Greetings! Well Mother's Day is this Sunday, and I thought I would take this time to point out the good and the bad of commercial cut flower production. Did you know the majority of flowers at your local florist are imported? And did you also know that many shifty farms in South America are  major polluters? In addition, many farms do not have adequate worker protection standards, and workers are exposed to toxic chemicals on a daily basis with no protection.

There are however many good growers and importers. Many farms are now working toward being certified organic, as well as providing better treatment for their workers. How will you know where the flowers you are buying for Mom are coming from? Simple, just ask! Informed florists will make the choice to purchase organic or fair trade products, as well as purchase locally whenever possible. Lets look at some options to make your floral choice a more eco-friendly one.

1. BUY LOCALLY!!! Especially in warmer areas of the country right now, I urge you to find local farmer's markets and stands to purchase you flowers at. This saves gas and resources by not supporting imports, as well as helping local economies here in the USA. Hwever, I do also urge you to make an informed choice by asking local growers if they are organic, and if they have instituted any green initiatives in their business.

2.Buy organic and fair trade products!! Ask your florist  to carry these products. If t hey don't know anything about them, now is your time to inform them! Avoid sending wire service flowers such as FTD and Teleflora. You have no idea what the florist on the other end is using. You can also save yourself the wire service fee by simply looking up a florist onlibe and ordering a bouquet. I guarantee you will be much happier wit the results. Many florists take an extra percentage off of the wire service order to help cover fees. Cut out the middle man and just find the florist yourself.

Research organic and fair trade growers online at:

http://www.organicconsumers.org/organic/flowers020204.cfm information and reasons to buy organic

https://californiaorganicflowers.com/ourstory

http://www.localharvest.org/organic-flowers.jsp

http://www.organicstyle.com/i_498/new-york-times-article-organic-flowers.html

http://veriflora.org/

3. Potted plants can be just as harmful as fresh flowers. If you read any of th articles I posted on the evils of the horticulure industry, you will understand why. If buying Mom plants, stick with perennials and leave the more wasteful annuals behind. Those hanging baskets are nice, but make sure Mom will have a use for the pot once it is done.  Only give these type of plants to people you are sure will recycle or reuse the pots. Houseplants are often produced with considerable chemicals. Once again, do your research and find a more ecofriendly and organic alternative. Plants are frequestky sprayed with antitranspirants when shipped long distances, That causes that nasty filmyou see on them at big boxes and supermarkets. Avoid places like that for plant purchases, and go local. Check out Veriflor as they also certify plant growers. In addition, whe you buy locall, you can be more assured that grower is more proactive about recycling by visiting several times a year. Support places that donate extra plants instea of dumping them in a landfill.

So what would I really recommend as a nice gift for Mom? If they have the space, purchase a nice native tree or shrub for their yard. This gift will be more long lasting, and provide more ecological benefit than fresh flowers and annuals. Perennials are also high on my list as they will keep growing year after year, unlike annual that need to be replanted yearly, which auses considerably more resource use. I would also recommend buying native plants and cultivars of native species that will be of more benefit to local wildlife such as birds and butterflies. They also require much less fertilizer and work to keep maintained. Check out my links for some good plant sources. You will also find many smaller growers online that are local.

I hope you have learned more about the floral industry and how to help stop the cycle of pollution. Put yourself in the shoes of the South American people who have been poisoned, and have their land and waters poisoned by chemical use. Support organic flowers and plants. Buy locally whenever possible.

Thanks for reading and Happy Mother's Day!

 

First off, such a tragedy for any of you who follow horse racing. Eight Belles was put down after breaking both ankles after passing the finish line in 2nd. Poor girl. She ran a heck of a race. I love horse racing, but the recent highly publicized breakdowns just sheds so much light on the evils of it all.

Well otherwise I have just been keeping busy in the gardens this week. I have been learning about making stones and such from concrete as well as mosaics. So I think that is a new craft I will be taking up. I almost have the shade garden finished. Now it will be moving on to eradicating campion, nettles, and garlic mustard around the property. Next weekend the BIL is dozing down the old barn. iwill be using a considerable amount of the rocks to edge beds so I have a lot of work ahead! It's also mowing and edging time! Goodness, so much to keep occupied with when you are underemployed.

Speaking of which, I started at Gander Mtn earlier this week and that went well. Seem like nice people. Odd not being the one in charge though. not sure how I feel about that!!

Been trying out garden software and have settled on one I think. Garden PLanner seems like it will work fine. Very easy to use. I had tries some 3d ones, but they just didn't work well on my puter, or were really complicated and involved lots of downloads. My puter is old and doesn't have much memory so I try to limit what I download. Hopefully this will work with the site, and I can get that up and running. I know I've been ignoring it a bit.

