Stew Leonard's Garden Center Experts Help Ensure Plants Get Good Home to Grow

Stew Leonard's Garden Experts offer tips for getting your garden into shape

Nancy Alban is passionate about plants. She works in the nursery at Stew Leonard's Garden Center, on 100 Westport Avenue (adjacent to the main store). I caught up with her as she was busily watering her "babies" - as she affectionately calls the long rows of plants, flowers, trees and shrubs - all while answering customer's questions, guiding them to the patio furniture, grass seed and mulches, international pottery section and rose trellis display, pointing out that it is too early to buy container roses. "Maybe by Mother's Day weekend. Right now we have dormant roses," Nancy tells the customer, who is very appreciative.

In fact, Nancy, along with the rest of Stew Leonard's Garden Center experts, is on a first name basis with many of the customers, answering their gardening questions - all with a smile.

I ask Nancy, "what makes Stew Leonard's Garden Center different from the rest?" She doesn't hesitate with her answer. "It's because we offer the same quality and selection as a high-end nursery, without the high prices. We do everything except go to your home and plant it - but we'll tell you how!" Nancy, who does a lot of the buying for the nursery, says she also tries to bring in new and different plants, including unique ones that are native to Connecticut.

Nancy remembers that on her first day, Garden Center manager Bill Allen said to her "a customer can take a $10.00 plant and put it in a $5.00 hole and you have a $5.00 plant. Or, you can take a $5.00 plant and put it in a $10.00 hole, and you'll have a $10.00 plant for life."

To give your plant a good home once it leaves Stew Leonard's Garden Center, here are Bill and Nancy's "Tips for Planting a Shrub"

What Do I Need?

  • 1 Bag - 3.8 cubic feet peat moss per 12 to 14 two gallon shrubs
  • 1 Bag - Dehydrated manure per three two gallon shrubs
  • Top Soil as needed

How to Plant?

  1. Dig hole twice as wide and equally deep as the pot or root ball
  2. For potted plants, remove plant from pot and gently break outer root network. For balled and burlapped plants, remove twine and slash several holes around the burlap.
  3. Fill hole with water and let drain
  4. Place plant in the hole and refill hole around shrub with a mixture of 1/3 dehydrated manure, 1/3 peat moss and 1/3 top soil. Never mound soil higher than it was in the original container
  5. Water thoroughly for next 10 days. Thereafter, water two to three times weekly throughout the growing season.