Most garden centers typically carry one size of any given perennial. So why spend time thinking about perennial sizes if your choices are limited? Because learning about them can help you plan better and plant smarter, and changes in the industry’s supply model are giving gardeners more options.
FROM START TO FINISH
To understand sizes, it’s helpful to know a little about plant production. With perennials, young or bareroot plants are stepped up into larger sizes until they reach the final “finished” size. The starter plants are supplied by wholesale growers who specialize in producing starter plant material. Further down the supply chain the “finished growers” take the starter plants and grow them into the larger sizes destined for retail sales or the landscape.
In this article we’ll focus on the perennial sizes that are most likely to be available to an end consumer—essentially, what you find at retail sources. Those sizes fall into two categories: containerized plants and plugs.
In a garden center or other brick-and-mortar retail setting, perennials are usually containerized, meaning they’re
