Every gardener faces the same fork in the road each spring: raise it yourself from a packet of seed, or buy a young plant ready to go in the ground? There is no single right answer — only the right answer for your time, budget and patience. Here is an honest comparison.
Growing from seed
The advantages
- Cost: A packet of seed costs little and can yield dozens of plants. Pound for pound, nothing is cheaper.
- Choice: Seed catalogues offer hundreds of varieties — especially heirlooms — that you will never find sold as plants.
- Satisfaction: There is a particular pleasure in raising a plant from a speck to a flower or a full crop.
The trade-offs
- Time and space: Seedlings need weeks of warmth, light and daily attention, plus space on a windowsill or in a greenhouse.
- Skill: Germination, pricking out and hardening off all take a little know-how. Losses are normal, particularly at first.
Buying young plants
The advantages
- Speed: You skip the slowest, most vulnerable stage and plant something already growing strongly.
- Reliability: A well-grown plant from a good nursery has already survived its riskiest weeks.
- Simplicity: No propagation kit, no windowsill jungle, no seedlings to nurse.
The trade-offs
- Cost per plant: Naturally higher than seed — you are paying for the grower's time, compost and care.
- Less choice than seed — though a specialist nursery will offer varieties a garden centre never will.
Which should you choose?
For fast, cheap crops — salad leaves, beans, hardy annuals — sow from seed; they are quick and forgiving. For slow, tricky or long-lived plants — perennials, shrubs, anything needing a head start — buying a strong young plant is often the wiser choice. Most gardeners, in truth, do both: sow the easy things, and buy the ones worth getting right first time.
What to look for when buying
Choose plants with healthy foliage, no sign of pests, and roots that fill the pot without circling it. Buy from a grower who raises their own stock rather than trading it in, and who has hardened it off properly — it will settle into your garden far more readily.
Everything we sell is raised here from seed and cutting, hardened off in season and never forced. Browse the current collection.