Garden Club Plugs Arrived - Now What? - April 2026

Last month, I shared that I made my first (ever) order from Farmer Bailey (Garden Club Plants) for a few sets of plant plugs.   I ordered six sets of eight (8) plugs each - 48 total.  One set of six (6) of each of: Lisianthus Celeb 2 Metallic Blue, Phlox Cherry Caramel, Plectranthus Silver Shield, Gomphrena Audray White, Eucalyptus Silver Dollar and Didiscus Lacy Blue.

When you order from Garden Club, you get to select your delivery date.  With this being my first time doing this, I likely made a mistake:  I ordered for delivery too soon.

I don't recall (now) if some of the later (late April, early May) dates were already sold out or if I just selected mid-April because I thought that was appropriate, but either way...my plugs arrived in mid-April.  They came in these cute little green plastic 'greenhouses':

All 48 plugs look good and had leaf'd out.  The only one of the set that I had grown before was eucalyptus, so I knew what *that* foliage looked like, but the other ones are new (to me).  

But, what do I do with them now?  Leave them in the greenhouses?  Water them?  It is too cold to put them out right now, so what are my options?

Here is a screenshot of the FAQ from Garden Club that says that you can't leave the plugs in their trays for very long:

That is something that I (now) know and would alter when I ordered these plugs going forward.  But, the fact remains:  I have 48 plugs on hand.  

So, I opted for the 'potted up' option.  I ran to the hardware store and found some sleeves of 2.5" paper pots for seedlings and some black plastic seedling trays.  I wiggled each plug out of the tray and added it to a fist-full of potting mix in these small(ish) 2.5" paper pots.  I potted up all 48 and 32 of them fit neatly into one of the black seedling trays:

As I mentioned, these are all new to me, so I grabbed my label maker and marked the tray with each variety:

What about watering them?  After a day of being potted-up, I opted to 'bottom water' the trays by flooding them with a small amount of water.  I let the pots sit in the water for about 20 minutes, then drained the remaining water.  Is that enough?  Too much?  I have no idea.

I watched a few videos about watering seedlings and one of the pieces of advice that I picked up was watching for the color of the top of the soil.  Darker = no need for watering.  Lighter = might be time to water.  The second piece of advice?  Pick up the pots and get to know the weight.  Do they feel super light?  Might be time to water.  Heavier?  Leave them alone.

#8 on my 2026 to-do list was to experiment with even more cut flowers.  And #9 was to add more 'accent plants' via the vertical garden, too.  

If I can get these plugs to survive until they get outside in May, then thrive in their planting spot, I'll have checked both of those off the list as 'complete'.  

Note to self:  If I go the 'order plugs route' next year...set delivery date to later in the season.