MLNA 2008 FIELD DAY - June 26th - FREE

The Missouri Landscape & Nursery Association has been busy planning our summer Field Day event for Thursday, June 26th from 9:00 am until 3:00 pm at Forrest Keeling Nursery in Elsberry, Missouri (directions click here.) We will feature industry sponsors and over 75 vendors. Plan to participate in the many events throughout the day, including horse shoe competition, our pond building workshop sponsored by Danner MFG and a eco-patio building demonstration sponsored by Kirchner Block & Brick and Symmetry Landscaping!

FREE Box Lunch - For all MLNA members and their guests. Please RSVP on line today!

Interested in being a Vendor or Sponsor? Download the vendor form now to reserve your space. We will have areas for you to set up and display your products and services.

Forrest Keeling will host this year, demonstrate the installation of a Rain Garden and offer guided tours of their facility!

Thank you to our MLNA FIELD DAY Sponsors: Please visit their websites!

GEORGE'S KAWASAKI AND ATV
HOME NURSERY
DANNER MFG.
FORREST KEELING
GREENLEAF NURSERY
KIRCHNER BLOCK & BRICK
SYMMETRY LANDSCAPING

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SAVE THE DATE!
POWELL GARDENS PROFESSIONAL EVENING

August 21st-more information soon!

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Container Garden Contest April 1 through October 15, Jefferson City MO

PROFESSIONAL CATEGORY


Show off your small garden in a big way by entering the Grow Native! Container Garden Contest.

It’s easy. Send your name, address, e-mail address, telephone number and photos of your container garden (taken throughout the growing season—no more than three) to Grow Native! P.O. Box 630 Jefferson City, MO 65102.
Or enter electronically by sending the same information to grownative@mda.mo.gov.

Also include a list of plants used in the container and their source (retail garden center, neighbor, specialty shop, wherever).
All entries must be postmarked by Wednesday, October 15, 2008.
Three winners will be selected. Each winner will receive a bundle of prizes that include:

• a $100 gift certificate for use at a Grow Native! retail garden center (provided by Kansas City Gardener and The Gateway Gardener),
• copies of Tried and True: Missouri Native Plants for Your Yard, Seedling ID Guide for Native Prairie Plants and Native Landscaping for Wildlife and People
• a Grow Native! gardening wardrobe (hat, apron, t-shirt and vest)
• four free admissions to Powell Gardens or Shaw Nature Reserve
• a profile of you and your container garden in the Kansas City Gardener or The Gateway Gardener and on the Grow Native! Web site.

Containers will be judged on visual appeal, length of bloom time and plant selection (color combinations, textures, heights).
For more information click here

STLCC, Missouri Botanical Garden Partner to Offer Scholarship Program in Horticulture

In an effort to attract a more diverse pool of job seekers to the field of horticulture, the Missouri Botanical Garden has partnered with the St. Louis Community College Foundation to establish a scholarship program in horticulture
The scholarship is renewable each year as long as a student maintains a grade-point average of 2.5 or higher, demonstrates satisfactory academic performance and satisfactory internship performance at the Missouri Botanical Garden.
Additionally, the Missouri Botanical Garden will provide a paid part-time internship to allow students to gain hands-on experience.
"We are delighted to be partnering with the Missouri Botanical Garden," said Paul Pai, STLCC-Meramec president. "St. Louis Community College is committed to providing accessible education to all who can benefit from it. As affordable as we are, many students still need financial assistance, and this new scholarship provides a great opportunity for them to pursue their goals through work and study."
STLCC-Meramec’s program teaches students the science and art of horticulture through a combination of classroom theory, laboratory practice and on-the-job training. Students are trained in the college’s greenhouses, outdoor nursery facilities, laboratories and lath houses.
"Our program graduates find challenging careers in a variety of areas that are both locally and globally relevant," said Paul Roberts, director of Meramec’s horticulture program.
Students may specialize in nursery management, interior landscape design and maintenance, greenhouse management, horticulture retail sales, commercial grounds management and urban forestry. Graduates are trained for jobs with state and city park departments, nurseries, landscape contracting firms, golf courses and retail sales.
For more information click here

Pest Alert: Euonymous scale

Adult females are about 1-2 mm –grey-brown in color, and oystershell in shape. Adult males are smaller, elongate, and white. Crawlers are yellowish-orange and difficult to see clearly without a magnifying lens. Infestations are first visible as yellowish-white spots on the leaves, and heavy infestations can cause a whitewashed appearance on the plant.

All varieties of Euonymous (including Burning Bush, Wintercreeper, and the Variegated Eounymous bushes) are attacked by this insect. Other known hosts are hollies, camellias, privets, honeysuckle, and others. Damage is caused to the plant by piercing-sucking mouth parts of crawlers (nymphs) and adults, and often infest heavily enough to cause leaf drop. Continuous leaf drop leads to the death of the plant.

Fertilized adults will overwinter on the stems, eggs beneath the female shell hatch over several weeks (usually late May-early June) and nymphs disperse by crawling or being blown in the wind. They mature in about 6 weeks, adults produce eggs again, and the second generation crawlers appear in late July-mid August.

Control is best when applied during the crawler stages. Prune and destroy heavily infested plant parts, or remove the entire plant (including roots).

