Dayton "Dirt" - December 19, 2014

Even with the return of colder weather, December has been relatively mild and at the nursery relatively easy on the greenhouse heating requirements.  While the cut Christmas trees are few, the Fraser firs left are just beautiful with the most beautiful in the 8 foot range. As of today, all remaining trees are discounted greatly so that they are able to find a home before Christmas day.  Any trees that remain after Christmas will become wood chips for the garden so that they will not be wasted.

Years ago we used to burn the left over trees by piling them up as high as possible with as many as 40-50 at a time before lighting the fire.  The fire would start out slowly followed by a little later with a flash over that would send flames into the air as high as 30-40 feet!  In the season of 1973 there were about 200 to be burned out of a little more than 1,000 trees but the very next year 3 trees were left on December 18th as we could not cut and haul them fast enough from Pennsylvania.

Next week the greenhouse will be cleaned out of poinsettias which will be a relief since the plants with their broad flower bracts occupy more room than they "deserve".

The planning and planting for next spring is accelerating with the final reviews of the perennial orders completed in order to see what’s new that has been missed and what “dogs” of perennials have not been omitted from the growing pallet of perennials.

Coming up in January, a yearly greenhouse conference at OARDC will be held on plant nutrition, water quality and insect control which will enlighten all on the latest from research based science coming out of Ohio’s own Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center.

This past week also concluded the long tenure of Ken Cochran as curator of the Secrest Arboretum with his retirement party of December 17th. His vision and drive has transformed the once sleepy arboretum to a more relevant “user-friendly” operation that began before the devastating tornado of 2010. He will be greatly missed and what comes to my mind is how he could ever be repaid for the benefits he has bestowed on the arboretum that has become a treasure for not only those that have helped Ken but also a treasure for the general public. God willing, may good health and happiness follow him all the remainder of his years.

Tom