Is It Better To Buy Seeds Or Starts Online?

If you have a knack for growing things and an interest in keeping your property beautiful, you likely spend a lot of time shopping for seeds or starts to get your flower gardens blooming every year. When it comes to buying flowers online for your landscape, you pretty much have to choices: you can pick up seed packets online and start your own seedlings or you can order starts or transplants that are already started for you. This leaves a big question for most: which choice is the better option? Here's some of what you need to know about buying seeds or starts online. 

The health of starts can be questionable if the shipper is far away.

You can buy flower starts from a lot of different nurseries that are situated across the country, but it is usually best to stick with the most local options. Ordering starts from nurseries that are a long way away can mean the starts go through quite the trauma during shipment. For example, if you live on the east coast and order starts from a nursery in California, the little transplants will go through several climate changes during their trip. Sure, you can opt for overnight shipping, but the same thing still applies, and overnight shipping can also mean a little more rough handling in the process. 

Buying seeds instead of starts is usually the most cost-effective solution. 

Seeds are a relatively cheap investment. You can pick up seed packets online for a little of nothing most of the time. In fact, it is not uncommon for the shipping to be about the same as the seeds. That is unless, of course, you are buying some pretty exotic or rare flower or plant varieties. Flower starts are going to be more costly because someone has already taken the time to get the seed started. 

Growing seeds allows you to acclimate the plants properly. 

When you order starts from another location, these plants have already been acclimated to a certain environment, which is why a lot of ordered starts have a hard time thriving once they have arrived and been set at their new home. On the other hand, when you grow seeds, the seeds start out in an environment where they will grow, which means they will be acclimated to the environment from the beginning and will not have such a hard time adjusting. 

Contact a supplier, like Vermont Wildflower Farm, for more assistance.