There are many people who prefer to buy a potted flower or fruit for their gardens nowadays from the market but for me they are usually very expensive. I prefer to plant my own using the fruit's seeds or by cutting the branch of other flowers. Have you ever bought a potted flower and fruit or would you plant your own since it costs much cheaper that way?
We just put some potted flowers in the ground yesterday. We do veggies and herbs from seeds, but flowers we just buy potted because we like to enjoy the prettiness of them right away. We didn't spend too much money - got 8 different flowers for about $30. There were a lot of sales.
I buy potted flowers for my yard but for my garden, I planted seeds. I want to enjoy my flowers now while I wait for my fresh fruit and veggies to start growing. My flowers were just .88 each and I got 10 different ones. My veggie seeds were just .10'each and well, I got quite a few different ones. I sometimes do a porch garden and when I do those, I buy potted veggies. They tend to grow better then my seeds for the ground.
I get the potted plants from the community plant sale when we have them. I like the large tropicals for the deck during the summer usually you can get 3 good size plants for about $30. The larger plants for the yard I will get from Lowe's when they have a sale. Vegetables I will plant the seeds to get the garden going.
Where I live, people don't buy plants or flowers. You ask you neighbor for the seedlings or cuttings because they'll do the same if they see something they like in your garden. I've never paid for flowers and don't think I will while I still have such great neighbors living by my side. As for anything else that can be grown from seeds, there's no option there. I would buy the seeds rather than ask my neighbor for seedlings from his garden. We have boundaries we don't cross.
I always plant my own. I get to see how the plant grows, a thing I like, and it's cheaper! On a related note, a few years back I bought some apple saplings and it took a long while until I realized they were not the kind I wanted. The seller simply advertised them as the ones I wanted since I had no way to tell otherwise on the spot. By plating seeds I could've avoided this. The only downside for using seeds is that it takes longer until the plant matures.
I do all of them, grow from seeds, buy plants both in pots and also pot my own. It all depends upon availability, price and how things are potted. Sometimes it's cheaper to actually buy potted if it's say herbs potted together in a nice mix that I'm going to use only certain amounts of and nothing more. Also, sometimes seed are going to be the only way to find certain varieties of things you can't find plants in stores. Same with plants potted already or not potted. Sometimes it's more practical for me to pot my own if it's something I use a lot of such as basil. Also it depends upon if I have a certain pot. Last year I actually bought a huge tomato plant planted in a hanging basket that had TONS of green tomatoes on already. What a bargain that was! That was at Ace hardware. so it all depends. There is no one answer.
I actually do both! I have 6 acres of land with lots of pots and flowers to plan. I plant seeds and plant flowers that are already grown in pots as a head start. I love to have a ton of flowers during summer months. I usually plant perennials in the ground so they come up every year and I don't have to worry about planting new flowers every year.
