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How to choose the right plantsIMG_1286

Plants can have many functions. Typically plants are chosen to make the surroundings beautiful. A house needs trees, shrubs and flowers to give the completeness. A garden is a place to relax and enjoy the wonders of the nature. Plants and water ponds attracts birds. Plants can be used to protect you from cold winds and give you privacy from curious neighbors. If you want a year around cover you need to use pine trees and ever greens. If you are especially fond of flowers you can choose plants so that you have something blooming from early spring to late autumn then finally ending with the colorful autumn leaves.

There are a few practical things that you plant would like you to think about before you choose it!

Plant Hardiness Zones

On the right you have Finland’s plant hardiness zone mapväxtzonär. The hardiness zones are described with roman numbers and starts from 1 in the southern Helsinki and Åland up to 8 in the northern Lapland. In our catalogue you can find the recommended max hardiness zone for each plant. Within Finland you can almost always use plants that are suitable for colder zone in the north also in a warmer zone in the south. As an example a plant with zone 7 which thrives in Lapland, would also work well in Helsinki which has a zone of 1B.

Plant Location

Plants in general like sunny locations, but there are actually a few plants that prefer a shady place. In our catalogue you can find the level of sun the plants like. All plants like locations protected from wind and with a hedgerow you can improve the microclimate and make the remaining plants thrive even better in your garden.

Plant Sizes

Shrubs, as an example, are ready for sale at an age of 3-4 years, except hedgerow plants that are ready for sale already after 2-3 years. Plants continue to grow for as long as they live and it is hard to say exactly how big a plant will get but you get some average sizes for each plant in our catalogue. More water, sunlight and nutrition makes plant grow faster and become bigger and with less competing plants nearby a plant will get more of that. As an example it can be hard to get grass or other plants with shallow roots to thrive next to a birch tree because it absorbs most of the water and nutrition’s from the surface.