Leafy twigs with roots. Lots of 'em.
Plugs and liners. Pots of'em.
We make cuttings 'round the clock.
Taken from our own root stock.
Seedling trees and baby shrubs.
Potting soil in big grey tubs.
This is where the majority of all the plants are propagated - in the backyard. The yard is the size of a single house-lot. The total property with the house and the backyard is just under one acre. That small trailer is filled with aged pine bark fines, which we buy from our local nursery. The pre-aged fines we can get for $30 a yard - but we had to specifically ask them if they had it because they keep it way in the back of the nursery's acreage where customers don't usually go.
On the left is the corner of a block of grow-beds. In the middle is a table where brand-new cuttings live for 4-6 weeks. On right is a very small greenhouse, where we propagate certan types of cuttings using foggers instead of misters. That guy with the cane is my dad (Norman Paige who started the nursery back in 2007). The grow beds are all about 8ft wide by 24ft long, mulched in the walkways. All three grow beds and the two aisles are under the same shadecloth - so weed picking and reorganizing can be done all in the shade. Even so, its still better to just get up and outside at 6am while its still cool and then at around 9-10 when the temps get high, retreat to the indoors.
The misting table is about 8ft by 24ft. The stick labels have the name of the plant and the date they were stuck on them. The labels are made from cut up sections of venetian blinds. We write everything by hand with special nursery markers (sharpie ink fades in a scarily short time out in the sun!). The date helps us know when to remove them from the table and put them into a regular grow-bed. Misters are set on 10secs every 10mins. Covered with 70% shade cloth. There are also removable panels with squares of tan shadecloth that stand upright around the edges of the table. We were having problems with wind blowing the mist away too quickly. They also prevent watering of the grass too much outside of the table. The plant trays are actually sitting on top of some wood trellis to keep them out of any possible puddles. I am making a similar table at my house using plastic privacy trellis. It's a bit more expensive, but it should last longer and I will be able to drag and slide trays around better. The wood trellis has little nails that snag on the trays if you try to slide them. No plants are placed down the very center because that area seems to have unreliable dry spots directly under each misting head, even though their spray patterns overlap considerably.
Second misting bed on the ground, same schedule as the table. Naturally heavily shaded by large low branches of pine trees. This entire bed is usually where we keep the Japanese Red Maples when the shadecloths are down, since they do much better in the shade.
A collection of stock plants in pots that we take cuttings from. These happen to be all different types of Weigelas. We literally pull each pot out into the aisle before taking cuttings in order to insure that we don't get a cutting from a branch crossing over the pot, which may be of a different type. The stock plants of the same type that are planted in the ground are much larger and planted much further apart to prevent that. There are around 20 pots of each type of Weigela. These are actually rooted cuttings that my mom potted up for me about 2 years ago when we first began talking about me taking over the nursery and moving most of it to my house. I have a similarly sized group of various Butterfly Bush stock plants that are already living at my house.
Small, medium, and large Japanese Red Maple seedlings. The far left greenery is our single stock plant of Kumson Forsythia. It is chopped down to only about 6 inches high in the fall. The Lynwood Gold is chopped down all the way to the ground every fall. Even so they have given us many hundreds of cuttings each year from only a patch about 2ft by 4ft wide. The empty bed above was recently emptied in order to give us place to put all the plants that are graduating off of intermittant mist soon. That green hedge in the distant background is the property line and is where we have the Manhattan Euonymous bushes that we use for stock plants.
This is one side of the inside of the greenhouse. We propagate burning bush and various spireas in here. They prefer the fogger style of watering. Keeps the humidity high, but not drippy like the misters. 100% sand is used here. These cuttings will stay here for 3 months and then will be potted up into 2.5 inch pots in the fall. Inside this greenhouse is also where the DIG timer is kept. It operates 6 different valves for 6 different beds.
All around the perimeter of the property are stock plants in the ground. Here are some butterfly bush by the swingset, and also some Cotoneaster at the bottom of the picture. The small building at the right is 14x16 shed on a slab foundation. It has a utility sink and shelves built into the walls all around. It has a window unit AC that we use to keep us comfortable while we stick plants - and also to keep plants dormant longer into spring. This is were a lot of the hands-on propagation takes place and where we prep plants to be shipped (potting mix shaken off, roots wrapped in moist shredded newspaper, bagged, and tagged). From here they are taken to the garage where the boxing and weighing is done. For step by step pics of how we bag plants for shipping see here.
Three of my daughters helping me divide the Liriope while watching BBC's Sherlock Holmes on the computer at the same time. (This photo is from over a month ago).
Our shipping prep area in just a corner in the garage. The car is pulled out and folding tables are set up while we work. When finished it's all put away again. Boxes, plastic bags, tape etc are stored in the cupboards. This is also where we shred the newspaper that is used on the roots. Under the table is a tub of shredded computer paper that we get already shredded from a local business. Computer paper resists being wetted compared to newspaper, so we use that for cushioning the plant bundles inside the boxes.
The digital postal scale that we use to weigh every package before I print out the shipping labels on the computer inside. Behind the scale is an example of 2 priority boxes (shoebox size) that are telescoped together and taped in order to make a longer box for taller plants. The priority boxes are free from USPS and are even delivered in large bundles to our door. The plain brown boxes were purchased from Uline.com.
My eighth-born child standing by the boxes that have been completed. All the kids help on packaging day. Some are assigned to pull certain trays from the grow beds, some are prepping to roots and bagging and tagging. Some are taking turns going inside to stay with the baby for me. Some help grandpa do the boxing in the garage. The last hour of the day is usually just me, at the computer printing out the prep-paid shipping labels while the others take a short nap. We usually order pizza for lunch. Those are my dad's feet up at the top of the photo.
Some JRM's that I sold on Facebook recently. They are one of our most popular sellers. We propagate our own from seed as well as re-selling some from other growers.
Willow tree cuttings about to be stuck. I got these from Sandy Ascot.
My most favorite type of Weigela is currently blooming. This is Carnaval Weigela and blooms with both dark and light pink blossoms.
That's about it. I hope I didn't bore you with my lengthy descriptions. I just wish I could peek into everyone else's nurseries just like this. I'm sure we all do things quite differently and I would love to see how other people do theirs.
By the way it has taken over 6 years for this nursery to come to this point. There is no way that all this happened in any sort of quick time frame. Just doing a little everyday is how my parents got to this point and where I picked up the baton last year. I have a much smaller replica of this nursery at my own house down the road, but that's pictures for another day.
For the rest of the story about how I came to be taking over my dad's nursery. See this previous post:
-Patty
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