What’s Growing On?
May 1, 2023
So What’s Growing On at Greenstreet?
Published May 1, 2023
May 1st is here. There is still some planting going on, but the majority of the work in wholesale is moving plants. Plants have been getting moved from planting lines to benches to houses and finally outside. Even once set down in a house, they often get moved once or twice – as some things ship out, and small spaces open in various areas, plants get moved to consolidate and create larger open spaces – only to be filled within 30 minutes by another set of plants.
Another significant group of plants getting moved around are all the tropicals. Over the past 4 weeks, at least 7 trucks (large 18-wheelers) have arrived loaded with tropical plants from Florida. Each time a truck arrives, the crew first has to move anything and everything out of the loading dock to make room for the new material. Then the truck gets unloaded. These plants do not arrive in boxes, on carts, or on pallets that can be rolled off the trucks. Every plant in a pot larger than 6 inches has to be carried off the truck manually – one at a time. It can take hours with many people helping to get everything off a truck. And then each item needs to have the brown paper wrap removed to identify the plant and get a label on It. At first, the plants are packed tightly together to make sure everything gets off the truck. Then the plants get moved again to be spread out. And many get moved again to be placed outside before the next truck arrives.
This is a prime example of why teamwork and communication are important in any operation, and our team is one of the best.
What’s Growing On?
April 15, 2023
So What’s Growing On at Greenstreet?
Published April 15, 2023
Planting, planting, planting…. Lots of that going on at the wholesale farm. Since January 1st, we have had more than 3 million plants ship into our facilities, either as unrooted cuttings (URC) or as plugs.
For the last few weeks, we have been planting the summer annuals into 4-inch, 4.5-inch, and 6-inch pots. The 4-inch and 4.5-inch pots are planted as one plant per pot – and that means a lot of pots. Lots of pots mean lots of trays. The trays and pots arrive to us packaged separately, so before planting anything, the trays have to be stacked with empty pots. That alone keeps an entire team of staff working nonstop when planting is taking place.
Once planted, the trays need a place to be set down where they can get sunlight and be watered. The Greenstreet farm is not large enough to accommodate everything we plant in the spring, so we rent space at three additional farms. After planting the plants at our own facilities, they are loaded onto carts, rolled onto the Greenstreet trucks, and shipped to these other farms. Every tray on each cart is counted before it leaves Greenstreet – varieties & colors are tracked so we know exactly which flowers are at which farm.
These last few weeks planting has been taking place 7 days a week – including this recent Easter Sunday. During these weeks of high-volume planting, the biggest challenges are running out of pots to plant into and running out of empty carts. Some days when a truck returns from delivering to a farm, our staff is already waiting for the empty carts. When that truck pulls into the loading dock the entire team pitches in for a “quick turn” – everyone lines up to pull the empty carts off the truck to get them to the planting line and get the next batch of full carts onto the truck so there is room in the loading dock to load more full carts.
At this time we have 11,019 trays at one farm in Western Maryland, another 12,321 trays at a farm in Southern Maryland, and 19,001 trays at a farm across the Bay Bridge on the Eastern Shore. Our drivers have been putting in some long hours to get these plants wherever they need to go, and in about a week or so we will reverse the process to bring them all back.
This past week, our team also make a HUGE donation to our local schools! Over a thousand Simply Salad Mix plants were donated to Lothian Elementary, Tracey’s Elementary, and Deale Elementary – students from each school were given a plant to take home & plant for themselves. We hope this will encourage some of the children in our community to start their interest in gardening young and to grow something themselves that can be enjoyed by everyone over the summer!
What’s Growing On?
August 30, 2022
So What’s Growing On at Greenstreet?
Published August 30, 2022
Summer is officially coming to a close and we’re full speed ahead with fall and winter plantings! Just a quick overview of what we’ve been planting so far of the past few weeks:
- We have planted 4 crops of sunflowers – some are 10-inch pots and some 7-inch. The first ones are showing are blooming and have been sent to our retail stores for customers.
- We planted 1 crop of ornamental peppers this year. Many are showing fruit but will have more color in a few weeks. Those will start arriving at sores soon.
- We planted 2 crops of Celosia (Intemz & Twisted). The first crop will hopefully be heading to our stores in a couple of weeks.
- We planted some ornamental Millet and this year we will plant some Mustard greens for fall décor. These will all start to arrive in stores in a few weeks.
