Volume 29, Number 3 Summer 2017 CutThe Flower Q U A R T E R L Y Association of Specialty Cut Flower Growers Inc. for growers of field and greenhouse specialty cuts Inside this Issue From the President _________ 3 Grower Profile _____________ 4 The Farmer and the Florist ___ 6 IPM Update ______________ 10 Camellias and Cut Flowers __ 12 Understanding Greenhouse Structural Loads __________ 18 Outreach Education: Universities Adapt to a Changing Landscape and New Audience ____________ 20 Regional Reports _________ 23 ASCFG News ____________ 36 From the Director__________ 42 The Cut Flower PUBLISHING SCHEDULE QUARTERLY ISSUE DEADLINE Spring March1 Cover photo courtesy of is published by Summer June 1 Urban Buds: The Association of Specialty Fall September 1 Cut Flower Growers, Inc. Winter December 1 City Grown Flowers. MPO Box 268, Oberlin, OH 44074 All articles, features, and display advertising must be received by these deadlines for Delphinium ‘Guardian Blue’ publication. The Cut Flower Quarterly Judy Marriott Laushman, editor. welcomes advertising. Contact ASCFG for Linda Twining, layout. advertising insertion order form. 2017 ASCFG Contact Judy Laushman ISSN 1068-8013 (440) 774-2887 or [email protected] www.ascfg.org Subscription is included with ASCFG membership. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without the written permission of the ASCFG. No endorsement of named or illustrated products or companies is intended, nor is criticism implied of products or companies not included. From the PRESIDENT Recapping Some Essentials Dave Dowling As I was thinking of a topic to cover Every year we should plan for employee should want to come for this issue, I logged onto the Members our biggest season ever, then go to work and be concerned for Only section of the ASCFG web site, and out and make it happen. Grow the well-being of your company. read through some of my old columns some new varieties, increase Keeping employees happy can be for ideas. I took the easy way out, and production, and add new markets, as easy (and cheap) as keeping decided to compile some snippets into florists, or wholesalers. Maybe popsicles in the freezer for those another article. Here are a few highlights start doing weddings or events. hot summer days, or offering paid from past issues: Find something to do and look vacation and other benefits if you for ways to make it happen. It’s can afford the added cost. up to you. Like your Mom said, Plant an extra 100 sunflowers Make time to spend with friends “You won’t know until you try and family. Don’t always work every week, and set that money it”. Mom was usually talking aside for the Conference. seven days a week. Trust your about something like turnips, not employees to do their jobs. You cut flowers, but you get the idea. Follow through on your prom- can always be just a phone call ises. If you offer to help some- away. We all know how important regu- one, follow through. If you tell lar customers are to the success a customer you’ll have a flower Brighten someone’s day with of a business. Regular customers flowers. Whether it’s someone on a certain date, do your best to are the ones who pay your bills. have it for him or her. If you’ve you know, or a child at the farm- Starbucks doesn’t survive on the ers’ market, surprise them with said in the past that you’ll make it occasional coffee drinker who to the ASCFG Conference “next flowers. If you have extra flow- stops by a couple times a year. ers, give your customers a few time” then I guess I’ll see you in They thrive on the millions of Ontario or Ohio. stems. They’ll remember your customers who stop in every day generosity. for a cup of caffeine. Reading through all the archives of Give your customers what they Flower quality must be the most The Cut Flower Quarterly reminded me want. Quality products, helpful important thing on every flow- of this great body of information that is service, and a smile are things er grower and seller’s mind. A as close as your computer. Members can that can help your company customer—especially a new view and read back issues, and search for thrive. Enjoy your work, or get a customer—who purchases poor topics of interest. Want to know about different job. quality flowers may never pur- sweet peas? Just search “sweet pea” and Always be on the lookout for new chase again. All the promotion in you’ll have enough material at your dis- material to grow. New offerings the world can’t overcome a poor posal to grow sweet peas like a pro. Pick may keep customers excited quality product. any topic, search, and you’ll be rewarded with great information. Just don’t