A lot has been going on behind the scenes in the fall of 2005 and during the warm January of 2006.
Another ½ acre of paved parking has been laid down in order to make it easier for customers to get their product to their vehicle. How many times small potted plants and flowers would “jump” off carts that would roll over the bumpy gravel! In the new parking lot, a large planting has been installed that includes about 100 shrub roses, bulbs and later annuals that will enable customers to more easily visualize the value of these plants in their own landscape.
The grounds were spruced up last fall in that the gazebo area, entrance mounds and some other areas of plants were looking old and tired! Beds were expanded, re-edged, weeded and planted with many new varieties of plant material.
A new perennial garden was even started out in the front yard that will be at its peak in June and July and includes cultivars of Hibiscus, Coneflower, Shasta Daisies, Gaillardia and more and again will help visitors to the nursery visualize what they might accomplish in their own yards.
Of course, no fall project at the nursery would be complete without our annual Holland bulb planting ritual. Instead of adding to our already 20,000 strong brigade of daffodils, we decided to concentrate more on the fragrance of about 1000 pink, blue and white hyacinths to round out the landscape beds. In addition, 3000 oxford red tulip bulbs were planted along the 200 foot length of the white post and rail fence along Cleveland-Massillon Rd. And for June color, varieties of Allium will greet customers in the new parking lot island along with a rainbow of color from the shrub roses that will bloom in June and all summer!.
Water is the biggest need at the nursery in that if we’re out of water, we’re out of business. Even though we collect rain water all season and recycle our irrigation water, the hot dry summer necessitated that we use water from Van Hyning run which is an unlimited supply of water but with its problems – the creek water is high in salts, calcium bicarbonate, magnesium bicarbonate and chlorides resulting from the runoff and other pollution sources in its short three to four mile run before it passes through the nursery.
In order to mitigate the shortage of good water, we’ve instituted an expansion of our water collection pond and installed a longer intake pipe for our recycled water pump in order to store more water in our one acre irrigation lake. Another issue of water quality has been algae deposits on sidewalks, signs and structures in the late summer. The algae problem should be solved with the installation of a chlorine gas injection system that injects a metered amount of chlorine at a very low level in order to kill algae fast as would be the case in a municipal water system.
The added benefit of the gas chlorination system is that it kills organisms that live in the recycled water that cause plant disease such as rhododendron root-rot and aerial infections of the root-rot.
One half of the sidewalks in the sales area in front of the store will be removed and replaced with new five foot wide walkways to facilitate better traffic flow than the former 30 inch walks would allow. In addition, new drains to take away irrigation water will make standing water and slippery walks a thing of the past in the front sales area.
In the greenhouses, we’ve again expanded our plant self-watering benches in which all fertilizer -laden water is recycled to a tank for use again until it is used up. Formerly, this fertilizer water was drained from the greenhouses along with rain water from the roof of the main building and greenhouse roofs to a small runoff pond to the west of the main annual flower house. Because of the contamination of the pond with fertilizer water, we could not use this water for irrigation. Now that almost no fertilizer water is drained to this “front” pond, we will now be able to pipe the overflow of this pond to our one acre irrigation lake to reuse for irrigating the trees and shrubs in the nursery. Our recycling effort then will allow almost no runoff water to leave the nursery property!
We’ve tested Scott’s Naturescapes mulches in our beds last summer with great results as the mulch barely faded in color due to Scotts new dyeing technology. Also, Scotts Naturescape mulch is a by-product of cedar lumber production instead of cutting and chipping trees solely for the purpose of mulch as in the case of Cypress mulch.
A new fungicide for this year is one called Serenade in which a natural occurring bacteria attacks disease organisms of plants such as powdery mildew, and literally causes the collapse of the cell walls of the pathogen!
Some new plants for spring 2006 include the Northern Encore Tree rose that is hardy even in Minnesota!. This pink tree rose is the first release in a new series that needs no winter protection. In early June watch for the new Blushing Bride Hydrangea that is a blush white companion to the Sienna blue Endless Summer that was introduced in 2004. Just like Endless Summer, Blushing Bride blooms all summer as it will form flower buds on the current year’s growth!
Rhododendron Capistrano will be available in a variety of sizes, price ranges and in quantity unlike last spring. For those of you unfamiliar with Capistrano, the true yellow flower truss appears about May 20th on a somewhat compact growing plant that is flower bud hardy to -20º F!
For more information, check out our plant encyclopedia as it’s constantly being updated!
Happy Spring of 2006!
See you soon,
Thomas Dayton