Planting bare root perennials

Derry Journal

Some perennial plants are just extremely difficult to grow from seed and some others take years of care to get them to flowering stage, but fortunately there are numerous affordable options that require little effort.  Mostly these come in the form of bare roots and bulbs, and now, as we near the end of spring and start of summer, is a brilliant time to get some bargains at the local garden centre or online. As a bonus they’ll probably come with shoots formed giving you a head-start.  At the time of writing, numerous companies have up to 60% off a wide range of their summer and autumn flowering plants, and I’ve picked up a few bare roots in shops and garden centres. I’ve also received a couple of orders I placed online with the very reasonable Farmer Gracy and with an amazing Irish family-run facility, Caherhurley Nursery in County Clare which is selling off already potted up perennial plants for the bargain price of £5 or €5 which can then be either planted or grown on in pots for a few weeks before planting. There are many garden centres, shops and companies out there offering value for money but these are the two I’ve bought from online and can verify that their plants came in pristine condition.

Transcript

00:00Hello again today we're going to be planting up some bare roots and some bulbs that I've

00:17ordered on and they've arrived today these are from farmer Gracie in Holland you can pick up

00:23these in shops as well and some garden centers and bare roots are basically plants or parts of

00:33plants that are established and they're usually just sliced part of the root mass is sliced and

00:39then they're bagged up and these have arrived in very fine compost which can be reused as well

00:46and then I have some over here soaking right and this is the thing with bare roots very important

00:54that you soak them when they arrive many of them will arrive with growth already on them like this

01:03one here this is a philacrum black stockings which is a big tall plant when it grows and it should

01:11reach about six seven feet and it's good for the back of a border and then and here I have an astelby

01:21this is a cappuccino astelby it would have really dark foliage and then these white feathery plumes

01:30coming up out of it and those are both going to the garden the good thing about these are they are

01:39perennial and buying them at this time of year and at the end of the end of the season really when

01:48people are planting plants out you get them a lot cheaper so here these are ones I've already planted

02:03out so what I have what I've got in this order is celebration of angels these are a lolly a really

02:09beautiful lolly I've never seen in person before but I've seen the photos and it's pretty stunning and

02:16this is another astelby that I have potted up already that was soaked for three hours or so and there's

02:25another of those so I got three of the lollies one of the or sorry two astelby's one red one one white

02:35plumes one with dark foliage one with green foliage that's the other one and then got two of the black

02:42stockings salacrum as well and as well as that I got ten of these gladiola both and as you can see

02:52they're already sprouting as well they're all very healthy looking every one of them's got growth on

02:57it and they just arrived on this little black or that little brown bag and these are a sort of a

03:07creamy peachy color with a pink center and called amber mystique but all in all for everything it cost

03:16around less than 30 pound with postage and packaging and so I would only I'd advise you to buy if you're

03:25looking for perennials like these may not do much this year but for next year the gladiola those will

03:30come up this year but for next year they should put on a great display they'll come back every year as

03:40well so it's a great idea just if you look online you'll get the end of season stock and as I say

03:49maybe not for this year but for next year just plan ahead you'll have a really nice lot of plants and

03:57they'll be well established as well so you can see here the root mass of the astelby and this has just

04:06been cut down the side from their parent plant and some of these we should sort of broken off in

04:12postage but there's plenty more common on it so they'll give you an indication of because it was

04:18split down the side we'll plant it down that way and you can spread the roots a good idea is they

04:24spread the roots evenly either way across because then that gives the plant a good foothold and do the

04:34same when you're planting in the ground too so I'm just going to remove some of the soil from this

04:41pot and then so you just want a base really and then just sit that and you don't want the crown

04:51going down too far so put more in there so that's about the right depth and then we're just going to

05:00fall around that so just gently firm it down and make sure the roots are being covered but you want

05:08the crown exposed okay broken off shit there but these can be left out in all sorts of weathers because

05:20they are hardy perennials and these astelbies in particular will handle all different capes of the

05:29soil and they seem to prefer a bit of shade according to the experts rather than full sun so they should

05:40do well here in Ireland and that is that one done basically all that needs now is a watering in

05:51and I'll just do the same with the philagrums as well but that's basically it I'll just show you

05:59the roots on some of these boys now look at the size of that that just shows you how far those roots go

06:16down and that's only a part of the plant one little section so I'm just going to spread those out into

06:24the pot I could probably put that straight in the ground there the way it is at the moment but the

06:30reason you wouldn't normally do that is because of transplant shock so the last thing you want is

06:39the plant going into shock and dying on you so and they have a lot more to contend with on the

06:46ground than they ever would like and this little pot of compost this just gives them a chance to

06:52establish for the roots to sort of find a footing because these have been dry for god knows how

07:01long and they're really just waking up and then when you put them in the ground they've had that

07:10chance to adjust to the climate outside where their new home is and then they'll also have a bigger

