Plantcrastination, Defined

Plantcrastination: Noun (plant-kras-tuh–ney-shuhn) The act of postponing or putting off until some future date the planting of newly purchased or acquired plants.

Verb: Plantcrastinate. She plantcrastinated on planting out her new plants because she was lazy didn’t know where to plant them.

Noun: Plantcrastinator. Someone who plantcrastinates.

Here are some signs that you or someone you know might be a plantcrastinator.

You are a plantcrastinator if you don’t plant out or pot up new plant purchases within a few days of bringing them home to your garden. (Yes, I am granting everyone a few days grace from purchasing to planting before they become a plantcrastinator. After all plants aren’t like ice cream left in a grocery bag on the kitchen counter. They won’t melt if you don’t plant them right away.)

You are a plantcrastinator if you have so many plants in their original containers that you begin to arrange them on your patio as though you’ve already potted them up. Note, if you are delaying planting for whatever lame reason you’ve come up with, grouping plants by their watering and light needs is a pretty good idea to make it simplier to care for them pre-planting. Not that I want to encourage plantcrastination, but if you know you are one, be a good one.

You are a plantcrastinator if you get more thrills out of finding or buying plants than you do in actually seeing them grow and thrive in the ground in your garden where they are supposed to be. So you keep buying more plants and then leave your purchased plants on your patio or front walk or wherever. If this describes you, then you probably also have at least one article of clothing that you bought last season still hanging in your closet with the tags on it.

You are a plantcrastinator if you’ve ever tried to overwinter a purchased plant in its original container because somehow that felt like it might be easier than actually planting the plant in the ground before winter. That’s a fool’s game to play!

You are a plantcrastinator if you pot up plants that should be planted in the ground because you aren’t sure where to plant them. They can continue to grow in their new, bigger container while you continue to plantcrastinate. This is a highly sophisticated form of plantcrastination, and is similar to rearranging dishes on your kitchen counter because you haven’t decided where those dishes should really be stored, or the cabinets are so full, there’s no place to put new dishes.

You are a plantcrastinator of the worst kind if you ever had a plant die on you while still in its original pot, waiting, hoping, crying out to be planted in the garden. For shame. If this is you, seek help, or at least don’t buy another plant until all the plants you’ve already purchased are in the ground.

There are, of course, some rare cases when plantcrastination is acceptable. For example, if you are moving and taking plants with you, you may dig them up, pot them up, and take them with you to your new garden, which may not be ready for new plants. In that case, carefully tending these plants in pots is acceptable. Or if you buy a new plant while on vacation, of course, you can’t plant it in your garden until you get home.

Or maybe you bought a plant on impulse—one that was rare or you thought you’d never find again for sale—and aren’t sure where to put it in the garden. Plantcrastinating for just a bit until you figure out where to put this special plant, which might require moving other plants first, is acceptable, but do be careful. If you plantcrastinate for too long, that rare plant might be a dead rare plant.

If you believer you might be a plantcrastinator, where can you go for help? It’s easier to tell you where you should not go for help, and that is anyplace that sells plants. That means garden centers, greenhouses, seasonal departments, etc. Depending on how bad your plantcrastination is, you may need to just stay home, grab a shovel or trowel, and start planting. Then, once every single plant is out of its original pot and planted out in the garden, you may resume purchasing plants.

But please don’t become a watercrastinator. Don’t postpone watering hoping for rain, or just assume those newly planted plants are fine way out there in the garden. They will need to be watered regularly and you need to do it!

How do I know so much about plantcrastinating? Is it from my own experience? I’ll never tell, but right now, every plant I’ve purchased is in the ground or in the pot I potted it in. (Smug smile and haughty sniff.) That’s all you need to know!

Next week, we’ll talk about weedcrastinators.