GROWING FLOWERS AND TREES

Craig Canoyer from Canoyer Country Greenhouse was the guest speaker on 7 June.  They now have 60,000 square feet of greenhouses in three locations, covering about 1.5 acres.

They don’t grow anything from seed, because seeds don’t have the quality of cuttings because they can cross pollinate.  They produce 30,000 cuttings for geraniums and about 250,000 plants each year.  They have 26 varieties of geraniums and 250 different annuals.

Craig said that they use cuttings to start trees.  It takes one year to root a tree cutting in a sand bed with a mist on a timer.  They start about 300 trees each year.

Rose cuttings are only half as hardy as root division for new roses.  They use root division.

The nursery sells 10,000 hanging baskets each year.  All plants they sell are patented, so they pay a royalty for each plant cutting they create.

In trees, the Austin Blaze Maple is their most popular tree now.  Bayer is expected to produce a chemical next year that will kill the Ash Tree borer next year, but no one is buying Ash trees now.