It’s right about this time each year that I really start longing for my summer garden. I’m tired of my toes being cold and I’ve officially run out of my fall harvested tomatoes. If you too are looking forward to a bounty of vine-ripened tomatoes, then you’d better hop out of that winter armchair and grab those seed catalogs! Just because it’s January, doesn’t mean we get to rest on our gardening laurels here in Dallas. If you’re planning on growing any heirloom or specialty tomato varieties, chances are you’re going to have to grow them from seed. If you’re going to grow them from seed, you need to do it now.

‘Celebrity’ hybrid and ‘Green Zebra’ heirloom tomatoes.

Tomato transplants take a good 8-weeks to germinate and grow into a transplant large enough to set out in the garden. Our average last frost date is March 17th, which means you’ll need to get those tomato seeds germinated by the last week in January if you want to make that planting date. Experienced tomato gardeners know that if they can get their transplants outdoors a tad bit earlier, it means a bigger harvest. But won’t they freeze if you plant them before March 17th? Not if you cover them with frost cloth (sometimes two layers are necessary). I typically set out my tomato transplants before March 10th…but sometimes even the last week of February. If you’re willing to hedge your bets and keep the frost cloth at the ready, you can get your tomato plants flowering earlier, which means more set fruit during optimal temperatures.

Planning on waiting until after all possible chances for a freeze have passed? Don’t bother. If you do, it will be too late to plant tomatoes, at least the 4″-pot sized plants. If you’re late to the game and decide to hit the garden centers at the end of April, don’t waste your money on 4″ tomato transplants. Look for 2-gallon or larger potted plants that already have flowers and some baby fruit on them. Or, start your fall tomato transplants from seed in May.

When starting tomato seeds indoors, remember that you’ll need to warm up the soil to speed up germination and a good 16-hours of supplemental light after seedlings sprout. Invest in a good seedling heat mat and grow light if you want your seedlings to mature successfully. Relying on that “bright” winter window typically results in a a disappointment as seedlings stretch for light, then topple over and die.

After three years of running Halleck Horticultural full time, we've decided to re-brand our company blog and future content channels to better encompass the interests of green industry companies, professionals in the industry, and home gardeners. Ours is a quirky blend of content that we feel is relevant to both pros and their customers. It's all about how we each green-up our own lifestyle.

The new Plantgeek Chic brand will represent our blog and future projects such as podcasts and print media. Content will continue to focus on the utility, tools, trends and style of green industry business, while also providing behind-the-scenes insight and useful hands-on info to horticulture students, young professionals, green consumers, and gardening hobbyists.

Everyone, be you Plantgeek or wannabe Plantgeek, is invited...so stay tuned!

Welcome to the blog...Plantgeek Chic is our stream-of-consciousness channel for all things related to green industry business, marketing, and networking; as well as all things related to green lifestyle, plants, and gardening. Green industry businesses, Pro Plantgeeks, wannabe Pro Plantgeeks, and home gardeners equally served.

We had an amazing time with some wonderful folks from all across the south at this year’s PPA Southern Symposium. For our first year planning the event, we had an intimate but enthusiastic group of landscapers, growers, retailers and wholesalers, plus a few students. They came from Louisiana, Texas, Arizona and Oklahoma to learn how to grow and plant sustainable landscapes.

We started off Monday, October 5th, by greeting our fellow green industry pros over coffee, then got right into the fun with an explanation on the benefits of the Dallas Arboretum Plant Trials by DABS Director of Horticulture, Jenny Wegley. Next up, Zac Tolbert of Local Plant Source, Inc. taught us how the demand for sustainable plants are affecting sourcing and purchasing and how to make sure your clients have the plants they want...and need.

Before breaking for lunch, Leslie Halleck, Certified Horticulturist and owner of Halleck Horticultural, taught us that through patience and practice we can restore our environment for local habitat one backyard at a time.

