Rambling on by Andy Van Cleve. Most recent comment is near the top. Usually these comments are in responce to an email that someone has sent me, sometimes I rewrite them. Occasionally I'll copy and paste a portion into another web page with a link back here. I also add comments on purchasing supplies like pots and soil (highlighted in red for my accountant). A journal of sorts.
April 5, 2009
Went to breakfast at Giovanni's. I'm doing a page on his place check it out at;
www.floweringshrubfarm.com/giovanni.htm
April 4, 2009
Morning;
Potted 33 roses into 7 gallon ($30 after they flower) or 15 gallon ($50 after they flower) including; Ferdinand Pichard (11-174,11-175), American Pillar (11-172, 11-173), Lichtkonigin Lucia (11-170, 11-171), Mrs Anthony Waterer (11-168, 11-169), Furstin Von Pless (11-164, 11-165), Rugelda (11-166, 11-167), Alba maxima (11-183, 11-184), Great Maidens Blush (11-181, 11-182), Semi-plena (11-193, 11-194), Duchesse of Portland (11-189, 11-190), Four Seasons Rose (11-178), Kazanlik (11-191,11-192), Leda (11-179, 11-180), Apothecary's Rose (11-187, 11-188), Harisons Yellow (11-195, 11-196), Nevada (11-176, 11-177), Alfred de Dalmas (11-185, 11-186). These wont be for sale until they've flowered and in some cases until I've taken cuttings in July. I plan to take cuttings from almost all varieties and new plants provide a rare opportunity as they have already been cut back and the growth between now and July will be ideal for propagation (Rugelda is still on copyright so I cant propagate yet but we will keep both to observe the flower, fruit fall foliage and hardiness no matter what). Check with me.
Afternoon;
Pulled all roses out of storage and arranged on the weedmat in alphabetical order so they can be fed, watered and photographed while the leaves open.
April 3, 2009
Purchased 5 bales compressed 3.8 cubic feet Sunshine #1 mix. $146.69
April 2, 2009
Picture-Newsletter
http://www.floweringshrubfarm.com/crop086.htm
March 31, 2009
Purchased 33 old garden roses for $436.00 including freight.
March 21, 2009
All the pots are buried in mulch at this time in large groups. I cant even find where they are least of all see the pot. We wont start pulling them out of their winter beds until its much warmer and we have more manpower. Only lilacs (which are zone 3) can be left out of the mulch for winter. Each plant has different culture required to insure winter survival. It would be even better to actually plant the roses in the ground but the manpower to do that would cost so much that I'd not be able to sustain the business. So sometime in April or early may we'll start pulling the roses from their mulch beds and grouping them in the sales area according to variety. Then I'll do an inventory and figure out which roses died in the mulch beds (usually because the mulch wasn't high enough on the pot). A zone 3 plant has stems that are hardy to around 40 below zero but roots hardy to zero. A zone 5 plant has stems hardy to 20 below zero but roots hardy to 20 above 0. When the air temperature is 20 below zero the soil temperature 6 inches deep in the soil is 20 above zero but in a pot the soil could potentially get colder than that killing the zone 5 plant. For every day the air temperature remains cold more heat is lost from the ground and a snow cover can reduce that heat loss but you don't always have snow cover. So you can see there are a number of factors that are dealt with by burying the pot. If we had more space I would put in socket pots buried in the ground but we don't have the space or the money. Besides, the flowering shrub farm is a slow business. And I like it that way. If it was faster I would have sold out already and wouldn't have the plants I have. What I like doing is growing plants that I can enjoy and see them flower, then insure that we have a regular supply by propagating them, then sell them so we have the funds to grow more. What I'd like to have some day is parallel rows of plants inside socket pots that are buried in the ground with drip lines so they can be watered in place. We'd save lots of labor cost because we wouldn't have to move them around so much. The problem is that the commercial property that we have to sell plants from is to small and the larger property we have where we can grow them isn't commercial so we cant have customers there. Someday.
March 19, 2009
Added a couple pictures to;
http://www.floweringshrubfarm.com/old.htm
March 17, 2009
Curt was over transplanting lilacs. Check the newsletter#319 I bought 1 yard of turf blend to pot the lilacs with $34.
March 16, 2009
Purchased 80 seven gallon pots today for transplanting lilacs into and it cost $214.
March 14, 2009
My work week always starts on Saturday so having the 13th occur on a friday is the bookend for whatever I've done since the previous saturday. And in this case I've pulled 96 lilacs, photographed most of them and am preparing to repot them into either 7 gallon (on sale at $30 each) or 15 gallon (on sale at $60 each). Kirk (a 40 year old who's good with a shovel) will be back wednesday or thursday of next week and will help me repot. Between now and then I have to buy pots (40-7 gallon pots are around $80), and soil. We start plants in a soilless potting medium but often transplant lilacs into an organic compost made from ground leaves and cow manure ($40/ yard) which is good because the soilless mix we use has risen 50% in price in the last year. So we'll take them to the other house (where we have the plant sale May 15 to July 4) and repot them there. If they flower in May I'll take a picture of a flower on each plant and post the picture on the web site (proving the variety), then those that have fewer than 3 stems will be cut back and placed back in the field under drip line and those that have 3 or more stems will be for sale. In June those that haven't sold will be placed back in the field under drip line and old garden roses that have flowered will be selling. I originally trained to be a nursery manager. I ended up working for another job for 30 years before I had to retire on disability but I started a retail micro-nursery that sold plants locally that weren't available at most places. I've developed a reputation for selling stuff that does exceptionally well, doesn't get diseased and is always what its supposed to be. People drive hundreds of miles to buy a plant from me and talk to me about plant culture. I like that. I'm not rich but I'm comfortable and I'm doing what I like to do and have a certain level of respect for how I do it.
And there's no such thing as a green thumb. Thats just the stain you get from handling freshly cut greens. Success comes from understanding the rules, having an open mind and remembering that just because your neighbor has had success doing it in a certain way is no guarantee that you will.
I have a big advantage. I grow everything in pots so I can move them around. In winter we surround the pots with mulch so the roots don't freeze. In spring we place the pots somewhere where its sunny but in the winter we put them in the shade so they don't get sunscald. We place some gravel at the bottom of the pots so they don't suck up moisture from the surface their on. When we mulch the pots for winter we place them in groups with the least hardy toward the center so they get the most protection. If you had been growing your lilacs this way you'd just drag them into a sunnier location in summer, then drag them into the shade in fall. All my customers subscribe to my picture-newsletter because they want to see the pictures I take oof the plants I sell flowering, fruiting or fall foliage but I also tell them what I do and why I do it. Later when they plant they try to find creative ways of doing something similar that works in their climate, their circumstances and their soil for similar reasons rather than just doing it the same way.
March 12, 2009
We plant several cuttings (sometimes only 1) in a 3 gallon pot under drip line in our growing fields. We dont prune so we dont have pruning scars which provide borers a way into the plant. After several years we dig out the anchoring roots that have come out through the drainage holes, cut off the old 3 gallon pot and repot into a 7 gallon during march. When the 3 gallon potted plants are first removed from the drip line I take a picture that reveals the number of stems (find pictures in crop pages linked from lilac buy below). Those that have less than 3 stems will be cut back to the ground once they have flowered (proving the variety), 3 or more will be available for sale during the plant sale in their new 7 gallon pots once they have flowered. I feed with dehydrated manure. Those that dont sell are returned to the drip line in June. http://www.floweringshrubfarm.com/lilacbuy.htm
February 11, 2009
$250 to the host of my web site for one year.