- Over 8,000 ornamental Kale/Cabbage have been planted in 9-inch pots.
- At least 500 10-inch hanging baskets have been planted with Cool Wave pansies.
- All 25,000+ 9-inch mums have been set in their growing area and are filling out nicely.
- The poinsettias have all been planted into their grow pots.
But the big fun is just getting started. Over the next four weeks, more than 1.1 million pansy/viola plugs will ship in for us to plant into 4-inch and 6-inch pots. We will ease into the chaos with just 132,720 plants arriving for planting into 4-inch pots and 804s first, and many more to follow.
Last Tuesday morning, the big “pansy field” next to our greenhouse was empty. But by the end of the day Friday it was packed with over 8,000 trays of pansy and viola pots. Almost 190,000 plants were planted into 6-inch pots, set on carts, moved to the field, and set down one at a time. This morning the crew will start on the 99,000 plants scheduled to plant into the 4-inch pots.
During this time, our team has pinched back every single poinsettia plant in the 10-inch and 8-inch pots. The 10-inch pots have 4 plants each and the 8-inch pots have 3 plants each. With 2,000 10-inch pots and 2,200 8-inch pots, that means they pinched 14,600 plants. And then they proceeded to start planting some fall combo plants to ship to stores in time for the Labor Day Weekend.
Our first crop of Sunflowers made it to the stores for this weekend. We expect to have a new crop each of the next 3 weeks. A few mums are starting to crack open, but most won’t be ready for a few weeks. We will get a few early ones out as soon as they are ready.
What’s Growing On?
July 20, 2022
So What’s Growing On at Greenstreet?
Published July 20, 2022
Fall is approaching quicker than you know! We have started on our mum production and finding the right amount of room can be a challenge! Our fall 9-inch mums were planted in one area close together to make planting, tagging, fertilizing, and watering as efficient as possible. Now those mums are getting moved and spread out in other locations on the farm to give them room to grow.
For the past 10 days, the wholesale crew has been prepping various fields around the farm: mowing the grass short, laying LOTS of black ground cover, installing pipes to run water to the irrigation lines, and running miles of black irrigation tubing. The mums then get placed on a wagon cart by hand, moved to those locations, set down by hand, and then meticulously placed under a hole in the tubing to get the drip irrigation.
The crew has been working steadily through these hot humid days. They have moved about 8,000 mums so far – almost 1/3 of the crop. This year we will have over 25,000 9in mums. 54 different varieties across 7 different colors: 5 varieties of Bronze, 10 Orange, 6 Pink, 7 Purple, 8 Red, 7 White, and 11 yellow. Different varieties will bloom at different times – based on their genetics. When they bloom will be driven by the days getting shorter and cooler. Some are categorized as early blooming – others mid-season and others late. Even if planted early or later than others – they will bloom when their genetics tells them to.
Among the early bloomers – there are many whites and yellows. Very few purples or oranges. The bronzes, reds, and oranges come strong mid-season. The late season also has more oranges and purples, along with yellows. This year we are trying a couple of new purples and oranges that should bloom earlier and a new pink and a new red that should bloom late season.
Here’s to a successful mum crop this fall season!
What’s Growing On?
July 18, 2022
So What’s Growing On at Greenstreet?
Published July 18, 2022
Wow. What a year so far. The intensity of the past spring has begun to wane, but the wholesale crew has already been busy getting ready for fall. In the past 2 weeks, 25,509 pots for 9-inch mums have been filled with soil, moved to the field, placed in rows, planted with 1 plant each, fertilized, and given a tag.
2,176 more mums have been planted into 6-inch pots and another 3,120 mums into 4.5-inch pots. We have also planted 1,552 ornamental peppers into 6-inch pots, and another 3,840 into 4.5-inch pots. While that’s a LOT of plants, we’re also trying new things! This year we will have a few crops of sunflowers; the first crop of 10-inch pots and 7-inch pots (just over 100 pots of each) were planted this week.
While the planting is going on, we are also still sticking cuttings for shipment to Ball Seed customers. Our largest shipment was 30,000 mums to a customer in Hopkinsville, Kentucky last month. And this week we shipped out our first crop of poinsettias to Illinois. It’s hard to believe that we’re already thinking of the holiday season.
