A Few Notes on Plant Selection

Alrighty kids, today’s lesson is about plant selection. Half of the issues that I see in landscapes, whether they be pruning, disease, or just unhappy plants, are the result of poor plant selection.

There are many factors that you should take into consideration when choosing a plant for you landscape:

Mature size: you see a shrub in the nursery and say “this plant is 3’ tall and 2’ wide and it’s awfully cute and it’ll go perfectly 1 foot away from the corner of my porch!” So you go home and plant it and it looks great! But a few years later (or less) if that shrub is actually say… a Nellie R. Stevens holly- which are sold in cute little sizes- that means your cute little shrub is actually going to try and be a tree and grow to a height of 30’! See the problem? You will be fighting a losing battle trying to keep that thing from taking over the sidewalk and everything else within a hop, skip and jump of where you planted it. (Like the top photo, right.)  A much better option would be something like a Steeds holly, which will politely stay under 5’ tall and about half as wide, with a lovely cone shape.  (The lower photo on the right is a strangler fig growing on top of a ruin. It didn't start on the ground, it started on the top and grew those roots down to the ground, an extreme example of bad plant placement, I know.)

Sun exposure: Have you ever seen a hydrangea looking wimpy in the full sun? What about a rose that’s planted in the shade and never flowers? Plants are biologically programmed to have preferred living conditions. If that hydrangea is planted in afternoon sun; a. it’s going to wilt EVERY day, b. the leaves will literally get sunburned, and c. it will hate you forever. Many plants prefer full sun though, especially heavily flowering and fruiting ones (not necessarily though) which will never produce a good flower show or fruit crop if not given enough daylight. So that means that you should do some research! Reading the tag on the plant may not be enough though. Many plants in your retail garden centers come from the prestigious Monrovia Growers for example, but did you know that Monrovia has nurseries in south Georgia as well as in Oregon? So if a tag on a plant grown in Oregon says full sun that may not mean full sun here in Hotlanta nor will the one from south Georgia that says shade necessarily thrive in the shade in Seattle. So try and find a local resource for your exposure and hardiness research. Oh, and just because a garden center here sells it, doesn’t mean it will survive here. I saw queen palms at Home Cheapo this summer; they’re hardy to zone 9B. We’re zone 7. Big difference.

Pest and Disease considerations: Are you one of the many folks that are moving with the trend to become ‘green’ by staying away from chemicals? But oh, you loooove hybrid tea roses. The problem? Roses get a multitude of pests and diseases: black spot, aphids, thrips…. So what are you going to do? Give in and spray or have crappy looking roses? If you don’t like chemicals buy disease resistant plants that aren’t prone to pests. Again, do your research before you buy.

I've said this before, and I'll say it again:  Like needing the right tool for the job, you need the right plant for the space.

Jessica Watters, GCLP                               Horticulture Technician, Chattahoochee Technical College