There is also a Winged Euonymous scale which are darker in color, and more closely resemble the oystershell scale. This scale can be found more commonly on E. alatus, E. fortunei, Pachysandra, Salix and Cornus; and had been found attacking the same plants as the Euonymous scale, making identification and control more challenging.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The American Nursery & Landscape Association (ANLA) announces that President Bush signed H.R. 1268, the "Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act," which provides funding for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. This bill also contains the "Save Our Small and Seasonal Businesses Act of 2005," which would provide cap exemptions for service sector guest workers who participated in the H-2B visa program in any of the last three years.
"This legislation was made possible by the tireless grass roots efforts of ANLA members and other service sector employers," said John Meredith, ANLA's director of legislative relations. According to Meredith, "this legislation rewards those firms relying on the only legal channel to obtain seasonal help." The passage of the H-2B legislation means that employers will have access to a foreign labor "safety net" despite the 66,000 worker cap being hit in January of 2005. Employers depend on these seasonal workers to make up shortfalls in the domestic workforce.
Chick here for more information or visit Save Small Business- www.savesmallbusiness.org

MLNA GREEN LEADER Loma Vista accepts the challenge

Ottawa, Kansas - This spring, Loma Vista Nursery launches a company wide “green initiative” with the goal of implementing more sustainable business practices. Spear heading their “green initiative” is Loma Vista Nursery’s Pot Return Program. This program encourages local customers to recycle their empty plastic container pots by returning them to Loma Vista in one of two ways. Loma Vista has set up collection bins at their Landscape Distribution Center in Olathe, KS for customers to drop off empty container pots during normal hours of operation.

In addition to the drop off location, Loma Vista Nursery offers a collection service to select local customers. To date, the participating businesses include Kokopelli Nursery, Curby’s Lawn and Garden, and Northstar Garden Center.

The majority of containers collected will be reused. Those that aren’t will be recycled. Loma Vista has joined forces with a company that collects their unusable container pots and their used greenhouse plastic and turns it into usable plastic for various items.

Loma Vista’s commitment doesn’t end at plastics. They have put into practice a company wide recycling program that includes recycling of paper products, cardboard, and aluminum in addition to plastics.

Loma Vista Nursery is a wholesale nursery specializing in high quality, cold hardy plant material. They produce containerized plants and field grown trees for retailers, wholesale distributors, and landscapers across the Midwest.
Founded in 1991 by Mark Clear, Loma Vista Nursery is family owned and operated. Their 310 acre container production nursery is located in Ottawa, Kansas, just 40 minutes south of Kansas City. They have over 650 acres of in ground tree production just 20 minutes west of the container nursery in Baldwin City and Willow Springs, Kansas. Loma Vista Nursery also maintains a full service Landscape Distribution Center in Olathe, Kansas, to meet the needs of their local customers.

Bailey Nurseries, Welcomes MLNA Past President As New Sales Representative

St. Paul, Minn. (Spring 2008) Bailey Nurseries welcomes Bill Harbstreet as sales representative for AK, KS, MO, Southern IL, and the Quad Cities area. Bill comes to us with over 20 years of experience in the nursery industry. Bill’s experience includes retail sales, wholesale purchasing and operations/senior management. Bill has been very active in the Missouri Landscape and Nursery Association, serving on the board as well as President n 2004. We are excited at the experience Bill brings to Bailey’s. Bill can be reached at: Office 660-638-4514, Fax 660-638-4515, Cell 816-813-6661.

Bailey Nurseries is a family-owned wholesale nursery with home offices in St. Paul, Minnesota. It is among the top wholesale nurseries in the United States and provides industry members throughout the U.S. and Canada with a full line of bareroot and container-grown plants from Bailey’s properties in Minnesota, Oregon, and Washington.

For more information on Bailey Nurseries, log on to our web sites at: http://www.baileynurseries.com/, http://www.endlesssummerblooms.com/, http://www.easyeleganceroses.com/ and http://www.newgrowthmarketing.com/

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Why professionals hire an Arborist for projects

An arborist is a specialist in the care of individual trees and are knowledgeable about the needs of trees and are trained and equipped to provide proper care. Hiring an arborist shows you have considered the best management practice for your customer. Tree care decisions should not be taken lightly. Proper tree care is an investment that can lead to substantial returns. Well-cared-for trees are living advertisement o f your quality of work that will add considerable value to your client's property. Poorly maintained trees can be a significant liability. Pruning or removing trees, especially large trees, can be dangerous work. Tree work should be done only by those trained and equipped to work safely in trees.

http://www.treesaregood.com/treecare/hire_arborist.aspx

Invitation extended from Bowood Farms to MLNA members and friends

June Hutson, one of our all-time favorite container-garden experts, is giving two wonderful workshops on containers this Saturday afternoon at Bowood Farms, 4605 Olive Street in the Central West End.
Come hear her talk about container-gardening trends, about container tricks of the trade and about her own container work in and around the Kemper Center for Home Gardening as well as on grounds of the U.S.
Botanic Garden last year. Meanwhile, June will help you design your own special container, with seven annual plants of your choosing from the Bowood supply, plus potting soil and a deep, 10-inch plastic drop-in pot for popping into your own favorite container. The cost of the workshop is $48.
To register, please call Bowood at 314-454-6868. And go online -- to http://www.blogger.com/www.bowoodfarms.com -- for more information or for a map to the garden center!
Spread the word! June's dynamic wisdom on the topic should not be missed!