Starting Small: Why Quart-Size Perennials Might Be the Smartest Plants You’ll Ever Buy
In gardening, we love immediate impact. We want beds to look finished by the weekend, borders to feel “designed” by dinner, and new plants to arrive already living their best lives. But some of the most satisfying landscapes aren’t built in a rush; they’re built the way real life is built: one good decision at a time.
That’s where the beauty of starting small comes in, and it’s exactly why quart-size perennials deserve a spotlight. A quart pot might look modest on delivery day, but it’s often the most practical, cost-effective, and surprisingly powerful way to plant a landscape that fills in beautifully, and keeps getting better with every season.
The Benefits of Starting Small in The Garden
Smaller Plants Adapt Quickly
Quart perennials are the “young athletes” of the garden world. They’re established enough to transplant confidently, but youthful enough to adapt quickly to your soil and conditions. Their root systems haven’t spent years circling in a container, so they tend to transition smoothly into the ground.
Faster Growth Feels Rewarding
Once planted, they often take off with energy, settling in, spreading, and building a presence that makes you forget they ever started small. If you’ve ever watched a perennial go from a little tuft to a full mound in a single season, you know what I mean: plants love being in the ground. Quart pots simply get you to that moment faster, with less stress and less cost.
Ease of Design & Movement
Starting small also makes great design easier. Big plants can feel like a commitment, expensive, heavy, and harder to move if you change your mind. Quart-size perennials let you experiment. You can try a new color combination, test a sun-to-shade edge, or build a pollinator patch in layers without feeling like you’re gambling on every plant.
If you want to plant a drift of the same perennial for that “professional landscape” look, quart pots are often the size that makes it realistic. Instead of buying three large perennials and hoping they fill in, you can plant seven or nine quarts and create the kind of massing that looks intentional from day one, and lush by midsummer.
Financially Feasible
There’s also a quiet financial truth here: quart pots are a smart way to maximize garden coverage. Perennials are meant to expand. Many clump up, many spread, and most look better when planted in groups.
With quart pots, you can plant more plants per square foot within your budget, creating a stronger design impact and better weed suppression as everything grows together. It’s one of the simplest ways to build a bed that knits in quickly, with less bare mulch, fewer opportunities for weeds to move in, and a fuller look sooner than you might expect.
Growth is in More Than Just The Plants
And then there’s the emotional benefit, my favorite part. Starting small teaches you to notice the garden. When you plant a quart perennial, you don’t just install it; you get to watch it become. You see the first new growth after planting, the first buds forming, the first bloom, the first time it doubles in size.
You learn how it behaves in your light, in your soil, with your watering rhythm. Gardening becomes less about purchasing a finished look and more about partnering with time. That’s where the joy lives. Landscapes that feel meaningful are rarely built in a single delivery; they’re built through seasons, through small wins, and through plants that grow alongside your life.
Meet Our New Perennial Quarts!
We recently added quart sizes to a variety of your favorite perennials! Below are some exciting additions:
Ajuga Black Scallop
Delosperma Cooperii
Echinacea Pow Wow Wildberry
Lavender Provence
Lavender Sensational
Drummond's Pink Creeping Phlox
Purple Beauty Creeping Phlox
Ostrich
Fern
Asclepias Incarnata
Take The Stress Out Of Gardening
Quart perennials are meant to be easier on the gardener. They’re lighter to handle, faster to plant, and simpler to water in the first couple of weeks. And there’s a hidden advantage: because quart plants are smaller, they often experience less transplant shock than larger container sizes.
This doesn’t mean smaller plants require no care; every plant needs consistent water while establishing. But it does mean they can quickly adapt to your garden’s rhythm. In many cases, a quart perennial will “catch” and start growing with confidence, while a bigger plant is still recovering from the move and trying to rebalance roots and top growth.
Growing Intentionally
Starting small is especially powerful if you’re building a garden with intention—whether it’s a pollinator border, a cottage-style cutting garden, a low-maintenance front foundation, or a backyard that feels like a sanctuary.
Quart perennials are ideal for creating those layered, seasonal compositions where something is always happening. Plant a mix of early bloomers, summer color, and fall finishers. Add a few grasses for movement. Tuck in groundcovers to stitch the edges.
Quart-size plants let you compose the garden like music: multiple notes, repeated themes, and enough plants to make the whole thing feel lush and cohesive. It’s not about waiting longer for beauty; it’s about building beauty the way gardens are meant to grow.
How To Best Incorporate Quart-Size Plants Into The Landscape
If you’re shopping our quart-size perennials, here’s the best way to think about them:
1. Choose plants that match your site, then plant them like you mean it.
2. Give them good soil contact, water them consistently for the first few weeks, and mulch lightly around them to stabilize moisture and temperature.
3. Place them in groups (odd numbers look natural), and give them enough spacing to expand. Most perennials would rather grow into their space than fight for it.
4. Then, as the season unfolds, you’ll see the payoff: more plants, more texture, more flowers, and a bed that looks like it was designed, not just planted.
Woodie’s Take
Starting small isn’t settling. It’s choosing the smartest version of “forever.” Quart-size perennials let you plant more of what you love, build the kind of drift and rhythm that makes a landscape feel intentional, and watch your garden grow into itself season after season.
If you want a garden that feels lush, layered, and alive, and you want to get there without overspending, start with quart pots. Plant them well, give them a good first month, and let the garden do what it’s always been built to do: grow beyond expectations.