About three weeks ago John and I went to a local nursery that we’ve used for the past 10+ years for our summer annuals.  We have a bed in front of the house that gets full sun, so we like to fill it with a mass planting of Celosia, a fleshy stemmed plant pretty common in commercial landscaping.  It’s showy, drought tolerant, pest-free, blooms all summer and is inexpensive.

A strange thing happened with this year’s batch however, for some reason after transplanting in a fertilized bed the plants just didn’t take off, this is not normal at all for Celosia.  Also, some of them started to die off, also strange since this bed is watered and weeded regularly.

So anyway last weekend we went back to look for veggies but didn’t really like the new selections, the new owners seem to be stocking pretty average stuff.  So we headed up the road to Lambert’s, a grocery store that just expanded their garden center.  They had beautiful inventory and I found more Celosia that looked really nice so we took them home and planted them in the same bed as the last batch that has not thrived.

Well let me tell you the difference in one week had been astounding.  The plants on the left are the new Celosia, the ones on the right have been there for almost a month.  Just look at the difference!

• The new ones have robust leaves, thick healthy stems and great color
• The old ones have tiny leaves, have not grown or branched out at all, the stems are weak and the color has faded on the blossoms

What the heck is going on here?  Here’s what I think; the old batch was not grown from seed.  I think the unscrupulous grower merely rooted mature flowers heads in rooting hormone and stuck them into potting soil.  Below is one that I pulled up, look at the pathetic roots; after three+ weeks the stem and root system should be much more developed. Compare it to the stem of a newer one.

This morning I went back to Lambert’s and bought 12 more; I’ll pull up the bad ones and replace them.  I noticed too the good Celosia are local and were grown right here in Massachusetts whereas the old ones were from a producer out-of-state.

So – the lesson here – don’t be seduced by a flashy flower, look at the whole plant when buying summer annuals.

What more is there to say about these dramatic and colorful specimens?

The first poppy of the season. I always consider this day the true start of the summer growing season. Note the chickens in the background.