Spring tradition: Greenhouses prepared to bring color and variety to gardens and planters

Annual flower and vegetable plants always are ready and waiting for gardeners in neighborhood nurseries and stores in the spring. That doesn't happen by accident. It is more like a science.

I recently took trips to Buchwalter Greenhouses located between Wooster and Orrville, and the Cloverland Greenhouse near Charm in Holmes County.

Buchwalter’s has been in business since 1926 and Cloverland started in a basement before opening a first greenhouse in 2018.

Preparing pants for sale in the spring starts months before May. That large fern that sits on a porch actually was started the previous November.

January is a busy month as thousands of geraniums are started one at a time from individual cuttings.

Annuals and vegetable plants are started in February and March.

Many annual flower and vegetable plants are started in flats that contain 12-36 plants in individual cells. The flats are housed in a warm greenhouse and watered daily to give them a quick start.

After plants are large enough to have to sets of leaves they are hand transplanted into larger pots for sale later. The pots are biodegradable and decompose when planted pot and all in soil.

Buchwalter’s is open year round. It has two acres of covered and uncovered growing space.

Cloverland is open one month a year and sells all its can grow in a large greenhouse.

The calendar says it is spring so it is time to purchase pants for summer color and fresh vegetables.

Happy planting!

This article originally appeared on The Daily Record: Spring tradition: Greenhouses prepared to bring color and variety to gardens and planters