If it died in the first three weeks, it was one of four things — and none of them is that you're bad at this.
Nearly every plant that dies after leaving a nursery dies inside three weeks, and nearly always from the same short list. Nobody prints that list, because it reads like admitting plants die. They do. So here it is, with how to tell which one it was, and the offer that goes with it: bring it back within a month and we'll replace it once, without a conversation about receipts.
It's dying. Which of the four is it?
It wasn't watered in
The commonest by a distance, and the least obvious — a thirsty plant can look exactly like a drowned one. A new plant wants a full watering can on the day it goes in, and twice a week after that for a month.
It's planted too deep
Below the level it sat at in the pot. The stem rots at soil level and it browns from the bottom upwards. Match the top of the root ball to the soil surface — nothing wants to be deeper than it was.
The roots were never teased out
A pot-bound root ball keeps growing in a circle and never leaves the shape of the pot. Break it up with your fingers before it goes in. It always feels destructive and it is always right.
It's in the wrong place
Sun where it wanted shade, or wet feet where it wanted drainage. The only one of the four a watering can won't fix, and the one to ask us about before you buy rather than afterwards.
Twice a week for a month, then stop — The month is for getting roots out of the root ball and into your soil. Watering forever afterwards makes a shallow, lazy plant that can't cope with a dry August
Rain doesn't count in the first month — A leaf canopy sheds water outwards, away from the root ball. A newly planted shrub can be bone dry underneath after a wet week, and it happens constantly
Wilting at four o'clock in July is normal — Look again at eight the next morning. Still flat, it's thirsty; standing up, it was just hot — and watering it on the strength of the afternoon is how people drown things
Don't feed it in the first month — It's making roots, not leaves. Feed now and you push top growth the roots can't yet support, which is a worse plant in August
Some die anyway, and about one in twenty will — For reasons nobody can name from a photograph. That's what the replacement is for, and it's why it's one rather than unlimited
"Moist but well-drained" is the least useful phrase in gardening — It means water should reach the roots and then leave. In clay that means digging grit in; in sand it means digging muck in. Same three words, opposite jobs
The height on the label is at ten years — Not the final size, and not next summer. A shrub listed at a metre and a half will be forty centimetres for two years and two metres by year fifteen
"Hardy" is relative to somewhere — And that somewhere is usually not your garden. A frost pocket at the bottom of a slope is a different climate from the top of the same garden
No label knows about your wind — Which kills more plants in exposed gardens than cold does. A hedge or a fence changes what will grow more than anything else you can do
What we write on ours — Where it came from, what it actually wants, and what it will do in year three — plus the honest note where a plant is short-lived. Some good plants last five years and it should say so
Buy big for the two you see from the house — Concentrating the money on a couple of specimens beats spreading it across everything, and it's what we'd do in our own garden
Bare-root and plugs are the real saving — Where a plant is available bare-root in winter, it is a third of the price and it establishes better. Hedging especially — nobody should be buying a hedge in pots
A pot-bound plant is not a bargain — Roots circling the outside, moss on the compost, and a bigger label. Ask how long it's been in that pot and we'll tell you honestly
What the price actually pays for — Time. A 10-litre shrub is three years of somebody potting it on and watering it, and that's a fair price — it just isn't always the better buy
We'll say when a smaller one is better — Which is most of the time, and it costs us money on every conversation. It's also why people come back the following spring
Hedging whips, bare-root · winter only
Hawthorn, hazel, field maple, mixed. Sixty centimetres, planted at five to the metre, and about a fifth the price of the same hedge in pots. Available three months of the year and worth waiting for.
Order from the nurseryPerennials, 9cm · grown from our own seed
Small, cheap and quick to establish. Twelve of these beat three big pots for the same money and they catch up by the second summer.
Order from the nurseryShrubs, 2 and 10 litre
Both sizes of the same plants, side by side, with the price difference on the label so you can decide rather than guess. Ask us and we'll usually point at the small one.
Order from the nurseryFruit trees, two-year-old maidens
On rootstocks that suit a garden rather than an orchard, and we'll say which. A small tree planted well beats a big one planted in a hurry within about five years.
Order from the nurseryA handful of your soil tells us most of it — Roll it in your hand: sticky and it holds a shape, that's clay; gritty and it falls apart, that's sand. Both grow beautiful gardens and they grow different ones
Wet in winter is the killer, not cold — Most plants that die "of frost" died of sitting in water. If a spot puddles in January, say so before you buy anything for it
Don't fight the site — There is always a good plant for a difficult spot, and it is never the one on the front of the magazine. Changing the plant is cheaper than changing the garden every time
What we won't sell you — Anything we know will sulk in this soil. It's a short list, it costs us sales every week, and it's the reason the fourth number at the top of this page is a zero
Bring photographs, we don't mind — Nobody has ever been told they're asking too much of a nursery. The conversation is most of what a nursery is actually for
Ask about a plant
“They talked me out of the plant I'd come for twice and were right both times. The third one is still there six years on.”
A customer, since the second visit
Live preview — every color, word and block is editable after you pick it.