Nomenclature is a term that applies to either a list of names and/or terms, or to the system of principles, procedures and terms related to naming- which is the assigning of a word or phrase to a particular object or property.

Having said that, lets talk about roses. If you ask us for a Knockout that's what you're gonna get. "knockout" rose IS THE SINGLE RED!!  If you want a Double Knockout then that's what you should ask for, "Double Knockout" If you want a Pink Knockout, then ask for a "Pink Knockout", If you want a Double Pink Knockout, guess what? Ask for a "Double Pink Knockout"  Blushing Knockout = Blushing Knockout, Sunny Knockout = Sunny Knockout.  Okay, so one more time "Knockout" is the single red. If you're still confused you can study up here 

As long as where talking about names WE ARE CHRISTENSEN"S The official, legal name of Rushton Farms is Christensen's Inc. Our DBA (doing business as) is Christensen's Rushton Farms, that's kind of a mouthfull so we just go by Rushton Farms. I, and many others, call the other place "The Plant Center", because it's full name is Christensen's Plant Center. Admittedly, the Plant Center has clung to the "Christensen's" part of their name a lot more than we have, which kind of makes the employee's email addresses a little long.  

New Arriva! 

Not quite what you may think......Last week a customer, we'll say her name is Ella, called me to place an order for a pick up that afternoon (yup, we're kind of like a delicatessen that way) I didn't think much of it when she didn't show up to get her plants.  As I was leaving for the day, I remember hearing a siren kind of close.  The next day when Ella came in to get her boxwood she explained to me why she wasn't able to pick them up the previous night. It seems that Ella's daughter, who was with her at the time, and very pregnant, decided right then, while Ella was ordering boxwood from me, to have her baby. Apparently the little bugger was born just down the road from us. Anyway, the new mother asked her Mum (Ella) "Mama, what was the name of that man you where just taliking to?"  (said with kind of a southern draw) Ella replied "Frankie" (I get that distinction cause my bosses name is also Frank) The new mother says "That's what I'm gonna name my baby! Frankie!"  So there ya go, a new arrival and he's kind of named after me! 
True Story 

Now Please enjoy this slideshow of a few new arrivals at the nursery

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We as an industry should be greatful for the fact that folks don't want to see the over weight guy next door shirtlessly bouncing along on his mower. And most people don't want to be gawked at while grilling small farm animals in their backyards. We have sold a lot of plants because folks just don't want to look at their neighbors.

  

So for this reason we at Rushton Farms have grown some Neighbor Blockers (Thuja occedentalis Nigra) Also known as, American Dark Green Arborvitae, White Cedar, Nigras, or , as I like to call em, Big Ass Arbs.



The Arbs pictured range from 8-9' to 11-12' the 11-12' are 6' wide at their widest point. Please call for pricing

It is time once again for me to stretch, yawn, scratch my belly and think about crawling out of my cave and getting something to eat. Fat stores are getting pretty low ya know (I wish).  So as of today, St Patrick's day, We have started to remove the poly from the poly houses. If you would like some free poly, come on in and get it! If you know of someplace that would recycle this stuff call me! 248-437-1730

We are still working winter hours, 8-4, however we will be in this Monday 3/21 (we don't work Mondays in the winter so this is actually news worthy)

Frost laws are still on, it's a muddy mess out there, and we're expecting rain early next week. But  If you are not discouraged by that and have a burning desire to plant some trees and shrubs or maybe spread some nice fresh mulch, well, we have plenty of both. Really, we do.

We over wintered a whole nursery full of stuff like Roses, Perennials, Flowering Shrubs, Evergreen Trees, Shade Trees, Grasses, Ground Covers, Arborvitae, Yews, Boxwood, Hydrangeas, well, you get the idea. All available right now.

I've got a good feeling about his year, not great, just good 

Since about the end of October I've been asked the following questions at least ten times a day...every day

Do you still have plants available?
Have you ever been here? Where would they have gone? We have hundreds of thousands of plants....all of the time.

