Dayton "Dirt" - November 14, 2014

The cold snap this week is a reminder of what’s yet to come and has placed a damper on the yard work before winter truly sets in. Leaf removal off lawns must be accomplished or the results in spring with a deep leaf cover over grass is not pretty.

The relatively rare Magnolia tripetala is a tree with such huge broad leaves that even in late October the grass beneath it will suffer unless the leaves are raked off quickly. City dwellers must deal with leaves later into the season because of street lights delaying leaf drop as the trees are “fooled” by the extended day length. A good example is the damage of the trees in mid-November of 1996 when a heavy, wet snow fell on the Cleveland suburbs weighing down and snapping branches because of snow piling up on the leaf laden trees.

At the nursery, branch cutting for grave blankets has been accelerating as well as the construction of the blankets so that November 20th many will be ready for viewing, pick up or delivery. Spruce, scotch pine and white pine are among those that we currently use except that in the future white pine may have to supplement the ever growing scarcity of scotch pine. Christmas trees will not arrive from southern Ohio until just before Thanksgiving although wreaths, roping and boughs will be ready earlier . Sandwiched in between the grave blanket business, general outside cleanup and still some late flower bulb planting is the on going construction of the inside of the new greenhouse addition and if enough is not enough the original store erected in 1990 is now torn apart for the replacement of old energy inefficient light fixtures with ones that are brighter and consume 30% less electricity. The old tile floor is going to be replaced by a concrete textured floor with softer earth tones.

The last major renovation of the store building was 20 years ago so that come spring, the interior of the building will have a whole new look with the new lighting, floor and warm colors on the walls instead of the sterile white color.

On November 10th, twelve turkeys paraded out of the neighbors woods into the blueberry patch in the nursery’s back field. What a sight to behold especially with Thanksgiving on the way.

Tom