We Recycle Pots

We recycle our nursery plastic. If you have a potting shed full of pots looking for a good re-use, consider bringing some when you visit Beaux Arbres.

We do not use or want: Compostable pots (speckled brown), cell packs or flimsy pots, pots in vivid colours, or rigid round green pots. We use a few round green and vividly coloured pots in seeding but we have enough, thanks. What we really like are:

• 2 1/2 ” tall square in black
• 4 1/2″ tall square in black
• 1 gal and 2 gal nursery cans (mostly they just come in black or sometimes grey)

Why can we recycle pots while most growers do not? Growers of annuals start their plants in heated greenhouses in February or March, which are difficult conditions, and they are quite rightly very afraid of introducing diseases of any sort via inadequately cleaned pots. I like being able to go to the garden centre and select a few colourful annuals already in bloom for my hanging baskets, and possibly you do too. So let’s not be too critical of the growers who enable us to do this. (And let’s shop at local producers.)

At Beaux Arbres, we are growing wild plants, mostly perennial, and we start nothing ahead of its season. The plants we bring to the spring sales were started May or June of the previous year. As seedlings, they would be starting in ordinary soils in nature, and if they don’t have defences, they aren’t going to make it with us. We also grow a large variety of plant in small quantities — diversity gives resilience. We are not growing named cultivars but species, with genetic diversity. We do not attempt to grow orchids or others very fussy plants.

We do clean, very carefully, our pots for re-use. Its is labour intensive and not economically justifiable. We re-use out of our environmental commitment.