When it comes to getting started with your garden, you have 2 choices ; planting seeds, or buying complete plants.  Both have their own benefits.  If you plant seeds and care for them each day, you may find it is a much more rewarding experience when you have a full, healthy plant.  However, this method is a lot more risky.  I will not tell you how many seeds I’ve planted and never seen any trace of whatsoever . 

If you opt to buy the plant from a nursery and install it in your garden, it reduces plenty of the work concerned in making it healthy.  However, i have found during the past that many amateurish nursery employees will positively ruin the future of the plant by putting certain chemicals or manure in.  I have evolved to this incompetence by learning to pick the healthiest plant of the bunch.  Here I will discuss some of the systems I use in my screening process for plants. 

It may sound superficial, but the only thing you must check for on your possible plants is how nice they look.  So far as plants go, you can truly judge a book by its cover.  If a plant has been treated healthily and has no sicknesses or pests, you can almost always tell by how nice it is.  If a plant has grown up in improper soil, or has dangerous bugs living in it, you can see from the holey leaves and wilted stems. 

If you are browsing the nursery shelves looking for your dream plant, you want to exclude anything that currently has flowers.  Plants are less injured by the transplant if they do not currently have any flowers.  It’s best to find ones that just consist of buds.  However if all you have to select from are flowering plants, then you must do the unthinkable and sever every one of them.  It will be worth it for the future health of the plant.  I’ve discovered that transplanting a plant even though it is blooming ends in having a dead plant ninety % of the time. 

Always check the roots before you plop down the money to purchase the plant.  Of course if the roots are in absolutely terrible condition you’ll be ready to tell by having a look at the rest of the plant.  But if the roots are just a touch flabby, then you probably won’t be ready to tell just by taking a look at it.  Inspect the roots extraordinarily closely for any signs of brownness, rottenness, or softness.  The roots should always be a firm, very well formed infrastructure that holds all of the soil together.  One can easily tell if the roots are before or past their prime, depending on the root to soil proportion.  If there are a ridiculous amount of roots with little soil, or some soil with few roots, you mustn’t buy that plant. 

If you find any abnormalities with the plant, whether it be the shape of the roots or any irregular features with the leaves, you should ask the nursery employees.  While usually these things can be the sign of an unhealthy plant, often there’ll be a logical reason for it.  Always give the nursery a chance before writing them off as horrendous.  After all , they are ( customarily ) professionals who have been dealing with plants for years . 

So if you choose to take the straightforward route and get a plant from a nursery, you have to remember that the health of the plants has been left up to somebody you do not know.  Usually they do a good job, but you should generally check for yourself.  Also take every precaution you can to avoid transplant shock in the plant ( when it has trouble adjusting to its new location, and so has health Problems in the future ).  Usually the process goes smoothly, but you can never be too sure.