get side- about what you grow. You never When you find employees who tracked for the whole afternoon—there know where you’ll find the next are right for your company, invest are flowers to pick, seeds to sow, and a lot flower that will help pay your in them with not just a fair salary, of work to get done on the farm. bills. (We all know, the ASCFG but also with realistic expecta- is a great place to start.) tions, and recognition of a job Everyone needs to learn new stuff: well done. Taking your employ- Even old dogs and old cut flower ees to ASCFG events or even the Dave Dowling is a growers could use a new trick National Conference goes a long Sales Representative and Warehouse every once in a while. way in letting them know that Manager for Ednie Flower Bulb. you value them as an important Contact him at part of your business. Every [email protected] The Cut Flower Quarterly 3 Volume 29, Number 3 Grower PROFILE Urban Buds: City Grown Flowers Jodi Helmer Farmer-florists bring an abandoned flower farm back to life The first time Karen “Mimo” Davis and Miranda Duschack saw a farm in the Dutchtown neighborhood of St. Louis, Missouri, Miranda took one look at the condemned, vandalized property with an ancient farmhouse and greenhouse with broken panes of glass, nonfunctioning waterline, and countless other projects and said, “Who’s going to buy this?” Mimo took one look at it and said, “I’ll take it.” The couple bought the property in 2012 and started Urban Buds: City Grown Flowers. Mimo and Miranda met while working as extension agents at Lincoln University Cooperative Extension. As their friendship developed into a romance, the couple planned their future, which included a shared dream to farm. Mimo had a background in flower farming but Miranda, who came to Missouri after growing fruits and vegetables at a Franciscan convent in Dubuque, Iowa, admits she was initially skeptical about growing fresh flowers, especially because the couple planned to start farming in the middle of the recession. But Mimo was resolute in her desire. “I just felt that in central Missouri, there were a lot of great vegetable farmers and zero flower farmers. When tomatoes are in season, there are a ton of tomatoes at the market; when freesias are in season, we’re the only game in town,” Mimo explains. The decision was made when the couple went to visit one of the florists Mimo delivered to from 1990 to 2000 (when she grew flowers on a farm in Ashland, Missouri) who told them, “We’ll buy anything you have. Bring it.” Everything Old is New Again The home, greenhouse, and land changed hands several Mimo and Miranda forged ahead, transforming the aban- times since the last blooms were grown onsite. Mimo and Mi- doned and overgrown landscape into a flower farm bursting randa were thrilled to bring it back to life as a flower farm—and with color. It’s a point of pride for the pair that their farm, Urban their customers loved the farm, too. Buds: City Grown Flowers, is on the site of a flower farm that The first official arrangement Urban Buds delivered went dated back to the 1800s. to a woman celebrating her ninetieth birthday; she’d ordered After purchasing the farm, the couple tracked down one her wedding flowers from the original flower farmers on their of the previous owners—a man in his 80s who was the third- Dutchtown property 52 years earlier. generation farmer to grow flowers on the land—and invited Since then, Urban Buds has expanded to include five him over. He stopped in to visit and spent time telling Mimo contiguous city lots owned by Mimo and Miranda along with and Miranda stories about the farm and showing them photos two rented lots, totaling almost an acre. The couple grows 70 of how it used to look. different varieties of flower from azaleas to zinnias. The Cut Flower Quarterly 4 Volume 29, Number 3 Farming in an urban area wasn’t an intentional choice: It was close to their work at Lincoln University—until 2017, when Mimo left her job to farm full-time, both women continued working in the extension office 40 hours per week—and closer to their friends than Mimo’s former flower farm. Being just a few miles from the iconic St. Louis Arch also has its benefits. Their farmers’ market booth is just 2.5 miles from the farm, which means customers can see where their flowers are grown. “We’re so accessible,” Miranda says. “One of the real ben- efits of urban agriculture is that our customers can see what’s happening on the farm in real time.” Thanks to its location in a residential neighborhood, passers- by can always see what’s growing on the farm, but there are few “One of the on-farm sales.