I don’t think we’ve ever shared this practice with you! So, let’s talk about how we prepare bare root perennials that we buy!
If you have access to bare root perennials, they tend to be the very cheapest perennials that you can get. They are called bare root perennials because they are delivered to you as just the plant, complete with the roots. The roots are typically wrapped in wood shavings and plastic wrap, just to keep them damp for delivery. No pots, containers or other consumables.
Typically, we pick up our bare root perennials from a local tree sale each year and they are delivered in late May. In the early days, we’d always be in a mad dash to try and plant them right away as they can’t live outside of soil for very long. This was always a pain, since it was also smack dab in the middle of our planting season!
Well, after enough of these mad early season dashes, one year we decided to try and temporarily pot them into 1 or 5 gallon pots, depending on the perennial size. It turned out, this was the missing link! This potting is quite simple, then it gives us the ability to deal with our perennials on our time!
This simple thing gives us the flexibility to plant when it makes sense. Since we’ve got to dig into the ground, it’s usually best to do so after rain. We can push the actual planting to any time that season. What a relief!
Not just that, but then we can easily keep those perennials in our greenhouse for the early season. This really helps them green up and get a leg up for their first growing season. It’s hard to say for certain, but it seems we get a slightly better survival rate by doing this practice as well!
So, if you’re looking for a way to deal with bare root perennials in a flexible way, this is how we roll these days! We love our bare root perennials, they’re definitely a good way to get perennials if you have a seller that does it!
