Nearly full greenhouses

Spring is coming on in a slow and steady fashion.  All the trees are harvested for planting and shipped out.  Just a few remain for a summer vacation above ground in anticipation of fall planting.  The nursery liners have all arrived, so now we get the ground turned for planting in the nursery again.

The greenhouses have nearly filled up.  We are down to the final plugs that put on growth so quickly, it barely takes a month to get them ready for planting out.  There are crops ready to be moved to the outdoor holding areas to take the slow climb into late spring.  So much is happening at once.  Here's a peek at all that is happening inside our greenhouse walls.

The first spring crops are in my garden.

Leftover plugs that will find a new home in community gardens

The last of the plug propagation, marigold and vegetables

Shade plants, a sea of begonias and coleus

Thousands of geraniums, round one and round two

Supertunias and other 4" pots

Americana Geraniums, gallon and 6"pot crops as well as 100 Milwaukee Peace Project hanging baskets

Cold sensitive crops of Salvia, lobelia, and others

The 4th house is always rotating crops.  Growing the Alyssum from seed up front right now

An experiment in pushing plant growth.

Tropical in so many ways. A sea of Colocasia

Empty now but not for long. Exterior holding area for those cold tolerant crops is the best growth regulator

Hanging baskets coming to a festival grounds near you.  Petunias, petunia, and more petunias

This is really a sea of petunias because they are all Waves

Hardening off the early order

More of the early order that like it just a tad warmer

A few spring shots

Recent rains put us up to our endloader axles in mud.

Our 4"pot crops are filling up one house.

6" pots occupy another.  Some are on drip irrigation systems.

Hanging baskets wait until it is time to move to their irrigation home.

Colacasia take up one house with very little room to spare for others.

The pansies have moved to the cold house in anticipation of planting in a couple weeks.

The first pansy bloom.

Our west coast lilacs came in ready for spring.
They will have to wait for awhile in our unheated
hoop house until the cold weather passes.

We have been very busy in the greenhouses and nursery.  Everyday is several gains and a couple setbacks to be righted.  Rain has made our digging operation a challenge, but we keep slogging through the mud.  We are trying some things for the first time (pansies) and working on perfecting how we do things to serve each one of our customers in the best way possible.  Working at a nursery and greenhouse is long days and hard work, but I couldn't be happier in my work.

Digging season has started

It's that very busy time of year at the nursery.  Anyone in this industry will tell you there are just not enough hours in the day or enough energy in the tank to get it all done.  I have been busy tagging trees so that our crews can dig them for our orders.  As a municipal nursery we are unique in that our customer may be our Forestry districts, but it is also the person who has that tree in front of their home that the city owns and maintains for the pleasure of all.  These are our tree lilacs and ornamental pears which are just a small amount of the nearly 1,500 trees we will dig balled and burlap.  Since we ship directly to the yards that plant, we also do several hundred trees as bare root.  The crews are efficient in moving these into their sites, and can do the job quicker with less soil to handle along the whole path from field to planting site.  The trees are "heeled in" to chips and kept watered until they can be put in to their permanent home.  I will try and share some photos from our operations to give you an idea how this all takes place.  I just need the time to stop and do it one of these days.