run a trunk load sale, with a "buy some number of annuals, get one free" to clear annuals we hadn't sold by Memorial Day. (It is often a hectic number of days between Mothers' Day and Memorial Day as everyone plants up all their pots and containers for the summer months.) This last year, we had the sale, but many things we had previously featured on the sale were not on sale and the volume of material to discount was low indeed.

What to do? As I mentioned, if you want it, buy it. The. First. Time. You. See. It. Know where you can scrimp on plants. (Will one Impatiens 'Big Bounce' fill a pot for you rather than planting three starts of something else?) While you are at the garden center will an herb fill a pot as easily as a flowering plant and add to your food budget, as well? Can a tomato fill an ornamental void? How about chard? Salad anyone? Take advantage of any value-added services the garden center may offer; pruning technique class... a soap-making class? 

I am so glad we are all reconnecting with our gardens and nature. The independent garden centers have had a hard pull the past decade. Support the garden center that brings in plants from their region or produces their own plugs. Do they have their own native beds to produce their native plants or grow on their own seed. Ask where they purchase their garden art. Is a large percentage produced locally? Do they support their local community and charities? Make local as important as native. Make community count.

The World Has Shifted

My '"Royal Shades Zinnia seed mix, above.

I have this in-my-head-conversation going on these days. Often, the adult me barges into the room and tells me to knock it off, turn off the light, and go to sleep. Like it is the equivalent of get ready to ace the next day. But then I pause, and think tomorrow will be the same, just a rewind of evaluating who it is safe to see and what activities are worth the risk. It is still a Covid World. Worse, for gardeners anyway, it is January in Wisconsin. And... we are in the middle of a cold snap.

I have started seed for sugar snap peas, and lettuce. I am attempting root cutting of eucalyptus. I have potted up some dubious looking tubers from some dahlias, thinking to force them. I have listed some of my collected seed on Etsy. I have been collecting some of my favorite zinnia colors and have been growing them on each summer other as a mix. I really like deep colors, but not the bright reds; more the wines, and purples, lilacs, and pinks.

Of course these favorite dahlias have the most insignificant tubers, 'Rip City' and 'Penhill Watermelon'. I am not sure they are actually viable tubers. The gorgeous ones seem to always be the most difficult. The miniscule volume of the 'Rip City' tuber is certainly a rip, as in rip-off. Is that the origin of the name?

I toy with the idea of offering cut flowers and bouquet classes in my yard, maybe for brides and their entourages. I am doing the flowers for my son's wedding this coming October 2022. Her color is a deep burgundy. Here are a few of the flowers we are looking at. Since the happy couple are playing with the frost date. I am including flowers which dry well. We did a mock-up of the palette this last October.

Even Murphy helped out modeling the flower girl flower crown.

Each of the 23 guest tables with have a lantern surrounded by flowers. Most will be dried, with focal flowers added in water pic tubes after everything is arranged. We could add in large dahlias, dahlia-style zinnias, carnations, or roses.

This is a flower garland for the wedding arch and later to be placed on the head table.

So on a January day with activity options limited, it is fun to dream of gardening and future flower fun.

Annuals I've Missed: Dahlias

This picture of a bug-free white dahlia was taken at Janesville's Rotary Botanical Garden.

I like dahlias almost as much as I like the big, blowsy Japanese peonies.  I have difficulties growing them.  This has not always been true.  Two things about dahlias I have not found a good way around.  I cannot winter over the tubers, which seem to be more expensive all the time (for smaller and smaller tubers).  The best flowers (number, size, all of it) seem to come from large, plump tubers grown on for several seasons.  Additionally, my growing season has shrunk.  Just about the time they have reached big, blowsy greatness, it will freeze here in central Wisconsin. 

The pale ones, like the white one pictured above, seem to be earwig magnets even when I could grow them when I lived in Elgin, IL.  One year I had a massive bouquet, picked on December 1, as the first hard frost was to happen that night; sensational when you can make it happen.

I've been thinking about starting the tiny, ambitious red ones of the Figaro strain next season and treat them like annuals.  This year I'll have to make do with vicarious pleasures.