Dayton "Dirt" - March 7, 2014

Are we truly free of the single digit weather? Production is now 1 week behind at the nursery because of delays in the potting of roses and perennials which will spill over into other scheduled procedures. Around the Akron area, I’ve noticed the severe burn on some of the broadleaved evergreens becoming more pronounced. Again, it’s a function of super cold weather, sun, (-12º F), strong relentless winds and no insulating blanket of snow. Damage not showing up as yet may be dead or dying bark on trees and shrubs, dead or damaged Zone 6 and even Zone 5 herbaceous perennials and flower buds frozen on various species of plants such as Forsythia and evergreen azaleas. The warm up is also on its way but it has been painfully slow. An unusually fast warm up as in 2012 would be even worse! Our store officially opened on March 5th, five days after the planned opening again due to inclement weather of predicted heavy snow that was not nearly as prolific as originally forecast. Tomorrow’s seminar is our last of the winter seminar series pertaining to that question on everyone’s mind: “What’s New?”. There is so much new that we’ll only be presenting the highlights as we must keep the seminar to the end time of 1 pm. Last week’s seminar was quite a surprise with over 60 participants showing up on a subject I know little about. Jill Manda of Manda’s Plant Farm was entertaining as well as informative. We’re already planning next years seminars so that if you have any ideas, contact us at info@daytonnursery.com. Tom