{"id":4425,"date":"2009-08-06T03:36:07","date_gmt":"2009-08-06T10:36:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/?p=4425"},"modified":"2010-05-28T04:37:16","modified_gmt":"2010-05-28T11:37:16","slug":"plugs-arent-cheating","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/flowers\/plugs-arent-cheating\/","title":{"rendered":"Plugs For Growing Seedlings"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2596\/3785475104_3817a0f1a7.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" \/><\/p>\n<p>In early Spring I bought some Zinnia plants as very small plugs. They have been a splash of stripy colour for several weeks now and with a bit of deadheading look set to on and on.<\/p>\n<p>Yesterday I saw some<strong> &#8216;plugUgrow&#8217;<\/strong> plants of early spring flowers .\u00c2\u00a0 I thought it would save me time and effort compared to seed sowing buying some Primroses and Violas, to say nothing of the certainty over germination.There was a fair selection of Winter Pansies and Violas but I opted for 24 Plum Velvet F1 Violas that are a deep purple with a mauve center according to the picture. The Primrose Terracotta Shades came in packs of 12 and were larger plugs and better plants.\u00c2\u00a0 I hope the flowers are as seductive as the picture suggests.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Plug Aftercare<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>If the compost is totally dried out or the gel is no longer supplying water to the plants I would give them a gentle water and leave for a couple of hours. My plugs were damp.<\/li>\n<li>On the day of purchase, with a short stick I pushed through the bottom of the plug to ease the plant out and potted it into a 3&#8243; pot already filled with multipurpose compost.<\/li>\n<li>After a gentle watering at the base of the pot to help bedding in I put 15 pots to a seed tray in shade and shelter and will leave them for a few days to recover from repotting.<\/li>\n<li>When I have space in the garden the plants will be well established with a good root system and they can be planted in their flowering position.<\/li>\n<li>I will plant them close together to make a small mass of blooms of the same variety rather than have a pepper pot approach.<\/li>\n<li>If the colours and plants habits are suitable I may allow them to survive as perennials but if they do not appeal I can compost them after flowering\u00c2\u00a0 and I am only down <strong>\u00c2\u00a32.50 per Plug pack<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Tip <\/strong>&#8211;<strong> <\/strong> for little more than the price of a packet of seeds, plugs can guarantee 24 plants germinated and ready to pot on or plant out directly. It is\u00c2\u00a0 a quick and easy way to a patch of glorious colour.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In early Spring I bought some Zinnia plants as very small plugs. They have been a splash of stripy colour for several weeks now and with a bit of deadheading look set to on and on. Yesterday I saw some &#8216;plugUgrow&#8217; plants of early spring flowers .\u00c2\u00a0 I thought it would save me time and effort compared to seed sowing buying some Primroses and Violas, to say nothing of the certainty over germination.There was a fair selection of Winter Pansies&#8230;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"><a class=\"btn btn-default\" href=\"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/flowers\/plugs-arent-cheating\/\"> Read More<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">  Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-flowers","category-tips"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4425"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4425\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}