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.