Our fall and winter catalog is now available online – check out our online pdf here. Now’s the perfect time to start planning your fall plantings and holiday décor!
What’s Growing On?
February 6, 2022
So What’s Growing On at Greenstreet?
Published February 6, 2022
Mother Nature is keeping our native plants in dormancy right now, but Greenstreet Wholesale is busy growing all kinds of things. Since Jan 1st, more than a quarter of a million unrooted cuttings have shipped into Greenstreet Growers. They arrive via FedEx or UPS in small plastic baggies, 100 cuttings per bag. Our crew plants each cutting one at a time into a plug tray – this is known as “sticking” the cuttings. Most of these cuttings go into 102 plug trays – a tray with 102 cells for planting. Others will go into 50 cell plug trays. Each tray is given a label to correctly identify the variety as well as the week the plants were “stuck” and the week they will be ready to ship out or transplant. Not all plants have the same growth schedule. Many items need 4 to 5 weeks to root out in the plug tray, but some items like Duranta need 8 weeks and many Coleus only need 3 weeks to be ready.
In addition to sticking the unrooted cuttings, wholesale has transplanted over 10,550 plugs of begonias, portulaca, vinca, and a few other plants into slightly larger plug trays. Many plugs arrive in 288 or 512 trays (288 plants per 11″ x 21.5” tray or 512 plants per 11” x 21.5” tray). Most of these plugs get transplanted in 50 cell trays – 50 plugs per 11” x 21.5” tray. 3700 Canna Cannova seeds have been planted by our team into 50 cell trays. They will be transplanted to 1-gallon pots soon.
There are 19,050 geraniums sitting in our main greenhouse right now – waiting to be transplanted. They will go into hanging baskets, 8″ pots, 6″ pots, and many 4.5″ pots.
For more immediate use, more than 80,000 plugs of pansies, violas, snapdragons, and dianthus have been planted into 804 cell packs, 4″ pots, and 6″ pots. Those will be ready to arrive in the stores in early March.
1218 Hydrangeas arrived a couple of weeks ago. Our crew transplanted them into slightly larger pots and got them individually labeled.
More than 1300 perennial plugs have shipped in the last 2 weeks. The Greenstreet crew have planted some into quart containers, but most are going into 1-gallon pots. Every single one is hand-potted, labeled, and given a price sticker.
The succulent team has been very busy planting hundreds (maybe thousands?) of baby succulents – of all different shapes and colors.
January is probably the closest Wholesale comes to a “slow period”. For the next 10 weeks, the volume and the pace will continue to increase.
What’s Growing On?
January 11, 2022
So What’s Growing On at Greenstreet?
Published January 11, 2022
The fall and holiday seasons have flown by and the wholesale crew continues to be hard at work. The mums planted in the 9-inch pots last summer sold well throughout the fall season – we had an increase in sales over the 2019 season (before COVID hit us); 80% of those mums were shipped out to commercial landscape customers and the remainder were sold through our retail centers.
Pansy and viola sales were also strong this year, and they have not stopped. We will ship out the last 35 trays of 6 inch yellow violas to a customer tomorrow morning! While pansies and violas are always the most dependable annual, their popularity is spiking among customers planting their own gardens.
The poinsettia crop was a great one this year. Sales in 4.5-inch and 6.5-inch were a bit lower than previous years, but 8-inch sold out and 10-inch sales were up from the past 2 years – guess that means consumers are looking for bigger poinsettias in their homes during the holidays season.
As the fall sales wound down, we began to see exciting upgrades to our greenhouses. New plastic roofs were installed by our wholesale managers and their team. That crew is quite efficient at removing the old roofs, pulling on the new poly film, and making it secure. Additionally, new Polycarbonate walls are getting installed by Greenstreet’s facility team. The results are already amazing.
Even before the Holiday sales were in full swing, our Liners business began to pick up for the Spring 2022 season. Unrooted cuttings have been arriving for planting into plug trays. In the month of December, we had over 61,300 unrooted cuttings arrive via express shipping – most of them from Central America. Our crew has planted them into plug trays or into an oasis medium. Furthermore, our team has also been taking cuttings of many non-patented items that we propagate on-site – such as Lysimachia, Marguerite Potato vine, Lantana New Gold, and more.
In the main office, we have officially completed our 2022 Spring/Summer Wholesale Catalog and sent it to the printer – copies should be here soon! If you can’t wait til then, download a pdf copy from our website.