Well I guess that is about up to speed on what I've bneen doing. Soon as I get caught up on stuff I will return to gaving some articles on the hort industry as well as gardening. l8r!

Well everything worked out fine at home. Unfortunately there was damage just a few miles away, but no one was hurt. I just got phone service back this morning at my house, I guess it ws out due to lightning strikes. Well hopefully that was our closest brush for a long time!!

Well I said we were in for some nasty weather, and I was right. Tornadoes touched down about six miles from my house. I'm not home tonight. I'm at my fiancees about 30 miles away. The phone lines are down and I can't get ahold of anyone either on a land line or cell. There were several ternadoes reported by spotters, and you never know how the smaller ones will act. They can be pretty unpredictable. I'm really worried. It's been an hour an a half since the storm passed through there. If you all could send well wishes for the safety of my family please...

Well it has been a bit of a busy and overwhelming week. I think I needed to step away from the ol computer for awhile. I spent the week finishing off one of the shade gardens. I did quite a bit of dividing and transplanting.

I still have alot of plants. I need to get some gallon or 6" azalea pots and pot them up. We have some cold weather coming the next few days, but after that I think it should be safe to leave them out. If you pot up plants and leave them cold, it seem sto shock them an awful lot, even if the stock plants have been out in it. Semi dormant to dormant plants do not like being repotted, many natives, and especially grasses don't seem to like it. They tend to get root rot. It is very important if dealing with dry species to not over water. If they grow in a dry prairie narurally, what are you dumping water on them every day after transplanting? Let the drier species settle in and dry down after giving them a thorough first soak. Natives are alot more resilient than people think, and people tend to kill them with kindness.

So that wil be step one in geting some product ready for sale! I will be placing an order with Prairie Moon here shortly for a few seeds of species I want to try. I am going to get a few cuttings while I can as well. Phlox and Sedum for sure. They are simple from cuttings. I can't wait for the woodland phlox to bloom. I put in about 50 last year and some have gotten really big! So I have a bit of a plan going here on how to get the nursery goning and generating some income.

I found out about this new site from a friend today

www.blurb.com

How cool is that??!! You can write and publish a book easy as can be!! So I think that is another project I will be working on. I simply have too much knowledge and it must be shared...

ok that was me joking ha ha ha, I am not nearly that pretentious. (more like full of bs...!)

So things are "ok" for now. Could be worse, definately could be better.

We have some pretty heavy weather heading in. Kinda creepy considering I just watched "Atomic Twister" this afternoon. Now I'm a little freaked out!

l8r all..

 

 

 

happier days...

It's Friday! Well with my current employment staus I don't need to look forward to it as most do. Good news though, I have an interview on Monday to be a caretaker at teh International Crane Foundation! Woohoo! That would be one sweet job I think, I have to be careful though, as my last job was supposed to be my "dream job" but it quickly turned into a nightmare. Funny thing the other day I went to see a social worker/therapist/counselor, and she was very familiar with where I worked. I am apparently not the first person who has needed some mental help after working there. I have never met such insidiuosly and inherantly evil people in my life. If that's "normal" then as the Everclear song says " I will never be normal like you". Nor would I ever want to be like that!!

Well I guess i will take a break from the bitching about the horticultural industry for tonight. I'm pretty tired after planting trees much of the day. It is always good to do work that improves our planet!!! So hope everyone has a good night! Remember moderation if you are heading out for some social activity. No one likes hangovers!!

 

Howdy everyone! Another lonely Sunday night here. I did manage to get done almost cutting everything back this afternoon. Lots of work yet to do. I have lots of dividing and moving to do. I have literally thousands of plants to take care of. Remeber how I said the place I worked was wasteful? Yeah, all of them came from there, and I could have had many more if I wanted. Ridiculous waste. All of the resources it took to raise those, and so many are just thrown away in the landfill at the end of the season. Terrible. I tell you if I can find a site that rates companies on being eco friendly, I am going to make sure it is know how bad this place is!! blarg.

So that brings me to a continuous discussion of the green industry as a whole, and the harm it is doing to our planet. Now remember, not all companues are like this, and again that it why it is so important to do your homework and choose wisely!!