When are you going to close for the season?
This is actually a good question. the answer is, I don't know. Okay, I can do a little better than that. It depends mostly on the weather. We need to get our lines blown out before it freezes, A lot of our electric valves are above ground and if the temputures are below freezing, it makes blowing out the lines very difficult. Once the lines are blown out, we have to cover. We'll still sell you plant though, we've devised an ingenious way to get into our houses once they are sealed up. After the first week of December we take a little time off, we return in the begining of January, but that's to go to the GLTE in Grand Rapids.

Can I get a better price on this because it's the end of the season?
I have a very short answer for this. NO,  If you're into gimmicks (promotions, specials, sales) whatever you want to call it, we are not the place for you. If you want  ligitimate wholesale pricing, everyday, without any smoke and mirrors, I think you'll quite happy with our regular prices.
 
I would like to offer you this challenge
Take your plant list for your next job and use our catalog (Rushton Farms) to figure your cost. Then take any other wholesaler in the area and do the same. Figure in all of their discounts, specials, promotions, and any other gimmick that they can think of to trick you into buying your plants from them. If we're not less than they are I'll buy you a pop out of our vending machine (if it's working)

                             ( Glowing Embers, Nikko Blue, Bluebird)

I have this 15 year old son that plays football and wrestles for South Lyon High School. I like to take an active role in his activities so I got involved with the boosters. What I do for the wrestling boosters is I take pictures of the matches then I upload them to a photo sharing web-site for the parents to download. I also send a couple of pics and a little story to the local paper once a week. Parents love seeing their kid's picture in the paper.

So I got this great idea, I could do the same thing for the nursery,  So this first album I'm going to share is a bunch of recent nursery pictures that I had in my computer. Here's how it works, click on the link, then click on the "slide show button" (upper left corner) then click the play button. The pictures will change every three seconds, you can also manually scroll through. So without any further ado,
http://picasaweb.google.com/Rushtonfarms/NurseryPics?authkey=Gv1sRgCISM-f_GzLD0pQE#

I'm a very fortunate guy because I'm one of the few that actually likes winter. It's just so peaceful, calm, and relaxing. I like sleeping in til about 8:00, sipping on some good strong coffee, and watching the birds in the bird feeder. I might take a trip to the market, come home, put on some jazz, open a bottle of wine, and cook up some osso bucco, or maybe beef bourguignon. You know, a nice hardy, winter kind of dish. I get angry at the weather man when he talks jealously about the weather their having in Florida, or says stuff like "only two more months until the first day of spring" What makes him think I'm in a big rush for spring?

It's not like I don't work at all, I do, I'd go crazy if I didn't, but it's just me and the owner of the business, and he and I are very like minded when it comes to winter. So we work 8-4 four days a week.  We are closed for the last three weeks of December and the first week of January for the holidays. I also take a week off in February while my son is out of school for mid winter break, It's a nice schedule.

Well we held off calling in the guys for as long as we could. Winter haters rejoice, spring is here.
The frost laws are coming off, we're digging trees, potting plants, and starting to sell a few things. I have to say, I don't think things are going to be as bad as we all thought they where going to be. I'm not expecting to set any records this year, but I think we'll do, um, okay.



We are loaded with plants and ready to go



Something new I'm going to try this year is to keep an inventory and e-mailit out once a month. It will look something like this...

