[lordthanatos]

hiya

when you buy say raspberrys and other fruiting bush's do you usually get just a stick in some compost - thats all i can discribe it as?   its just that im looking to get some blueberries, raspberries and gooseberrys and saw them at garden centre very cheap. when I had a look at them they were just sticks in bags of soil. is this what you usually get even from online retailed?

would it be any different from what i would get for paying 3 times as much from say marshalls or sutton seeds?


also i saw some victoria rhubarb in wilkos for £2 and it was a small bunch of sprouts in bag of compost - im  just wondering it this is what I would get if I ordered it from my usual seed companies online

im trying to decide if its worth going with marshalls ( my usual companie ) and spend around £60 on fruit or spend quarter of this and go elsewhere

I hope this makes senser

thanks all

[Rhiannon]

Normaly buying from people like Suttons and T&M at the right time of the year you get bare root plants, thsi is when there is no leaf on the plant and its dormant so no harm comes to it if planted or potted right away.

If buying from garden centres  most of the year round thier in pots .

i was greatly dissapointed by the quality of bare root plants from Parkers via internet but delighted with T&M , i have not bought online from Suttons , except equipment .

This time of your a good garden centre wil have bare root fruit bushes for sale , which possibly might be better value than buying online?

[Lardman]

It depends what it is that you're buying.

Most fruit, especially the cane fruit will come bare rooted as they're dormant, as long as the root system is healthy theres no real need to worry.

Just because you pay more it doesn't follow you always get a better plant, In the past I've used Bakers and Thompson and Morgan but the best plants and by far the best service I've had was from http://www.jparkers.co.uk/

[rhysdad]

Those 'sticks' (if healthy) will grow very quickly to full sized bushes etc. The raspberry canes, for instance, will usually be in clumps of 10 or so and you have to separate them out. You plant them very shallow with the roots trailed out along the row and the new shoots all emerge from there. The rhubarb crowns will look like shoots in soil but plant them up and, with the correct care, expand rapidly into fully fledged productive plants.

You don't need to spend a fortune to get good quality productive plants!

[JayG]

When I bought raspberry canes at a garden centre they were basically a clump of 6 canes dumped in compost in a pot, so basically potted-up bare-rooted plants (but no worse for being that.)

I'm not so sure about blueberries; I suspect they may have been potted for longer than the raspberries although not necessarily pot grown from scratch. The thing about blueberries though is that they are slow growing, so very small ones have got a long way to go before you get a decent sized plant and therefore crops.

This tends to be reflected in the price; the choice is yours! 

[Rhiannon]

It depends what it is that you're buying.

Most fruit, especially the cane fruit will come bare rooted as they're dormant, as long as the root system is healthy theres no real need to worry.

Just because you pay more it doesn't follow you always get a better plant, In the past I've used Bakers and Thompson and Morgan but the best plants and by far the best service I've had was from http://www.jparkers.co.uk/

Well that goes to show Parkers were dismal  for me , the plants were poor and most did not thrive especialy the rasseberrys. We have a Parkers 2 miles down the road and thier stuff is never labled correctly eg you buy a  bag of red begonias and thier never red , lol  the lady i phoned over the condition of the plants was based at thier main? place on the other side of the country and she wasnt exactly the most helpful or friendly lady ive spoken to. 

[iggyboy60]

Two years ago I sent off to Suttons for two Gooseberry bushes. One was ok,but the other turned out to be nothing more than a twig! True,Gooseberry 'bushes' are not that expensive,but you expect a little bit more than a twig when ordering from a reputable company. So,who's to say,my guess is the 'cheap' deal will be as good as any. The reason I say this is because I persevered with said twig and two years down the line it is a fine Gooseberry bush 

[Rhiannon]

Must add tho i have never had naff stuff from T&M some years back thier young plugs arrived with the leaves all rubbed off due to a rough ride , i spoke to them about it they refunded me the whole price and  they seem to have changed the packages.

Last year i got some young tomatoes off them , they were tiny compared to the ones i had already got in the greenhouse but they grew away and out did the originals  .

This year ive ordered my young plants from Suttons so im crossing my fingers .

[Dominic]

As long as there something resembling a root in the bag of soil, they will probably do fine.

I paid about £10 each for potted plants, and £1 each for twigs.
The potted ones were bigger and produced pretty much straight away, but the twigs are far better long term.

[stompy]

The twigs that you are refering to are bare root cuttings.
The twig is bare but inside the bag the twig will have roots on and when planted it will rocket away and produce a decent bush in the first year that will bear fruit the next.
I have in the past baught all my fruit bushes from the supermarkets that stock these at this time of the year and had great results, and at £1 to £2 a bush, thats good value.
I then take cuttings as i need to and build my stock for free after that