Monthly Newsletter – December 2020
What’s Budding Starting From Seed If you grew a vegetable garden in 2020 for the first time, you were in good company. Hundreds of thousands of U.S. gardeners grew vegetables for the first time, and many more expanded or returned to growing food crops. Literally millions of additional potted starter plants and packets of seeds […]
Monthly Newsletter – November 2020
What’s Budding Lights On! When Light Emitting Diode strings first became available for commercial Christmas décor, I was a skeptic. The lights were too bright, the glow was blue rather than a warm white and the wiring and diodes were heavy and clunky. Now, the color is a soothing warm white, the wiring is similar […]
Monthly Newsletter – October 2020
What’s Budding Every person has been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. For many of us, we are spending significantly more time at our homes. Those with exterior greenspaces have had more time to devote to gardening, but fall brings a reduction and eventual end to most outdoor gardening activities till March or so. As we […]
Monthly Newsletter – September 2020
What’s Budding As summer fades and fall approaches, many an indoor plant collector begins thinking about the process of acclimating plants back into the lower light of indoors. All those lovely bright green specimens that have been out on the deck or under the pergola must come indoors before the temperatures swoop down into the […]
Monthly Newsletter – August 2020
What’s Budding The Art of Choosing One of the challenges of business is predicting where to place resources. What plant trends will continue to develop, and which will fade? What design styles will be embraced? Will the looks that clients crave be easy to source or will availability be limited? Our goal is always to […]
Monthly Newsletter – July 2020
What’s Budding Handle With Care We have long been able to purchase live plant materials through the mail or online. Bulbs, seeds and bare-root plants have been sent from place to place by wagon, ship or saddlebag since people began exploring the globe. These days cuttings, fruits and nuts, and even small starter-size potted garden […]
Monthly Newsletter – June 2020
What’s Budding Education or Experience? Every business owner in a service profession hires employees they hope will learn and grow in their position. Though I know there are landscapers and plantscapers who use a subcontractor model, that model is risky and requires constant attention to be sure each person or crew is properly insured for […]
Monthly Newsletter – May 2020
What’s Budding Why a Greenhouse? Why did we need a greenhouse? Al and I have both been fortunate to work in greenhouse environments in the past, as have several members of our team. We have wanted to add a greenhouse space for some time. Both glass and poly houses provide access to natural light, allowing […]
Monthly Newsletter – April 2020
What’s Budding When I was a student of Horticulture at MSU, I worked as the weekend attendant at both of the greenhouse ranges. Back in the late 1970s, there were glass houses south of what is now called Old Horticulture, and those held the horticulture teaching collection, undergrad classwork space, and the botany collection. I […]
Monthly Newsletter – March 2020
What’s Budding The Power of Collaboration I have learned a great deal about growing a business during these last four decades. As a service business in horticulture, we are mindful that what we sell is not an essential in most people’s lives. Even when we were quite small, we quickly saw the benefit of working […]