This may be the closest Wholesale comes to having a “slow” season – but they are already gearing up a spring season that will be here all too soon.
What’s Growing On?
October 1, 2021
So What’s Growing On at Greenstreet?
Published October 1, 2021
Summer is officially over and we are running full blast into fall. After various setbacks with soil delivery delays and machinery breaking down, the last of the 6″ pansies and violas were finally planted last Saturday.
More than 200,000 6″ pots, and 500,000 4″ pots have been planted by our crew. Already the first crops are looking fabulous and they are shipping out to customers from Delaware to Pennsylvania to Virginia to DC and across Maryland.
Even before the last pansies were planted, the crew had begun work on spacing out the large poinsettias. The 8″ and 10″ poinsettias had been kept in close quarters for the last few weeks to facilitate watering and pinching back. Now that they are really starting to grow, they need more space. All of Greenhouse 20 will be used to accommodate the large poinsettias. Each potted plant is set on an inverted black pot that gives it a little height off the ground to promote a little more air circulation. Each pot is spaced at very specific measurements – in all directions – to allow the maximum number of plants and still be given adequate spacing. After the plants are moved and set, irrigation lines are run and inserted into every pot.
Although we grow many of our wholesale products, there are some items we ship in. In the spring, it is the tropicals – the hibiscus, mandevilla, various palm trees, and more. In the fall, it is evergreens and other shrubs. Yuccas, boxwoods, and a few thujas arrived a few weeks ago. Today our largest fall order arrived from Oregon. More than 1100 items, from 1 gallon to 15 gallons showed up in a big 18-wheeler. It took more than 90 minutes to get those items offloaded with at least 10 people helping move material. All by hand. One at a time.
What’s Growing On?
September 16, 2021
So What’s Growing On at Greenstreet?
Published September 16, 2021
This week, 4,600 4.5″ and 5,000 6″ poinsettias have been trimmed. The 8″ and 10″ poinsettias are showing lots of new growth after their trimming.
Mums are shipping out – 2,641 mums are being delivered tomorrow; 2,486 are going to one customer alone.
Our team member Silvia has been making beautiful combo pots with a mixture of fall annuals with lots of colors.
2,000 kale have been planted in 4.5″ pots.
In the last 4 weeks, we have received 1,174,080 pansy/viola plugs. In a perfect world, we would have had everything planted by now, but delays due to soil machines breaking down, late deliveries of soil, and having all the pots have put us a little behind.
The majority of the 6in pots and trays arrived in July, but we found out 2 weeks ago that 40% of the trays had been back-ordered until November. We managed to track down some additional trays and pots – later in the season we will have some 6in pansies and violas in 6 count trays instead of 8 count trays. But we did get them!
80% of the 4in pots have been planted. About 68% of the 6in have been planted. Currently, there are 98 carts each with 40 trays of newly planted pots in our greenhouse waiting to be set down. This week the crew will be working hard to get the last 250,000 plants into their respective pots.
We hope to see some of the first crops of 4″ pansies ship to the stores this week.
What’s Growing On?
August 30, 2021
So What’s Growing On at Greenstreet?
Published August 30, 2021
The wholesale crew has been a little busy the last 2 weeks. 230,000 pansy/viola plugs have been planted into 4in pots, 172,900 planted into 6in pots, 2600 planted into hanging baskets, 9045 planted into 4.5in pots, and 7750 into 804 cell packs. Another 7560 plugs of ornamental kale and cabbage have been planted into 9in pots.
More than 100 carts were configured to hold 40 trays of pansies each. The carts get loaded with newly planted pots at the planting line, moved to the field or one of the greenhouses, and then unloaded. So far over 30,000 trays have been moved from the planting line and set down, which takes more than 750 carts to move those trays. When the plants grow a bit, all the carts will have to be reconfigured again with fewer shelves and more space in between.
While all this planting has been going on, the 8in and 10in poinsettias all got trimmed by hand. Every single plant was pinched back to promote additional branching. Since there are 3 plants in every 8in pot and 4 plants in every 10in pots, more than 10,000 plants were trimmed.
We also had 4000 unrooted cuttings arrive this past week that were stuck into plug trays. These will be part of our production for spring lantana.
It has been a busy 2 weeks, but we have another 2 (or more…) very busy planting weeks yet to go.
