Why buying locally grown matters
That Arborvitae in your cart at the chain home-improvement store may look beautiful today. But we know from experience it will likely be brown and dead by next summer.
Many commercial nurseries that supply chain stores produce plants far from the Inland Northwest inside large greenhouses in California and the Midwest. Often chemically treated to maintain their luster through shipping and the first spring-summer of planting, once they experience a full season they are completely out of their element.
Our selection, growing climate, and process ensures that our plants are ready to thrive from the moment you put them in the ground.
Stronger, Naturally
Our location on the West Plains truly represents the conditions plants in our area experience long-term.
The long summer sun and strong northern winter winds that shape our nursery allow us to ensure your ornamental can flourish in every season and exposure the Inland Northwest has to offer.
Local Roots
Ever noticed how plants from chain stores are grown in a lightweight mulch or coconut fiber to save on shipping? And the container is packed densely with small hair-like water roots? Though green and leafy, the plant has almost no central taproot or thick root body underneath?
This creates problems for plants trying to establish themselves in the variety of soils found in your yard or greenspace. With so little infrastructure underground, it is a struggle for them to expand and hold onto minerals and sugars to endure long Inland Northwest winters and dry summers.
For plants we grow in containers, we hand-mix a locally sourced soil rich in clays, sand, and organic matter. This replicates the challenging environments our plants encounter after they leave the nursery, building strong central root systems and ensuring they will be as healthy above ground as they are below.
As our nursery continues to expand we are developing a technique using scion groves - allowing our plants to develop together in their natural level of sun exposure and alluvial, rocky, or dense clay soils. This ensures plants can establish quickly after transplanting without the environmental impact of field clearing for row-grown trees.
Our nursey avoids the use of pearlite to amend and loosen container soils. Pearlite is strip-mined from volcanic beds and often shipped from overseas creating a significant carbon footprint, and as it breaks down the dust enters the local ecosystem and is a known danger to fish. As an alternative we use the cast-off hulls of rice, a natural biodegradable agricultural waste product abundant inside the United States.