| Dayton Nursery News 2006 A
lot has been going on behind the scenes in the fall of 2005 and during the
warm January of 2006.
Another ½ acre of paved parking has been laid down in order to make it
easier for customers to get their product to their vehicle. How many
times small potted plants and flowers would "jump" off carts that would roll
over the bumpy gravel! In the new parking lot, a large planting has
been installed that includes about 100 shrub roses, bulbs and later annuals
that will enable customers to more easily visualize the value of these
plants in their own landscape.
The grounds were spruced up last fall in that the gazebo area, entrance
mounds and some other areas of plants were looking old and tired! Beds
were expanded, re-edged, weeded and planted with many new varieties of plant
material.
A new perennial garden was even started out in the front yard that will
be at its peak in June and July and includes cultivars of Hibiscus,
Coneflower, Shasta Daisies, Gaillardia and more and again will help visitors
to the nursery visualize what they might accomplish in their own yards.
Of course, no fall project at the nursery would be complete without our
annual Holland bulb planting ritual. Instead of adding to our already 20,000
strong brigade of daffodils, we decided to concentrate more on the fragrance
of about 1000 pink, blue and white hyacinths to round out the landscape
beds. In addition, 3000 oxford red tulip bulbs were planted along the 200
foot length of the white post and rail fence along Cleveland-Massillon Rd.
And for June color, varieties of Allium will greet customers in the new
parking lot island along with a rainbow of color from the shrub roses that
will bloom in June and all summer!.
Water is the biggest need at the nursery in that if we're out of water,
we're out of business. Even though we collect rain water all season and
recycle our irrigation water, the hot dry summer necessitated that we use
water from Van Hyning run which is an unlimited supply of water but with its
problems - the creek water is high in salts, calcium bicarbonate, magnesium
bicarbonate and chlorides resulting from the runoff and other pollution
sources in its short three to four mile run before it passes through the
nursery.
In order to mitigate the shortage of good water, we've instituted an
expansion of our water collection pond and installed a longer intake pipe
for our recycled water pump in order to store more water in our one acre
irrigation lake. Another issue of water quality has been algae deposits on
sidewalks, signs and structures in the late summer. The algae problem should
be solved with the installation of a chlorine gas injection system that
injects a metered amount of chlorine at a very low level in order to kill
algae fast as would be the case in a municipal water system.
The added benefit of the gas chlorination system is that it kills
organisms that live in the recycled water that cause plant disease such as
rhododendron root-rot and aerial infections of the root-rot.
One half of the sidewalks in the sales area in front of the store will be
removed and replaced with new five foot wide walkways to facilitate better
traffic flow than the former 30 inch walks would allow. In addition,
new drains to take away irrigation water will make standing water and
slippery walks a thing of the past in the front sales area.
In the greenhouses, we've again expanded our plant self-watering benches
in which all fertilizer -laden water is recycled to a tank for use again
until it is used up. Formerly, this fertilizer water was drained from the
greenhouses along with rain water from the roof of the main building and
greenhouse roofs to a small runoff pond to the west of the main annual
flower house. Because of the contamination of the pond with fertilizer
water, we could not use this water for irrigation. Now that almost no
fertilizer water is drained to this "front" pond, we will now be able to
pipe the overflow of this pond to our one acre irrigation lake to reuse for
irrigating the trees and shrubs in the nursery. Our recycling effort then
will allow almost no runoff water to leave the nursery property!
We've tested
Scott's Naturescapes mulches in our beds last summer with great
results as the mulch barely faded in color due to Scotts new dyeing
technology. Also, Scotts Naturescape mulch is a by-product of cedar lumber
production instead of cutting and chipping trees solely for the purpose of
mulch as in the case of Cypress mulch.
A new fungicide for this year is one called Serenade in which a
natural occurring bacteria attacks disease organisms of plants such as
powdery mildew, and literally causes the collapse of the cell walls of the
pathogen!
Some new plants for spring 2006 include the Northern Encore Tree rose
that is hardy even in Minnesota!. This pink tree rose is the first release
in a new series that needs no winter protection. In early June watch for the
new Blushing Bride Hydrangea that is a blush white companion to the
Sienna blue Endless
Summer that was introduced in 2004. Just like Endless Summer,
Blushing Bride blooms all summer as it will form flower buds on the current
year's growth!
Rhododendron
Capistrano will be available in a variety of sizes, price ranges and
in quantity unlike last spring. For those of you unfamiliar with Capistrano,
the true yellow flower truss appears about May 20th on a somewhat
compact growing plant that is flower bud hardy to -20º F!
For more information, check out our plant encyclopedia as it's constantly
being updated!
Happy Spring of 2006!
See you soon,
Thomas Dayton
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