On the nursery plants have the perfect conditions to grow. We give them plenty of light and enough space to allow them to grow and develop.
To get them to the store most nurseries will pack the plants into plastic carry trays and then load them onto trollies for delivery.
Plants loaded on trollies. Now the plants are deprived of sunlight and the clock is ticking.
While on the trolley the plants are in the dark and have to start using up food reserves until they can get back into the sunlight.
How long should plants be kept in the dark ? this can vary between types of plant but the quicker the plant is delivered and unpacked the better the plant will be.
Small plants have limited food reserves and quickly suffer in the dark, so plants in small pots, pack bedding and plug plants are the first to suffer
Squashed
Why are the plants squashed together and packed tightly on trollies surely you could give them more room.
To get plants from the nursery to the store, we use a standard size (Danish) trolley, in fact, nearly all the plants grown across Europe will be delivered on these. Transport companies pick up and deliver the trollies. It will cost between £70 to £120 to deliver a trolley of plants, so transporting plants cost money.
The more plants you can fit on the trolley the lower the transport cost per plant, this also lowers the selling price. If you fit 160 plants on a £70 trolley the cost would be 43p per plant but if you can get 240 on, the cost drops to 29p. Getting the right amount of plants on a trolley is vital to the grower.
Garden centres that grow their own plants have an advantage.
If you buy plants from a grower-retailer, they won’t have spent days in the dark and the saving on transport costs can be passed on to the customer.
More than a week!
Unfortunately, when you look at a display of plants you will have no idea how long they have been in the dark. The Geraniums on the right in the picture plants have been in the dark, the stretched and damaged leaves will turn yellow, the tray on the left looks fresher
A wide variety of popular plants are submitted to Industry Plant shelf life trials to test how well they travel and perform afterwards. In the trials, it is generally assumed that plants can spend up to 9 days in transit.
This means your plant may have been in the dark for more than a week before you buy it. While this might be true for imported plants you should find local and British nurseries will deliver much quicker. Plants from grower retail nurseries have spent virtually no time in the dark.
Where you buy your plants can reduce the time plants are kept in the dark.
Signs that the plants have been in the dark for too long..
Petunias kept in the dark will have long straggly stems and pale leaves
Look for good petunias with nice green glossy leaves and compact stems
Ivy leaf geraniums kept in the dark with pale yellow leaves, if they had been very dry the leaves would be reddish-orange
Fuchsias kept in the dark will have long straggly stems and pale leaves, especially when left in the transport box
Plants do need to be taken off the trollies or given more room but you will often find them growing out sideways
Outdoor plants sold inside the store will grow long straggly shoots using up the vital food reserves
