Dayton "Dirt" - April 14, 2017

How strange an April with about 3-4 inches of snow last Friday and a low of 26º F at the nursery and the very next day it’s sunny and warm!

Many shipments of stock are arriving from Lake County growers as well as being moved out of the overwintering huts. Unfortunately, many customers have been asking for items not out of storage yet which can make things difficult as much of the stock is tightly jammed in the huts making it difficult to access one or two items. Then there is the preparation of Easter flowers this week in addition to the receipt of nursery stock! To make matters more exciting, the irrigation system needed some major emergency repairs in order to water the overwintering huts and sales yard as some plants were very “thirsty.”

The new digital catalog seems to be of interest with gardeners as over a four-day period there have been 6,000 views. Another positive note is that the new plant kiosk call the Perfect Plant seems to be working faster as it has been hard wired to the “system” instead of depending upon the wifi.

As anyone can see, spring preparation in a nursery is a lot of work! As my friend and mentor Mr. John Ravenstein who was the head propagator for Losely nursery had said long ago: “I had four daughters and if I had had a son I would never tell him to go into the nursery business.” When I ask Mr. Ravenstein why not, he stated, “this business is too much work!”

Tom