JUST ANOTHER DAY…
RON MONNIER MONNIER’S COUNTRY GARDENS, LLC.
The onset of fall brings a
radical change in the duties
we perform here at the nursery.
We close the nursery and
gardens at the end of September.
We have a narrow window
from the time we close until
our first frost. Typically, the
first frost arrives between the
10th and 20th of October. On
queue, we started with a series
of light frosts on the 10th of
October this year. The wammy
arrived on the 26th bringing us
several nights in a row of mid
20’s temperatures. We lose any
potential for harvesting more
cutting material from the display
garden with the onset of
freezing.
When the unheated retail
center closes at the end of September,
the scramble to get
all the market plants in under
heated cover kicks into high
gear. I’ll be the first to admit
that we carry too many plants
through the winter. But if we
didn’t have plants at the end of
the sales year, then we didn’t
have enough to offer those people
who came to buy for their
fall planting. My dear friend,
Mr. Finegan, always says that
you can’t sell from an empty
shelf. So true. But, that leaves
the issue of what to do with the
leftovers. Either we throw out
the unsold plants at the end of
the season or we try to maintain
them through the winter.
We have opted to get everything
in under cover first, and
then decide what to do with
them as time allows. Through
the winter we go through the
varieties bumping the plants
up to gallons, baskets, pillars,
hanging baskets, mixed
containers, etc. The problem
is that we don’t have time to
bump up or groom them as
they are going in. We end up
cramming a lot of overgrown
plants into a tight spot creating
a huge increase in disease and
insect pressure. We really have
to stay on top of our spray program
to mitigate potential pest
problems.
At the same time we’re hucking
and cramming plants in to
the greenhouses where we’re
trying to get some propagation
done. We utilize our crystal
ball here to determine what we
are going to need in the next
year. We have a couple issues
we grapple with. We have to
determine where the plants are going to be used and also
we have to make sure we protect
the lesser utilized varieties.
This year we had 450 varieties
placed in the garden. For some
varieties the garden is the only
place they are represented on
our property. It is huge for us
to see that everything in the
garden has been replicated
prior to freezing.
We have to spend
time though, going
through the garden
variety by variety to
determine how many
of each plant to start.
We are only starting
3 or 4 per year of
some varieties. With
other varieties we’re starting
over 1000. With a capacity to
do 40,000 cuttings at a time
it would seem that we have a
surplus of space. Not so!
We supply a lot of plants to
other nursery growers. We give
priority to those plants because
many ship around the
first of the year. They need to
be rooted by mid-November at
the latest. We have our baskets
and large plants that have to
be started early so they can be
planted in December and January.
Mail order plants have
to be ready for shipments that
begin in early March. Garden
centers start wanting 4” product
in mid-March then Mother’s
Day stuff by April 1st. Even
though we have a lot of heat
bed space, we run out rapidly.
We try to minimize propagating
much of the mail order and
4” product until after some of
the early stuff has been moved
off the beds. Needing to start
over 100,000 every year, timing
is a huge issue.
This year we have
added another fall
project. We’ve been
dabbling in hybridizing
the last couple
of years. This year we
ramped it up a little
and dedicated an
area of the greenhouse specifically
as a hybridizing area.
We’ve found that in our operation
that crossing in October
and November gives us the
best luck in producing berries
that set seed. I’m probably
spending way more time
than I should, but it’s so fun for
the imagination at this point.
What would I get if I crossed
this with that? While most of
a hybridizers efforts end up in
the compost pile, it sure is nice
letting the mind have fun at this point. I’m trying not to get
too hung up in the science, but
I am learning that many varieties
abort their berries and/or
are infertile. But it is fun, and
gives a diversion to the daily
necessities of running the
nursery.
Well we’ve tried and cataloged
60 distinct crosses and
are waiting for seed from
those that haven’t aborted. The
heat beds are full and we are
scrambling to find new space.
Whitefly, rust, and botrytis are
under control. We did beat the
frost and freezing weather and
got all the plants under cover.
We haven’t washed away in the
subsequent flooding. In general
we have settled into fall here
at the nursery.
From Northwest Fuchsia Society
Flash December 2007