WATER USE AND WASTE

We have parts of this country under severe drought, and burgeoning populations, that are ever taxing on a disappearing water table. There are nurseries that literally are letting thousands of gallons of wastewater go into the ground with out filtration! Where I worked, there was no system to catch runoff of fertilizer treated water. We stood and planted for 8 hours a day, just letting water run down the driveway and into the ground. Now some places that are modernized have planting systems that catch and recycle water that is used in planting plugs. But unfortunately, alot of places don't. The ridiculous waste was astounding. This isn't a  problem of your local mom and pop place that raises some plants on the side. Larger nurseries that are planting thousands of plugs in factory like conditions are the culprit. If you ever ask why a place doesn't recycle the water, you get the ubiquitous money excuse. Well I'm sorry, but there is more money going down the drain with that water than it would cost to implement a recycling system!!!! Again, this is another reason why places are moving out in the boonies. No laws. If there are state laws, no one is around to see and enforce them. Couple that with the uneducated or possibly non-english speaking workers at these places, and no one is capable of even blowing the whistle, or raising concerns. I asked about it where I worked. I recommended they develop a system to drain everything into retention ponds. I mean FFS we had plenty enough extra plants to plant a buffer like a rain garden. Oh no, not economical, and you can see where that got me. Well, what they didn't plan on is that I am disgruntled enough to raise all kinds of hell with the state. We have ag runoff laws here, and they are clearly in violation imo. You just can't dump thousands of gallons of fertillized and acidified non-potable water in the ground. To make it worse, the location is on a solid sand base. It is soaking down as far as it can and fast. I feel sorry for anyone with a  well nearby. There is a trout stream within a few hundred yards as well. So they should be getting a visit from some state inspectors soon! I urge you all if you see this-report it!! Many states are beginning to enact laws banning phosphorus fertilizer because of the harm it does to our waterways. I say nurseries should be no different. Save our water from excessive fertilizer runoff!!!

In addition to poisoning our surface waters, these places drill high capacity wells that draw down the water table even further. There have been several instances where high capacity wells have been proven to cause trout streams to dry up. When the well isn't deep enough, they just go further. Meanwhile, some sap down the road is having a hard time getting enough water for his house. Laws differ, but in many cases, no one even gets notified about a well going in, and the approval process is slack. Sometimes, the person in charge of approval doesn't even go out to the site, they just stamp a big approval on it and accept the permit money. There are few checks in pace to ensure that wells aren't going over capacity, again it's just too much work for overtaxed state or federal agents. No one cares. Am I the only one??? Doesn't anyone else out there even give a shit about it??? Trust me you will care if one of these gets drilled in your neighborhood!!!

The large scale commercial nursery industry is wasting and poisoning our water supply on an everday basis with little regulation. For what??!! To keep the suburbs full of cookie cutter landscape design??!! Individuals can't just use poisoned fertilizer water in any capacity they please, so why are these places?? I'm sorry but it is NOT a cost of doing business. There are better ways, and we need stricter laws to ensure our water supply is kept safe, and supply is adequate.

What can you do?? Report any aggregious abuses you see. Avoid buying from the big box places who are buing wholesale from huge nurseries that are the main culprit of water pollution in the industry. Yet another good reason to buy local. What would you prefer? Pay more at a local mom and pop and keep local people in business, or go to the big box, save a little, but contribute to the destruction of our natural resources?? I know my choice.

There are good companies. Ask where your local retailer is getting their plants and try to find info online about the nursery. As with everything, a little in moderation may not be a bad thing, but plopping down a few hundred bucks at HD for annuals can be doing way more harm than you know!! Water is a necessity of the industry, but waste is not. If you find a place that is wasting, in addition to reporting it, tell them you won't support them and why. If they keep losing business maybe they will learn!!!

Thanks for listening. Like I said, I'm not sure anyone else really cares, but I have spent years watching these crimes against our planet, and it's time someone let the truth be known. Buying green goes beyond home products like soaps, or hybrid cars. There are choices in every industry, and I hope you choose to go the eco friendly route when choosing your plants.

Until next time...

take care everyone!!

Greetings everyone!! I hope tonight finds you all well. So I thought I would sound off a bit about a subject that is aggravating me more and more. I have worked in the so called "green" industry most of my life. I know this term is kind of changing to where more people view it as involving green planet initiatives, but for me it still means the horticultural industry. AFAIC though, it should be called the wasteful industry.

Why is the horticultural industry doing more harm than good? Many people think raising plants is a good thing and they are serving to add more green spaces to the world, and aiding wildlife such as birds and butterflies. How I wish it was that simple unfortunately, this couldn't be farther than the truth

