Why Plants Fail: Buy for the Position, Not the Picture

People choose plants the way they choose paint: by looking at the picture. The trouble is that the label photograph was taken where the plant was happy, and your bed may be nothing like it. Almost every planting failure we get called out to was a healthy plant put in a position it could never have coped with.

Start with light, honestly measured. 'Full sun' means six hours or more of direct sun, and most front beds against a north-facing wall get nowhere near it. Count the hours across a real day rather than guessing — a bed that feels bright because the sky is open can still be in shade all afternoon.

Then water, which people judge by rainfall when they should judge by drainage. The low corner where water stands after a storm and the strip beside a driveway that bakes and drains in an hour are two completely different beds, and very few plants are content in both. If a spot stays wet, plant something that wants wet feet rather than fighting it every season.

The last thing is size at maturity, which is the one everybody ignores because the plant in the pot is small. A shrub that will be six feet across in five years is a mistake three feet from a path, and pruning it back hard every year to keep it off the pavement is a fight you will lose slowly. Give it the room it will need and let it fill in.

Want planting that will still look right in three years? Call Floy'd Landscaping at (732) 532-9884 for a free estimate — we plant for the position and prepare the bed as part of the job.