Plant plugs???

[Maggiethecat]

I decided to purchase an offer on 36 Suttons Geranium plant plugs which arrived today and was surprised at how small and delicate they are.

I planned to do up a few planters and thought that the plants would be big enough to stick in but apparently not.

Any advice on how you deal with your plant plugs for best effect?

should that be plug plants?

Plug plants are perfect for squeezing several into a tub or a pot whilst they’re small. They’ll soon grow into much larger plants and fill out the space as it’s summer and you just need to feed them regularly.

@Killahangilion - would you plant them straight into final pot or as the instructions seem to suggest in small pots for growth until transferring into final pot.

I think I'm overwhelmed by the sheer number of them

How tiny are they?
When I’ve bought them before I plant several into the final pot/basket along with some lobelia, ivy etc. You can really fill it if the plants are small but you need to be careful not to damage the roots.

I don’t know where you are but assume somewhere in the U.K. I’m in Ireland with a Polytunnel and our temperatures aren’t that great, (average 12°) plus it’s very wet too. I’d put any newly potted plants into the Polytunnel until they’re more established. Could you pot them up and keep them in a sunny room for now to keep them from excessive temperature changes?

For annuals, providing it's warm enough/mild I just plant them out and make sure I water them regularly. I got some creeping phlox plugs earlier in the year and just planted them straight out, before we had all the rain. I thought I'd ordered something bigger and couldn't be bothered to pot them up first. They seem to be doing okay too.

I find they always need to harden off (live in the North Pennines)

I've had some that were tiny(finger tip size) and they took ages to grow to a decent size in separate pots. Others a bit bigger and grew on faster in the polytunnel or on a window sill before planting out

They do vary in size and there's no standard size for what counts as a plug plant. For cheap offers they are usually tiny and need potting into 3" pots where they usually grow quickly. I was surprised at my first ever order of Sarah Raven plugs this year as they were huge, proper plants and way too big for 3" pots.