Start a waiting room for plants...the garden holding bed

The garden holding bed doesn't need to be
attractive--just convenient, well-composted and weed-
free.

I was in line at the local nursery the other day eavesdropping on the customer in front of me. She plunked a dead, dead, dead Japanese holly onto the counter.

“This nursery gives a one-year guarantee on plants. Well, I’ve had this one for eleven months and it did not live,” she explained. “I want my money back.”

Well, based on the state of the poor holly, it was clear what had happened. The woman had taken it home, never even taken it out of the original nursery pot and probably forgot to water it for long stretches at a time as well. She even had the audacity to bring it in with last fall’s leaves still stuck in its branches.

Clearly, this was a blatant case of neglect. But a quick poll of my gardening friends revealed that most of us are guilty of buying plants on impulse and not having a place to put them. We bring them home with the best of intentions…and they sit around. And sit around some more.

Because enthusiasm sometimes gets the best of gardeners, it’s a good idea to keep a spot in the garden to use as a holding bed. Whether you call it a nursery bed, an audition bed or a way-station, it serves the purpose of getting plants out of pots that dry out quickly and into the ground where they are better off. The temporary bed can also be where you heel in plants from divisions or plants that you’re moving until you can find a more permanent home.

The requirements for the holding are pretty basic. Forget about design. But make sure that the bed is well-prepared with plenty of compost and that it stays weeded and ready for the day it has to be put into use.  Locate it in an out-of-the-way corner so it doesn’t offend you to look at it. But make sure it’s not so far away that you forget to water the holding plants, when needed.

To her credit, the clerk at the nursery refunded the woman’s money without assigning blame for the holly murder. And since I have killed more than one plant in my day the same way—albeit without advertising the fact by taking it back to the nursery for a refund—I held my tongue as well. But now that I have a holding bed, my plant killing is down to a minimum.