Custom growing

Custom growing offers many advantages in today's market. When you secure plant material in advance, you save considerable time and grief when it is time to plant. By planning and entering into a custom growing arrangement with your grower, you will ensure that you get the plants you need, when you need them and without the hassle and stress of shopping around at the last minute. You will also be able to secure a steady price and stay within on budget.
 

Meet with the grower.
When you meet with your grower, you will need to provide your plant variety list, quantities, container size requirements, your project schedule and the time frame for plant delivery. Planting in stages is very common on large projects and timed stages can be factored into your grower's production schedules. Plan on regular visits to inspect your custom plant material and ask your grower for production reports to eliminate on-site rejections that create last minute project delays.

Provide exact information on the number of each species and size of each plant that is required. Size for woody plant material should be specified by container size, a range of acceptable plant heights, and a range of stem diameters when appropriate. Take care to ensure the range of heights and diameters are appropriate for the natural growth habit of the particular species requested. Make sure there is enough flexibility in the ranges to ensure genetic diversity.
 

Have a Plan.
In all cases, you will need to contact your grower as far in advance of installation as possible. They will first need to determine if they have the available growing space and technical capability to build your special crop(s) into their propagation plans.

Each plant species has different growth requirements and there are many variations in how to produce different plant materials.

Depending on the specific plant variety and container size, the grower may need from six to 14 weeks growing time for annuals. He will need at least one full growing season for shrubs, and longer for trees.

Varieties that are grown from seed will have a longer production time because they have to germinate before being transplanted into larger containers. Plant material that is propagated vegetatively will require less time. It is customary for growers to start 105-110 percent of your requirements, but remember that due to the potential for crop failures and acts beyond a grower's control, they cannot guarantee the success of contracted plants.

It is not uncommon for a grower to require a nonrefundable deposit – 15 to 50 percent – toward the custom grown crops as assurance that you will actually pickup, use and pay for the plant material.

And some contracts have stipulations that the plant material does not ship after a certain period of time regardless of maintenance charges. In these cases, the customer is responsible for payment of the entire contract whether or not the material has shipped and whether or not it will ship in the future.

The author is a landscape account manager for Four Star Greenhouse/Proven Winners in Carleton, Mich.