Lunch brought lively conversation and networking. We made new friends such as new PPA member, Roger Sanderson of the Texas Discovery Gardens and Dr. Elisabeth Sahin of GES Consultancies. Once back from lunch, Dr. Cynthia Mckenney, Professor of Horticulture, Texas Tech University, gave a fun (and informative!) presentation on how to grow a gorgeous landscape using good soil, native and adapted plants, and a dash of creativity! We especially enjoyed her tidbits on area natives, including milk thistle that, if ingested while pregnant, is thought to cause infants to grow excessive hair. WHO KNEW??

Lloyd Traven, Peace Tree Farm and Dr. Elisabeth Sahin of GES Consultancies enjoying lunch.

The last two speakers of the day, Dr. Jared Barnes, Assistant Professor of Horticulture, SFA State University and Lloyd Traven, owner of Peace Tree Farm, duked it out for most animated talk. Dr. Barnes spoke about “Thrivable” Perennials for the south. He fawned over tough tropicals such as Chinese Yellow Banana, Musella lasiocarpa and Poke Salad, Phytolacca americana ‘Sunny Side Up’. If you haven’t met Dr. Barnes before, you’ll know him by his vastly creative array of bow ties.

As the piece de resistance of the day, Lloyd Traven taught us that growing in a commercial greenhouse without the use of chemicals CAN be done! Through the careful use of bio-controls predatory insects and careful planning, you can grow a diversity of crops together clean and pesticide free. Peace Tree Farm is an OMRI Certified operation.

Big thanks to North Haven Gardens in Dallas for providing us with wonderful volunteers for the day of the event!

If you were unable to come this year, we hope to see you next year. We plan to make it an extraordinary event. In the meantime, please consider becoming a member of the Perennial Plant Association. We’d love to see our community of green professionals in our area grow and become a stronger resource for networking, shared ideas and improved business practices. Join HERE.

Full article published in October 2015 Produce Grower Magazine.

Whether you’re looking to save on labor, improve pollination rates or shift production to more sustainable practices, nature is here to help. Bumblebees are a powerhouse of pollination and could be just the solution you need to improve production rates on your edible greenhouse crops.

freeimages.com

Fruits of your labor

As more produce production moves indoors to be grown hydroponically, the job of pollination becomes much more labor intensive. Once you move fruiting crops into the greenhouse, man must take the place of wind and pollinators to get the job done.

On crops such as tomatoes, growers typically use manual pollination or mechanical vibrating shakers to move the pollen around properly. Tomatoes are normally wind-pollinated outdoors, but the effect is difficult to replicate inside a greenhouse with limited air flow. The shaking has to be performed about every two days when temperatures and humidity are just right. To make things more labor intensive, shaking the whole plant with mechanical stimulation isn’t as effective as shaking or vibrating each truss individually. That takes a lot more time and effort. A truss is a cluster of smaller stems where the flowers and fruit develop.

Rising labor challenges and costs are causing some growers to turn back to nature to lower costs and improve yields.

Read the entire article HERE.

Full article in the October issue of Garden Center Magazine.

The bulb category is a highly diverse and versatile one for garden centers and home gardeners. The key to selling more bulbs is to make sure you’re maximizing your marketing opportunities and selling strategies year-round. How you stock and market your bulbs will greatly impact when, how many and how quickly they sell. (For simplicity’s sake, in this article we’ll use the term “bulb” to encompass all true bulbs, rhizomes, tubers and corms.)

Pre-sell

Speeding up inventory turns and improving cash flow is always a top priority for independent garden centers. So how do you do that with bulbs? Essentially, bulbs are a hard good line that gives you much more flexibility in terms of when you buy them and how you maintain them in the store. You’re probably already pre-booking most — if not all — of your bulbs. So why not pre-sell them to your customer?

Pre-selling inventory is a great way to get cash into the register long before you receive the product or have to pay for it. Pre-selling will take a bit of organization and accounting adjustments on your part, but it’s well worth the effort. Pre-selling product also gets customers back into the store for extra visits when they come to pick up their orders. Most POS systems will enable you to set up work orders and paid pick-ups for such pre-orders.

