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Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52401
The Iowa Gardener: Baby those plants in a nursery garden
There is a nifty little trick that large, public gardens use that home gardeners can also do: a nursery bed.
Just as the name suggests, a nursery bed is a dedicated bed (or corner of, say, the vegetable garden) where you can baby plants that need it or start out seeds to be transplanted as they get larger.
Public gardens will have nursery beds as big as most of our largest vegetable gardens. But a nursery bed for a typical homeowner doesn’t have to be huge. I usually use a couple of 4-foot by 3-foot raised beds each year as nursery beds, though I’ve used a portion of my vegetable garden sometimes, too. They need to be in full sun and have good, rich well-drained soil and away from the crowding and competition of perennials, shrubs, or other plants right next to them.
Plant are like people in that respect. They thrive and grow fastest and best when they don’t have to compete with others for food, water, and elbow room. Nursery beds allow you to coddle plants that might otherwise get lost in an established flower bed or border.
Here’s how you can use nursery beds:
- Plant tree seedlings and small shrubs until they are large enough to plant in their less-accommodating permanent spots.
- Plant bare-root plants, such as perennials, which are often no more than a dried-up stem and a small cluster of roots. I grow these in the nursery bed for a couple of years until they get large enough that I can put them into the hurly-burly of the established perennial flower beds.
- Start seeds directly in the soil. Many annuals, such as sunflowers, zinnias, cosmos, cleome, and marigolds, germinate easily directly in the soil. I plant them in rows in the nursery bed, thin them as needed, and then when they get two or three inches tall tuck them in here and there in my flower beds. If I tried to plant the seeds directly in those flower beds, they’d be shaded by the larger surrounding plants and it would be harder to avoid damaging the little seedlings when I’m weeding, watering and mulching.
- Nurture a struggling plant. When a plant has been placed in the wrong spot and is struggling, a nursery bed is a great place to transplant to so that I can keep an eye on it and give it just the right amount of water and plenty of sun until it’s healthy again. Then I can give it another chance in a new spot in my garden.
- Hold plants temporarily. Maybe you received a shipment of plants in the mail or friends shared some with you or you over-shopped at the garden center. You don’t have time to immediately put them into their permanent locations. With a nursery bed, you can plant them close together, to hold them temporarily for a few days or even a few weeks.
- Test out new plants. If you received a mystery plant as a gift, or you want to see how a new plant is going to grow or bloom, plant it in your nursery bed for a year or two to see how it behaves in order to find the best permanent spot for it in your garden.
- Propagate plants. Perennials are expensive, so sometimes I’ll purchase just one. However, one plant is easy to get lost in mixed beds and borders, plus I prefer to plant in “drifts” of at least three plants. With a nursery bed, I can let that single plant grow for two to three years and then divide it into three or more sections elsewhere.
Nursery beds will expand what you are able to do in your garden and save you time and money in the bargain.
Veronica Lorson Fowler is co-publisher of the Iowa Gardener website at www.theiowagardener.com.
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