Variety	Qty	Gal
Amelanchier Laevis	150	7
Aronia Black	400	5
Aronia Red	450	5
Azalea Exbury	10	5
Azalea Exbury (ast varieties)	90	7
Berberis Crimson Pygmy	3642	3
Berberis Rose Glow	350	3
Buxus Green Mountain	1885	3
Buxus Green Velvet	4602	3
Buxus Winter Gem	5660	3
Campsis Balboa Sunset	30	5
Caryopteris Dark Knight	50	3
Chaenomeles Texas Scarlet	150	3
Chamaecyparis Goldmop	200	3
Chamaecyparis Sungold	275	3
Clethra Hummingbird	250	3
Clethra Ruby Spice	150	3
Clethra Sixteen Candles	50	3
Cornus Kelsey	40	3
Cornus racemosa	65	3
Cornus Redtwig	980	5
Cornus Variegated Redtwig	150	5
Cornus Yellowtwig	80	5
Corylus americana	45	5
Cotoneaster apiculatus	1360	3
Cotoneaster divaricatus	10	5
Cotoneaster Tom Thumb	30	3
Deutzia gracillis	240	3
Euonymus Burning bush	7000	5
Euonymus Greenlane	100	3
Euonymus Sunspot	700	3
Forsythia Bronx	10	3
Forsythia Lynwood	620	5
Forsythia suspensa	30	5
Hydrangea Annabelle	650	3
Hydrangea Climbing	20	3
Hydrangea Limelight	60	5
Hydrangea Oakleaf	80	5
Hydrangea Pee Gee	65	5
Hydrangea Tardiva	225	5
Ilex g. Shamrock	550	3
Ilex v. Afterglow	45	5
Ilex v. Jim Dandy	22	5
Ilex v. Red Sprite	200	5
Ilex v. Southern Gentleman	35	5
Ilex v. Sparkleberry	50	5
Ilex v. Winter Red	250	5
Itea Henry's Garnet	440	3
Itea Little Henry	200	3
Juniper Andorra	460	3
Juniper Blue Carpet	50	3
Juniper Blue Rug	798	3
Juniper Blue Star	1482	3
Juniper Broadmoor	875	3
Juniper Buffalo	1600	3
Juniper Calgary Carpet	140	3
Juniper Gold Coast	2100	3
Juniper Grey Owl	1830	3
Juniper Grey Owl	1075	3
Juniper Hughes	350	3
Juniper Kallay Compact	920	3
Juniper Procumbens Nana	900	3
Juniper Sargent Green	711	3
Juniper Seagreen	700	3
Kerria j. Pleniflora	70	3
Ligustrum Cheyene	200	3
Ligustrum Vicary	500	3
Lindera benzoin	330	3
Lonicera Clavey Dwarf	100	5
Physocarpus Diablo	135	5
Physocarpus Summer Wine	50	5
Picea Alberta	170	7
Picea Alberta	340	5
Picea Bird's Nest Spruce	735	3
Pinus Mugo pumilo	460	3
Potentilla Abbotswood	20	3
Potentilla Goldfinger	1350	3
Prunus Cistena	1055	5
Rhus aromatica	20	5
Rhus Grow low	30	3
Rhus Grow Low BI	40	3
Rhus Staghorn	50	5
Ribes alpinum	275	3
Ribes Green Mound	300	3
Salix Dwarf Arctic	125	3
Sambucus canadensis	50	5
Spirea Anthony Waterer	1850	3
Spirea Dolchica	100	3
Spirea Froebelii	1690	3
Spirea Goldflame	2210	3
Spirea Goldmound	895	3
Spirea Little Princess	1600	3
Spirea Magic Carpet	900	3
Spirea Neon Flash	780	3
Spirea Shirobana	450	3
Spirea Vanhoute	300	5
Syringa Dwarf Korean	1345	5
Syringa James Macfarland	65	5
Syringa Ludwig Spaeth	250	5
Syringa Miss Kim	1370	5
Taxus Densiformis	500	5
Taxus Emerald Spreader	30	5
Taxus Hicks	450	5
Thuja Emerald Green	360	5
Thuja Hetz Midget	150	5
Vib Burkwood	100	3
Vib dentatum	825	5
Vib dentatum Blue Muffin	250	5
Vib dentatum Chicago Luster	400	5
Vib Juddi	75	7
Vib lantana Mohican	300	5
Vib Lentago	150	5
Vib trilobum Bailey Compact	20	5
Vib trilobum Redwing	15	5
Weigela Java Red	225	5
Weigela Midnight Wine	250	3
Weigela Minuet	120	3
Weigela Red Prince	320	5
Weigela Variegated	40	5
Weigela Wine and Rose	1000	5

So if you're ready to start landscaping, and ya need some plants, swing on by, it'd be great to see ya. Also, if you'd like me to e-mail you our availability, go to the contact page of the web site and send me an e-mail. Or just call.