07:18root mass as well so there's one of the philagrums in there now and they will correct themselves to

07:24you wouldn't worry about that being a wee bit lopsided that will correct itself over time

07:30this big root mass again loads of stems coming out of it you can see the smaller ones in there as well

07:49take a photo of that while i'm here and again just plop that down plant upright you don't have to be too

08:01careful but just make sure you're covering all the roots let's move that one out of the way

08:07very impressed with these dutch bulbs there maybe it is because it's the end of the season but

08:19they're so well on already it may even get flowers this year from some of them i already did from the

08:26alem but that was from the irish nursery the cair hurley nursery so they deliver north and south at cair hurley

08:39and it's very very reasonable postage as well so that's basically that and we'll just give them a

08:46water and then that's them in there we'll leave them in for about a month and then we'll pot them up

08:51the ground i'm planning to put one of these over here and that new patch i dug out a few weeks ago

08:56i'll just go over here and check what's doing what well the lbeki are coming on very well

09:07the echinacea are a bit more slow there's heads already forming on these astalbis

09:14they're doing quite well some of those were bare roots as well

09:18there's another head over there that's one of the

09:23there's bariola here at the back these plants were came as bare roots and some of them were bulbs as

09:31well these are all the perennials that i'm going you can see there's an allium

09:34in the ground flowering it's very low down i don't know if it'll pop up and then over here

09:43they have some other bare root perennials that i've patted up it's a good idea to pot them up first

09:50for about a month and let them go on so that it's not such a shock then when they go under the ground

09:57and this is one i just patted up today that's the other astalbis the red one

10:02as you can see they usually arrive with growth on them

10:05i've got good success with farmer gracie but i know there's a lot of other companies as well

10:11and one of the ones i want to mention and a lot of these ones came from is cahar hurley nursery

10:17in the south of ireland and they are currently doing a massive sale and

10:24they're closing down sale and everything is five pound and that those plants arrive

10:31in a pot of soil already so you don't even have to worry about potting them up when they arrive

10:38so they're not bare roots they're actually growing plants and they are fantastic healthy plants and i

10:45have a few of them in the garden there so while i'm here i'll just show you what's been flowering

10:50as well and everything is either starting to open or about to open now we've got this bear patch here

11:00where nothing seems to be growing i think it's just too dry because we've had this unseasonably dry

11:06warm weather so i'm going to give that a good soaking and then plant some more things in it although

11:11i have so much more so a lot of new other plants so plenty to put on there as you can see i've got loads of

11:18these accolages or columbines beautiful plants all different colors as well there's a white one over

11:26there and different yellow pink different flower heads as well pink and white here's a nice one as well

11:35and here's the first sweet william i've just noticed ah there's a couple more open in there but look at

11:41that that's a beautiful flower kind of rosy pink different shades you can see a few of them there's

11:47yellow ones and white ones brilliant flowers more yellow ones the honesty now are gone to seed you can

11:57see the seed pods there i'll be collecting them and drying them out in a while here we have all the forget

12:03me nuts put on a beautiful wee display and then we'll just look down at the sweet william as well

12:13these are our rookie all grown from seed last year biennial of course and the last of the the

12:23the wallflowers now they're going over and you can see the seed heads on them i'm going to collect

12:27those seed heads too and regrow for next year as well and then we have some calendula growing and

12:36around the back i've got some sweet pea to lean the fence and just go and check here all right the first of

12:48the lupines as well is coming up it's a nice peach and yellow that was grown from seed last year too and

12:59planted out it's very very healthy looking that one in particular but there there was about five or six

13:04some of them were probably gone these snails and i have some room down here at the back for some of those

13:09bare roots and it's a really pretty calendula that's come up and when they have these little adonis

13:19they'll be going over soon and in the back there there's a lot of um returning plants these are

13:28those ones there they are uh hollyhock and i have some little hollyhock seeds to come up one of the

13:35ones i'm most curious to see which i've never seen is the canterbury pills which are all now forming

13:42flower heads as well as the puppies they're all fun flower heads too and all these wee tiny flowers that

13:49you can see waving about they are all just radishes radish seeds that were planted last year and

13:57survived the winter and they're all flowering early and i'm going to plant a few more because they just

14:01look the abby touches of white and light blue onto the garden and then further on down we have the

14:09first of the cornflowers opening it's a bit wild looking at the moment and then some oxide daisies as

14:16well i'm going to keep an eye on them in case they spread too far but it's great to see that heat has

14:22brought everything on so well there's some more of those dark

14:25i think i think and some more of the acholegia and the sweet wedding

14:36these are really beautiful ones as well so i'm going to color code them when i collect the seeds

14:41after they go over so i know which ones to plant

14:46where but they will come back next year anyway as well the plants so it's just a matter of creating more of

14:52them very easy to go from seed as well so um i've got plenty here going on and we'll just add a few of

15:02the berry roots on there after they've been in pots for a while

15:14so

15:26you

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