Manual of California Native Plants

Plant Size and Containers

The plants need to have enough room in the pots to have 10 or more lateral roots. The pots have to be big enough to keep the root system alive without killing the microorganisms around the roots.

Plants in containers smaller than a quart are not very viable. We have experimented over the years and found the smallest container we can ship you a viable product in is a gallon. We used 180-200 cc. Containers(8 oz.) proved to be stable for us, and I used these sizes in installations for years, but customers and employees that did not have a perfectly green thumb killed large numbers. Sometimes this green thumb did not make much sense! I could plant a row of the small pots with one of our employees following and planting the second row only to have 75 out of 80 of his die and 1 out of 80 of mine die. Going to gallons made those numbers a lot better. Bareroot is not usually possible on most of our plants, as they are way too root sensitive. If your site does not have the right fungal and bacterial support, our plants have that support. (We target each plant community. This fungal support is one of the reasons digging up plants from the wild does not work well.) Our climate is unforgiving, and 'problematic' these are real numbers for each container.

Peat pots, (50% kill) and a lot of slime.

Solid styrene(which is nothing but non-aerated styrofoam)(80% kill),

Plastic tubes(75% kill), what didn't die looked awful

Tree cells, no roots in container middle, non-mycorrhizal and very poor looking plants,(50%)

Deep pots, same a tree cells.

Paper (100% kill), nothing but a big slimy mess.

Styro packs, rot not root

By kill, we mean from propagation through establishment in the ground with no pesticides. Davis and Young had similar results. The problem is always the same, the pots just do not have enough aeration. We are now back to gallons, please recycle them. We use mostly recycled pots in the nursery, saved from the local dumps. Pots bigger than gallons are not as good either, because the roots do not establish very well. Five gallon or bigger plants cannot be used on sites without regular water (revegetation sites). Their success rate is very poor unless watered. They attach very poorly to the mycorrhizal grid.

Actual costs become apparent only if you are tracking costs on a native planting in the interior. Coastal customers, designers or one time installers may never have a clue. Guarantee a planting for a year in the interior, you will notice the difference. This table is for comparison only. EVERY site is different, and costs will vary. Contractors will not make money at these numbers, so if the project doesn't include numbers above these, it will probably not work.

I like to include more than 4000 plants per acre.....

For those of you buying mailorder the prices should be proportionally similar, all be it with inflation, much higher.
So why did you $10 for a 2 inch pot?

Pot size	Price/	Aprox. Year survival	Plants/day/person	Labor cost/plant (actually higher if caged, or mulched)	Watering requirements	Water costs	Replacement costs/ 1000	Weed costs from watering/1000	Total per 1000 in $
2 inch/supercell(1/3 of a soda can)	1.5	0.1	360	.56/	Daily two months	60x100	4950	1200	12995
4 inch	2.5	0.25	160	1.25	Every other day two months	30X100	4875	600	12225
d-pot	3.75	0.8	120	1.67	Every other day two months	30X100	1550	600	10600
gallon	4	0.9	120	1.67	Once/week two months	8X100	800	80	7350
5 gallon	12	0.8	30	6.67	Once/week six months	24X100	4000	120	25190

 
mulch, irrigation systems, cages, etc. can double or triple costs. 
labor $10/hour averaged paid employee, plus taxes and workman's comp=$15/hour+overhead costs=$20/hour+travel and setup= $25/hour=$200/day (used to be $125!)
water costs= 1/2day to check system each time it waters, figuring water is not billed
replacement costs=50 per day or $4 each+container, $8 for fives
weed costs from watering per 1000, more water=more weeds 1 day weeding per 10 waterings
total per 1000= labor cost= per plant*1000+water costs+replacement costs+weeding costs+plant cost*1000

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