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

                                                            

According to Ben Bailey, the weather guy on chanel 2, it is officially the dog days of summer. And what does a nurseryman do when the temperatures rise and sales slow down? Well he goes on vacation of course. Unfortunately, I can't tell you where I'm going, because if I do then everyone will want to go there, and they'll also bring with them their sundry bacterias and viruses and crass midwestern folkways, thus destroying the delicate cultural and ecological balance I will be fortunate enough to enjoy. I will tell you this though, I wont be at the top of the food chain,and the prospect of becomming dinner for a large predaciuos carnivore is a bit unnerving. 

                                                                   

So I need to ask all you landscapers a favor. I'm concerned that my absence will go unnoticed by my coworkers, and equally or maybe even more importantly, my boss. (who, by the way bares a slight resemblance to the predaciuos carnivore depicted above. Good thing he doesn't read this blog.) So I need everybody to come to the nursery next week and buy as many plants as you can. If work is a little hard to come by you could always re-landscape your own home. This way, they'll be so busy they'll just keep saying, "gosh, I wish Frankie where here" and they will be very happy to see me when I return.          GENIUS! 

Thanks for reading,

--Frank   

As you may or may not know, my wife does this Q & A article for the Landsculpter. The Landsculpter is the trade publication (magazine) published by the Michigan Green Industry Asscociation (MGIA). I look forward to reading her article each month, well at least the beginning part, I kind of fade when she starts talking about plants.

As the guy who usually answers the phone around here, I get asked a lot of questions too. I thought it'd be fun to do my own little Q & A but the Landsculpter wants nothing to do with me...... Good thing I've got this blog.

These are actual questions that I've recently received;

Q: "What size globes do you guys got ?"

Now I've been doing this plant buying and selling thing for a long time so I was pretty sure he was either referring to yews or arborvitae. Thanks to my years of experience and knack for dipolmacy, I was actually able to answer his question after asking a couple of questions myself. Do ya think this same person would call the hardware store and ask, "What size pipes you guys got?"

A: 24" (he was looking for Woodward globe arborvitae)

Q: "Where is the nearest laundry mat?"

You may be wondering, what does this have to do with the nursery/landscape business? My answer to that would be a lot actually. This customer obviously feels comfortable enough to call us for this information (I'm flattered). Think about it, this question is akin to calling your favorite Chinese restaurant to ask them where the nearest bowling alley is. I like to think we maintain a good relationship with our customers, this question confirms it.

A: Pontiac trail and Reynolds Sweet, right next to Hungry Howie's

Q: "Do you have the same Japanese maples as Christensen's?"

Where this question seams simple and benign, it actually is a bit complex and has more layers then a giant vidalia onion.
First off, this is Christensen's, Christensen's inc. is the legal name of Rushton Farms, Rushton Farms is our DBA (doing business as). That's why, here at the farm, we refer to "Christensen's" as "the Plant Center" and at the Plant Center, they refer to Rushton Farms as "the farm".       I told ya          I don't even want to go into the differences in Japanese maple varieties, different sizes, and vendors. Like I said at the beginning of this post, I kind of fade when the talk turns to plants. So I answerd thusly....

A: No

Well, that was kind of fun, and, I don't mind saying so myself, I think I did a pretty good job. (Look out Kim) 

                                                                      

           We will be closed July 4th, 5th, and 6th, to celebrate our nation's birthday!

I don't have any big plans myself, but I'm sure there'll be some of this.



Please have a safe holiday weekend, and don't forget to wear your sunscreen.

--Frank

So I'm sitting at my desk eating my lunch (home made pizza with mushrooms and black olives) and I hear the following conversation taking place at the write up counter....

Customer: "You know those little henry itea you have out there?"

CRF sales person: "Yeah"

Customer: "Are they like a Spirea?"

CRF sales person: "Ahhhhh,    they're not a spirea."

Customer: "Do they like full sun?"

CRF sales person: "Are you a landscape contractor?"

At that point I had to take a look, so I got up from my desk, walked around the corner, and pretended I needed something off the counter. (I think it was a pencil.)  As soon as I saw the, so called, customer he was dealing with, I knew this wasn't a landscaper. A well dressed woman in her sixties who looked like she just came from her hair dresser. I am suprised she got three questions before she was asked if she was  landscaper, and it just goes to show how much patience our sales guys have. 

It turned out that she is the Mom of one of our customers and her son just did not have time to come in with her. (understandable) She had already gatherd up some plants, so we told her that we would sell them to her this time but in the future she will have to have her son accompany her.

So, what's the moral to this story? Well there's two actually.

1) We are wholesale only! Some examples of a wholesale customer are; Landscape contractor, Nursery or Garden center, University, Municipality.

2) If you are one of our customers, and you're at our nursery and see some activity that looks "retail", it may not be. It's probaly just someone's Mom, the owners dentist, or the daughter of the guy that owns the big landscape arcitechture firm in town.

We are diligent about keeping "home owners" out of the nursery. So if you're a new customer visiting the nursery for the first time, you can expect a few questions from us about your business. We are just trying to protect you.

If you're a home owner looking to save some money on your own landscaping.......don't bother

Stella Dora is a cookie...


      

They are really good with a glass of ice cold milk, or I like to enjoy mine with a steamy cup of good strong black coffee. Unfortunately, we don't have any Stella Dora cookies.

Stella D' Oro is a daylily



Stella D' Oro is Italian for "star of gold" nice eh? it is pronounced stella day odo, you roll the r so it sounds kind of like a d.

We do have a lot of Stella D' Oro daylilies, and a bunch of other varieties too.

The latin word for daylily is Hemerocallis (hemmer o kalis) It is Greek for beautiful for a day. This is some cool stuff that you can share with your customers and they'll think you've really got it goin on. Which, of course, if you're a customer of Rushton Farms, you do have it "goin on".

            

Well alright! It's finally spring!

We've been busy getting trees dug and collected up out of the fields.  potting the bare root plants, and getting the irrigation up and running. Plants came through the winter well and we've got a lot of inventory right now. Frost laws should be comming off next week so things should really start happening. We are open for business and are keeping regular spring hours, Hope to see ya soon.