It was just one year ago I put up a post about how we (Rushton Farms) continue to bring in new plants late into the season. This current post just proves that nobody reads this blog. I can't tell you how many calls I've received in the last couple of weeks from customers and potential customers wondering if we "still" have any of these or "still" have any of those. What do you mean "still"? If we run out, we get more. Why should October be any different then June? October is a big month and in order to maintain that we need plants to sell. This week, the week of 10/20, I have four trucks comming in with plants like 4-5' Emerald Greens, 6-7' Nigras, 18-24" Hicks and Densiformis. There are also 15-18" and 18-24" Green velvet boxwood, Rhododendron, Climbing Hydrangea, Fragrant viburnums, pieris japonica and a bunch more stuff, and that's just this week! Look, this is a serious opperation, we see on average 30-40 landscapers a day, these guy's jobs are hard enough these days they don't need their suppliers making it harder by cutting back on inventory just because it's late in the season. As the buyer here I feel a responsibility to have plants available when they need them.

I like to compare us to a really busy delicatessen, our product is always fresh, always good, and lots of variety. And it's you the landscaper, our customers, that makes this possible, if it weren't for you buying from us, we would look like the other nurseries this time of the year, with a limited variety of tired looking plants. (Or a deli with grey lunch meat) 

I had a difficult time putting together the Friday fun quiz last week with all those hyperlinks and all so I thought we could exercise our brains a different way by learning some facts about plants we use everyday. Today we'll do Boxwood, A plant that we sell a real lot of.

Various medicaments have been extracted from the leaves of Boxwood. These potions where employed mostly by quacks and physician wanna-bees and almost always had a negative result. As late as the 19th century a concoction derived from boxwood leaves was recomended for leprosies. (I thought they just shipped them all to an island someplace and let nature take it's course) The leaves in fact yield an extract called buxine which was used during WWII as a narcotic, sedative, and to get someone to puke.

One of the Quacks from the ignorant ages suggested that if you boil boxwood leaves and dust from the wood in lye, the rusulting potion will grow hair. There is a story about a young woman who lost all of her hair due to "milignant Dysentary" (whatever the hell that is) She washed her head in the stuff and grew "a fine mane of chestnut locks". Unfortunately for her, but fortunate for us, cause this parts funny. She lacked the foresight to protect her face and neck and ended up looking like an ape. (Ha!)

Boxwood are poisonous to camels (that's good to know) and the stupid creatures love them, and in parts of persia where boxwood are abundent the caravans have to be restricted to horese, mules, or oxen. (or so it is said)

Here at Rushton Farms we sell more than 20,000 boxwood every year.

Have a nice weekend

--Frank
                                                                                  

I made it through my great wilderness oddesey unscathed. While I did not have any confrontations with grizzly bears or mountain lions, I did get charged by the much feared pica. Turns out his charge was a bluff so no physical harm came to me, however emotionally I was rattled. I could not get this fearsome creature's attack out of my head and for the remainder of the trip I was on red level Pica alert.

My time spent in the wilds got me thinking about what it would take to survive out there without one of those big boxes of wine and a cooler full of tortellini, cheese, and buffalo sausage. So one of the first things I did when I got back was purchase a book about edible wild plants. I was shocked at how many edible plants we grow right here at Rushton Farms! So for the rest of the season I will not be bringing a lunch to work. I'll be foraging for my lunch out in the container blocks.

Before I list some of the plants that I'll be dining on, I want to tell you that not all of the parts of all of the plants on the following list are edible. So if you eat the wrong thing and get sick, don't come crying to me, I'm by no means an expert on the subject. (I just bought the book two days ago)

Daylilies (unopend flower buds are yummy)
Serviceberry (amelanchier)
Elderberry (sambucus)
Nannyberry (Viburnum lentago)
Bunchberry (cornus canadensis)
Sweetgum (the dried sap makes good chewing gum)
Dandelion (we don't grow these on purpose, but there's a few out there)
Bayberry (myrica)
Crabapples (these are a little tough to eat all by themselves)
Oak (acorns)
Sumac (rhus)
Highbush Cranberry (viburnum trilobum)
Roses (rosa)
Spice bush (lindera)
Ostrich fern (fiddle heads)
Redbud (cercis, you can eat the young seed pods)
Hackberry (sugary pulp is delicious)

It's good to know that if things get really bad, I've got a virtual grocery store of edible plants right outside my office door.

Happy foraging

--Frank