Too late for plugs???

Ive been looking online as he GC's seem pants at present and have found some Phlox sold as large plugs. They are approx. 4" tall so still small. (dark purple and white ones)My questions are kind people...….Is it too late to put in the ground this year and if I did would I lose them over winter? It says to put in 9cm pot for 2 weeks first. If I kept them in a bigger pot instead how would I overwinter them in regard to storage and watering to make sure they come back next season hopefully with a head start? They are particularly what I want and cant be sure to find in GC's next year.

 

Hi @cindy it seems strange that they suggest only 2 weeks in a pot - they'd hardly get settled! I would suggest that you choose the pot size based on the extent of the root ball when they arrive - if they are very well rooted it would be worth putting them in something bigger - but if you overdo it the soil can get sour and the plants suffer. And then I would only plant them out in the autumn - give them a few months of TLC to get them started. If you kept them in pots till spring it would be much harder to avoid frosting the roots (of course it depends where you are).

 

Hi @cindy , I would say put them into pots to give them enough room and ( possibly , if they need it ) pot them on around 6 wks or so time. As they're herbaceous I would plant them out in late October/November when they're going dormant for the Winter.

 

Cindy, it’s too late to plant plugs directly in the ground...they would look silly and struggle to make anything this year.
Pot them on and you should be able to pot on again in a few weeks.
Phlox are hardy and such small plants would survive the winter if protected. A gh, coldframe or even fleece would help them too. Even a windowsill.
How much are these plugs? They should be very cheap now
How many plugs do you plan on getting?
I would prefer to buy a named variety of phlox in a half litre or plus pot .....you could pay less than a fiver for it online and you could plant them out into the garden immediately.

 

PHLOX "Special Deep Purple" 9cm plants perennial flowers adessa FREE DEL> £25 | eBay

These are what I was looking at @Verdun What should I do with these in your opinion. I do have a pvc covered green house but how often should I water overwinter if that's where I need to keep them.
I would have got it all wrong @CarolineL and @KFF as I would have though putting them in the ground in Autumn would have killed them. I live on the South East Coast.

 

They are simply too small, whatever time of the year, Cindy, to put plugs into the ground.
I would still buy one or two named phlox in half litre or so pots.... check out Ballyrobert gardens at £4.99 each.
You will receive top class plants in a matter of a couple of days
These would not need to be protected over winter and can be planted out now.
Buying lots of plugs of the same plant type does not make sense to me .....your phlox can be divided in a couple of years to make more plants. Remember phlox are vigorous plants and will make 80 cm plus in height

 

Hi cindy, I doubt very much that these are plug plants. These are plants in 9cm pots ( 3" pots ). This is a standard size pot for buying any type of plant. They may even be garden ready. I buy most of my plants in this size pot then depending on their size either pot on or plant straight out.

 

@Verdun I hear what you are saying but Im not sure Im confident enough of my abilities to divide my Phlox. Id fear killing them. It is certainly the Phlox that are seeming to do the best in my garden and what a bonus that they are scented too!
I took a gamble and got 2 blue gasses at the market today.

 

Cindy, you don’t need to divide anything....just saying in a few years you can if you want to.
What grasses? Festucas? Another of my garden passions, grasses

 

The very one...…….are you blessed with special powers?

 

Yes, yes I am Cindy
They like it dry, warm and free draining....then they are lovely all year round

 

Would like a question answered about my own Festuca Glauca please, @Verdun. I usually keep it trimmed and pull out old grass but have let it do its own thing this year, will it self-seed well, which is what I'm hoping will happen? I know these can be divided but the clump is rather small and I wouldn't mind a few more of them!

Nick

 

Hello Nikalaos
You don’t say what variety you have but any seedlings are likely to be inferior to your main plant. Festucas have been largely bred to produce the finest blue foliage colour ...there are green varieties too though. To be honest with you, I don’t let these seed and prefer division to maintain the variety.

If mine, I would remove those flowering stems and concentrate on letting the plant grow on.

However, I respect you wanting to try so you will prob get lots of seedlings .....prob see them growing next spring, everywhere. If you do I would pot them up and select the best of them. Experiment ....let me know how you get on

 

Thanks Verdun! Mine was purchased with no variety name so perhaps it's just the species, hoping I'm right about that so I don't get any inferior seedlings. (?) Perhaps the best option would be to just divide into two and give one division a space where it has more room to expand, then divide further after a while.

Nick

 

I regularly divide festucas ......late summer or early autumn and pull apart into small pieces of root and too growth. In this case I find ordinary mpc is fine mixed with perlite. They grow quickly in the following spring then