Sorry for missing last week’s newsletter. I’m still in the mountains of Colorado hiking. Climbed a few 14ers and the family is all here. That doesn’t happen very often anymore, so I put that above the newsletter. I figured you’d all understand. I promise to refund the money you paid 😀 

Most people see a greenhouse full of flowers and think it’s peaceful. But behind every bloom is a grind. I spent thirty years growing plants, and it was the most rewarding and most difficult thing I’ve ever done. Add retail to the mix, and it gets even tougher. Customers want the plants to look like the pictures. You know who doesn’t always want to look like the pictures? The plants.

To get them budded and blooming at the perfect time, you need the right mix of soil, trimming, fertilizer, water, spacing, light, and timing. And even if you do everything right, nature doesn’t always cooperate. Sometimes it’s me. Sometimes it’s our employees. Sometimes it’s something we can’t even identify. You might follow the exact same plan, and one crop turns out great while another doesn’t. That’s part of the challenge. As a grower, you focus more on what went wrong than what went right, mostly because you’re not always sure which is which.

There are really two parts to the business: growing and retail. Out front, you hope customers see the best of your work. Out back, you're managing what’s ready, what needs more time, and what might not make it. The goal is to keep the tables full while keeping problems from piling up.

I loved the challenge. I understood that losing a crop meant losing money, and I took that seriously. There are a lot of things you can’t control in growing, and weather is the biggest one. A cold spring slows growth and kills sales. Gardeners mainly shop in spring, so if the crop isn’t ready, they usually don’t come back. That’s why we push plants early using greenhouse plastic, hoping to get ahead of a cool season. When you see a greenhouse full of color in early spring, just know it took a lot of planning, work, and a little luck to get it there.

Think of the challenges you face in your own garden. Now multiply that by a thousand. People often say, "But you have a lot of help." And yes, that helps. But it can also be the issue. Plants don’t take days off. People need to. Most assume everything is automated, especially watering. Some of it is, but a lot of it isn’t. There’s still plenty of hand work involved, and that includes both watering and fertilizing.

Every person has their own way of doing things. That young weekend worker might miss a section tucked behind a bench or not realize the sprinklers didn’t cover part of the crop because of wind. Then Monday morning rolls around and you’re staring at a hundred fried plants. Even worse, if it was hot, they might’ve decided to water again, not knowing they were drowning fresh transplants. It’s all part of growing.

Eventually you get to a point where you have to step away for an hour, a day, a week, and after a few decades, retire. I learned that when I realized I was only seeing the problems, never the successes. You don’t have to fix the things that are going well, so they start to fade into the background. That’s not a healthy mindset. So I’d wait until the nursery was closed and walk the greenhouses. That’s still one of my favorite things to do. I’d walk the retail side to see the plants like a customer. Sure, there were weeds and some areas that weren’t as clean or sharp as I wanted, but the overall picture was strong. We had the best plant selection in Illinois. That’s what people came for.

Most customers have no idea about the behind-the-scenes issues. They just see beautiful plants. And that’s how it should be. But as a grower or owner, it takes effort to stay in that mindset. I know I didn’t always. I’m sure I was a bear to work for at times. I wanted things to be great all the time, and that led to constantly pushing, others and myself. I write this so you can understand the work behind the plants in your garden. Every grower deals with it.

Some people say, “I’ve never had any issues growing plants in my garden.” That’s because the plant they got was already grown and healthy. It's like raising kids. If I gave you my child at 25 years old, you’d probably say they’re easy. But what if I handed them to you at 6 months old?

Like most older growers, I’ve said many times that I wish I could start over with what I know now. I’d be a better boss, a better grower, and a better person. But the truth is, I probably couldn’t make it through the first week. I don’t have 80-hour workweeks in me anymore. I don’t have the energy to go in before sunrise and leave after sunset. That’s for the young and driven.

I still love plants as much as ever, but I’m not sure they want a boss who takes naps and falls asleep at 5. So instead, I’ll share what I know. I’ll help younger growers and home gardeners make better choices, grow better plants, and maybe avoid a few of the mistakes I made.

Here are a few pictures from the last decade and some of the stories behind them.

Customer always asked for natives. Butterfly weed being one of their favorites. It’s also aphids, caterpillars, and butterflies’ favorite plant. We let it stay that way with no chemicals. They are grown for wildlife and no way I am adding chemicals to things birds are going to eat. Customers would say “You need to spray these, they are covered in aphids” to which I would reply. Fantastic, that’s why we grow them, I promise I won’t charge you extra.

Young trees don’t have large root systems to keep them in place so we need to stake them. Movement is what causes trees to grow. The swaying of the tree is what stimulates the roots. But lying on the ground doesn’t make for a healthy tree either. What you see above was so common. People always forget to take off the stakes after a year or so. Sometimes when a tree is growing well, it’s even sooner. They would wait a year and the above would happen. “Why didn’t you tell me to take them off?” We sell thousands of trees so it was difficult to check each one in their yards. I even got to the point where we built an automated email that sent out after one year to check the stakes. Hoping one day there will be a sensor in the strap that senses girdling and will text them 😀

This was my reward for a hard day. Now its just a reward. I can’t tell you how many times I grabbed a Dairy Queen cone on the way home before dinner. In the spring, there is no such thing as too many calories. I see this picture and it exudes a great day of growing plants

This is my daughter working at the nursery. I loved having her work there. She always was covered in dirt and I knew that she had no problem getting dirty and working hard. Which let me know that would be how she approached everything. And it was. I didn’t necessarily want her to grow plants for a living or run a garden center. I wanted her to know what hard work looked like. To see why her Dad did what he did. To appreciate plants and the work necessary to keep them alive. How to grow them and the time and patience required. It worked, she now works with plants and their effects on the environment. She may not sell you plants but she’s going to make the world better for your kids and grandkids. All because she worked summers at the nursery

We used to have slides and bouncy houses at our festivals and it turned out there was no better thing to have for kids then merely putting out the tractors for them to climb on and in. Ironically the husbands felt the same way. One thing we figured out the hard way….disconnect the horn.

I know its disgusting, but this was my keyboard for 20 years. No matter how often I cleaned it, which wasn’t often, it was filthy. You can certainly tell which keys I pressed most often

This picture represents my clothes. My poor wife had to deal with this for 30 years. I got to the point where I didn’t even notice mud or dirt. I only noticed when I was missing a shoe

You planted the tree with the whole basket on? I don’t think people realize that the soil in parts of Illinois and Michigan is pure sand. Incredible for great root development but a little rain after digging and it became mushy. No basket at planting and the tree would fall apart and die. I guarantee the steel basket did not hurt the growth and actually helped stabilize the new planting. Nobody wants to hear that and it goes against their Master Gardener training but after planting 100,000 trees and having to guarantee all of them, I learned a little about successful (and not successful) planting

I absolutely love Bonsai. I had quite a few but if you think traveling and having someone care for your pet is hard, then try a bonsai. You mess it up and you could lose a decade or century old plant. Your only option is to join a bonsai club and have one of the members watch your plant when you’re gone.

You know you’re a tree guy when you go on a vacation and force your family to go to a wood museum. Nothing more exciting for your 12 year old than going to see a “Woods of the World” museum. I loved it…. PS: its on the Big Island in Hawaii

I tried to make this happen. I thought it was cute and funny but it never took off. Turns out watering plants 15 feet above the ground was not as easy as I thought it would be. Great idea in thought

HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND and thanks as always for reading…..You all have done a great job telling your friends. I have done exactly zero advertising or promotion and adding 10-15 readers a week. So thankful

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