Beware of 'Growth Retarder'

By JIM ECK

Planting flowers is in full swing now and I thought I would bring a few things to your attention. Have you noticed that when you go the garden centers that the marigolds, impatiens, daisies, and periwinkles are in bloom on such small plants?

Well, the greenhouse producers of these plants are producing what you as the consumer wants. Long ago they figured out that the garden customers, for the most part, bought the plants that were only in bloom. And there are many flowers, of which most are perennial, that do not set blooms early like the marigolds.

Consequently, you the customer are reluctant to purchase these non in bloom plants like Rudbeckia, Echinacea or Cone Flower, Yarrow and numerous others. Now is this good or bad? The greenhouse growers try to force these plants into blooming so you will spend your money on them as soon as you lay eyes on those beautiful blooming marigolds and others. Of course it is nice to be able to plant your flowers and immediately see color.

In order for the greenhouse producer to do this an application of growth retarding chemicals is sprayed on them. These chemicals are only temporary and the plant stops vegetative growth and this tells the plant that it is time to start blooming. Now, I said this is only temporary, and the plant will after several weeks start growing foliage again. So you are giving up time that the plant could be growing larger and later bloom better for that little bit color.

People ask me all the time why the plants we put out from the city greenhouse grows faster than theirs? We do not use these growth retarders on our plants and consequently they start growing quicker and later produce better bloom.

The people that plant tomatoes will go to the garden centers and purchase the most lush green tomato plant that has blooms on it, or even better yet ,one with small tomatoes on it. This is not a good transplant and they too may have had a retarder applied to them. But this is what you the consumer wants and will purchase. If they would bring in a properly raised tomato transplant you wouldn't purchase it because it would be a tall plant with a dark purple stem with root nodes up and down it and a little lighter green with no blooms.

In short they grow what will sell and not what you really need. I will tell people to pull off those first blooms and most will give me that look that says I must be packing a fruit cake.

One time I went into a lawn mower shop to buy a new mower. I noticed that he had an abundance of mowers that I knew were not very good because of the drive belt problems they had. I asked the shop owner, who was a long time friend, why he handled them. He said, "Jim, I learned a long time ago that to stay in business you must sell people what they want and not what they really should have." So this type of thing applies to other items also.

Happy Gardening