PLASTICS CONSUMPTION

The number one reason I would give  for the green industry being wasteful is the inordinate use of plastics. Have you ever stopped to think about all of those nice pots and packs you see at every box store in the spring??? The toll on our planet is unimaginable. Literally millions of tons of plastic being used to landscape thye suburbs across America. If the shear production alone is not damaging enough, exactly how much of this stuff is ever recycled??? I wish I could find an actual figure. I know from my own experiences at garden centers, landscape companies, and nurseries, that on the industry end, very little is done. It is just too much of a hassle you see. So much easier to just dump everything in a dumpster. The most aggregious example I ever witnessed of this, was at ny most recent employer, a mediocre native nursery in WI. They had a cardboard dumpster, and that was about the end of the recycling. I (regretfully) took part in my duties, of tossing away thousands upon thousands of pots and trays, all of which were recycleable. But that was just too expensive you see. The disposal companies charge so awful much for seperate dumpsters, and this place is so conveniently located in the boondocks, that recycling isn't mandatory.I was in absolute shock the first time I had to throw trays away and they went in the garbage. So here we have this company which is priding itself on doing a good service by selling native species, and offering installation services, yet they don't recycle!!!!! I can only hope that this place is an exception, but unfortunately I fear it is not. I have noticed in recent years that larger nurseries are moving out in the boondocks. WHy? No recycling laws!!!!!! I have heard nursery execs specifically state they choose locations based on local ordinances, and recycling is a biggie. No recycling laws is a big plus evidently.

Ridiculous. Simply Ridiculous. I urge you all to find out of your local nurseries are recycling. If you take notice of the big boxes in about late June/early July, you can get a real feel for how far this goes. So many unsold plants, and they all go in the dumpster!! Multiply that by how many WalMarts, Home Depots et cet??? Insane. I'm sorry but in this day, we have to be more proactive about taking positive environmental measures, and this industry, which markets itself as environmentally friendly, is one of the largest wasters out there. Many landscapers are no better. Especially for small scale contractors, the costs of recycling just outweights doing it (in their mind anyway).

So who is good?This starts getting back to my reasoning on picking a mail order company. Find one with a stellar reputation. They will tend to have less waste. Now the company I worked for has a less than stellar reputation, and they threw away many thousands of plants. At the end of the season, they didn't even bother seperating cardboard. Just threw it all in a trailer and to the landfill it went. Better companies that are successful, will hopefully have the resources to afford recycling. Also be aware of where the nursery is located. If it seems they are trying to skirt laws by moving out of the way, be wary. Now many are just simply located more rurally, so use your judgement. Know who you are buying from. If a company seems to have a solid brand, and you can see they stick to it in all they do, they may be more apt to stick to their morals and do something good fro the planet. For instance, look at what Agrecol is doing to develop biofuels from prairie plants. This isn't something a company that has no concern for the environment would do. Again, it's a judgement call. I would be more willing to beleive the also recycle. (don't know for sur ethough)Don't perpetuate this myth that the green industry is so good, when they are doing more to kill the planet than other frequently bashed industries. If you see piles of pots in dumpsters, complain!!! Tell the business you will not support them unless they recycle. If it's a big box, find a district manager or someone. Every little step can help!! Remember, complaining gets more attention than complacency!!!

Whew well this is getting kind of long so I think I will leave my other top reasons for why the green industry is eco-unfriendly for later posts. Thanks for reading. I hope you will take what I said to heart, and decide to stand up against all of this waste. And again if anyone would like to know the company I worked for that os the wprst ffender, please email me at whitetailridgefarm@yahoo.com and I will glady share that info.

Until next time!!!

Well hopefully with all of this rain we will be rewarded with lots of flowers! It just dumped buckets last night and this morning. Not sure how much we got, but I bet it was over an inch. The forecast for next week is in the 60's so everything should be starting to get green soon!! There are still a few resilient snow banks here and there, but they should disappear before long. When it dries off I need to get out and continue cutting back last year's stems. I have 150 trees and shrubs coming next week from the county extension office so that will give me something to do. Nothing is more rewarding than improving habitat for all wildlife. We checked the wood duck houses and all six were used with success last year! We have only beem able to get out one more this spring. I woud like another 3-4 back in the marsh if possible. If you get them too close they can become dump nests, so have to be careful about giving them enough room. The ducks have been checking them out all week! Nothing is prettier than a male wood duck in his spring breeding plumage.

I have been working on a website. Just a free one hosted here on bravenet for now. As i get more into the swing I will probably go to  a paid domain. I have decided, since there is apparently no work out there for someone of my talents, that I will just go ahead and begin growing and selling plants myself. Bringing natives back to the land is so tremendously rewarding work. I can't even begin to describe the heartbreak losing my job at the nursery was. But that is a tale for another day...

So I am working on developing my own proprietary seed blends for food plots and habitat restoration. In addition I am going to concentrate on growing more unique species that are not as commercially viable. I mean anyone can grow purple coneflowers right? So instead of the more common species like that, I am eyeing up some more unique items such as the Lysimachias. I would also like to get into wetland/pond ornamentals. There are so many beautiful native rushes and sedges that just are not being grown or marketed to the public! Well with so many bad things that have happened, I have to keep my mind on something more positive you know? Working in the soil is more rewarding than any therapy. The sound of rain falling on a greenhouse is beautiful music to me!

So enough for now I  guess. Thanks for reading and hope you are enjoying spring and gardening!