Homewood does battle with drought

On much of our trip to Raleigh, the one question we had for the growers and retailers we visited was “How is the drought affecting your business?” Homewood Nursery and Garden Center is helping out its retail customers by offering rain barrels and water by the jug to whoever wants it. A sign posted in the store says the grower/retailer is offering fewer plants this year, so it can share water from its wells with customers.

At retail, Homewood is pushing containers, baskets and window boxes to fight the drought. The business buys in much of the bedding plant flats it sells, while focusing on growing the cutting-edge plant material that would be hard to find from other growers.

The business sells 30,000 poinsettias a year and propagates poinsettias from stock plants. All the work pays off when those stock plants are sold in season for $50 a piece. It’s a size Homewood’s customers can’t get anywhere else.

Other new and exciting things going on at Homewood include an outdoor living furniture gallery and a Monrovia nursery boutique.

Asiatic lilies galore

It’s looking like Holland at Sarah and Michael’s Farm. The operation’s niche crop is lilies. The bulbs (from Holland) are forced in crates, in a media of 100 percent coir from Sri Lanka. Coir has a great structure for lilies – strong fibers that keep air in the mix, helping to avoid pythium. The media is all reused after a steam sterilization.

The operation uses no pesticides or fungicides, but relies on good soil and a controlled environment. And it helps that flowers are harvested before buds open.

But more than all this, I like the attitude of the operation’s leadership. Co-owner Michael Turner shared two rules for those companies he deals with: you’ve gotta pay your bills and you’ve gotta be nice.

Nutritionally speaking

John Dole and Brian Whipker showed off NC State’s Research greenhouses. The current research is on nutrient disorders, using automated sump pumps and controllers.

This experiment uses 60 percent less labor and the fertilizers used in the experiment were cut in half.

The media is a silica sand that is prewashed. This crop is gloxinia, but the same research has been done on poinsettias, gerberas, cyclamen and will include cineraria.

National Floriculture Forum - Good times

There's always a lot to learn when touring with a group of professors. Thanks to this year's National Floriculture Forum in Raleigh, N.C., I am now aware I have a serious Moon Pie addiction.

I also learned that Tony Avent is a pretty cool guy. He’s president of Plant Delights, the mail order perennials breeder/grower. The company T-shirt says it all (see photo). Tony is a fun guy. His sense of humor shines through his catalog. The company's niche is unique plants – lots of trillium, especially. The grower’s gardens are situated around a house, so visitors during the company’s open house can see what the great varieties would look like at home.

Tony told us sales of agaves have skyrocketed with the drought going on in the Southeast. Plant Delights is keeping up with those consumer trends by digging up and replanting its garden beds at least every ten years.

There are some really cool plants to see here. Click here to check out photos.