WOW- The Plants at the big box stores look really great! And their prices are so cheap!
Have you been to any of the big box stores lately? Their garden centers are brimming with plants that are supposed to be hardy in our area- but are they really?
Well yes, they are selling plant varieties for the Upper Midwest, but did you know that they were grown in places like Tennessee and even further south? Adaptation is an issue to consider when buying these plants. Plants adapt to where they are grown primarily. So if a plant is grown in Tennessee, it does not necessarily mean it will grow well once it has been moved to Wisconsin.
In fact a few years back, I planted a potager surrounded by Boxwood ‘Green Velvet’ and Boxwood ‘Green Mountain’-, all hardy plants for this area. The first spring after I planted them, they came back browned out and nasty-looking, in contrast to the boxwood I planted from Minnesota. So was that really such a good deal? Not when I planted 35 plants it wasn’t. I dug them all out and replanted them at our nursery. Unfortunately, four years later they still look dreadful.
As an avid tomato lover and grower of up to 50 tomato plants every year. I have been so disappointed in the spread of both early and late tomato blight. Last year I dusted them with Copper sulfite and reeked of the stuff for weeks after applying it. Some of my August tomatoes still contained the stench. A year or two ago, the New York Times reported we could thank the box stores for the spread of the tomato blight across the US. Indeed a diseased plant grown in the volumes that the box stores sell at, will surely spread the disease not only state wide but interstate wide too.
And what about supporting local businesses? Do we really want to put our local, dedicated nursery growers out of business in favor of inferior stock from distant lands? Our growers will refuse to sell us a plant that is infected. Their stock is inspected annually.
At Avant we are taking a stand, we will not plant plants purchased from the big box stores in your gardens. We believe in supporting our local farmers and keeping our business right here in the Upper Midwest. We hope you will join us!