...Read the entire article HERE.

Texas Sage Side by Side

If there is one landscaping practice I simply won't succumb to it's formal boxed (and boring) foundation shrubs. I prefer to pick plants that will grow to the size I want them, where I want them, and then let them do their thing. Of course a little tip pruning is required for any foundation shrubs now and then, but overall I like my foundation beds much more natural. In order to bring foliage and bloom interest (and bee food) into my #frontscape I've incorporated a number of Texas sage plants.

Some sort of wet stuff came down from the sky in Dallas the other day. After an intensely hot and dry summer, a bump in humidity and a bit of rainfall has sent my Texas sage shrubs into a blooming frenzy. Ok, some of them. Not every Texas sage performs the same; there are several species and a number of cultivars available. So, which one do you think is wearing it best right now?

Different cultivars of Texas Sage side by side in my garden
PC: Leslie F. Halleck

You'll see Texas sage 'Silverado' on the left...and Texas sage 'Rio Bravo' on the right. It's an easy choice, no? The 'Rio Bravo' is so heavily loaded with blooms that some of the branches are bending under the weight. It's a glorious sight to behold and the entire shrub is vibrating with overjoyed honeybees. It looks like this every time it blooms.

While there are some blooms on the 'Silverado', it never blooms as intensely as my 'Rio Bravo'. Now to be fair, the 'Silverado' gets a tad more cast shade from the house. My other 'Silverado' on the opposite side of the house do get a bit more direct sun and thus will bloom a bit heavier. But even they can't match the profusion of blooms on the 'Rio Bravo'.

You'll notice that the foliage on the 'Rio Bravo' is more green than silver, so even though the 'Silverado' doesn't bloom as heavily, it does provide me with the intense silver foliage I want in the bed. So either way, it's a win/win.

Anyhoo, couldn't resist showing you a "who wore it best" from the garden.

The full article published in the August issue of Greenhouse Management Magazine.

Consumers are increasingly interested in nontraditional plants for the holiday season. Grower-retailers should consider these succulents, tropicals and edibles as the end of the year approaches.

While some growers are still finding steady success with their poinsettia crops, many others are turning to alternatives to correct sales slumps.

Demand for indoor plants is growing and customers want specimens that complement the look of their home and help them bring a bit of nature indoors. They also want multipurpose outdoor plants. Finished gift and table-top plants still offer a good opportunity to drive niche-season and impulse sales, but offering fresh new alternatives that meet customers changing indoor and outdoor plant needs may be the best way to recapture their holiday dollar. Here are a few finished potted plants that are trending and can be creatively marketed for holiday sales:

Succulents

Echeveria are impressive specimens bound to please any recipient. The large whorled leaves of echeveria give it the look of a giant rose bloom. Some echeveria varieties sport brightly colored foliage and even ruffled leaves. Echeveria gibbiflora ‘Red Ruffles’ is particularly suited to the holiday season, with red-edged ruffled leaves.The rosette grows to the size of a large cereal bowl, making it the perfect size for a table-top centerpiece. Plants can be kept indoors in a bright location as a houseplant, or set out on the patio in summer. Echeveria make water-wise landscape specimens in warmer climates. Plants send up foot-tall flower spikes in summer with red-orange flowers. Echeveria ‘Christmas’ is also quite suited to the season, with red-tipped leaves.

‘Christmas Carol’ aloe comes complete with a festive name and brightly colored foliage. The succulent leaves offer deep crimson spots edged in vibrant red. Red flower spikes are a festive bonus. This is a petite plant perfect for a more space-conscious gift giver. Plants can be kept as an indoor houseplant or set outdoors in zones 9-11.

For a shock of intense foliage color, consider Crassula capitella ‘Campfire.’ The succulent leaves offer up a fiery red color perfect for the holiday season. Plants grow to only about 6 inches tall which make it a handy, grab-and-go holiday gift plant. Again, this succulent makes an excellent houseplant in a bright location and a perfect patio table plant in summer.

Read the entire article HERE.