vnla sep/oct/dec 2013 newsletter

VNLA Newsletter October/November/December 2013 3

OFFICERS President MATT SAWYER - Research Bennett’s Creek Nursery ‘07 5635 Shoulders Hill Rd Suffolk, VA 23435-1807 757-483-1425 [email protected] Vice President MATT SHRECKHISE Communications ‘08 Shreckhise Nurseries PO Box 428 Grottoes, VA 24441-0428 540-249-5761 [email protected] Secretary/ Treasurer SONYA L. WESTERVELT Public Relations ‘10 Saunders Brothers Inc 2717 Tye Brook Highway Piney River, VA 22964 (434) 277-5455 [email protected] Past President STEVE GRIGG - Education Grigg Design Inc ‘09 8193 Euclid Ct #A Manassas Park, VA 20111-4810 703-368-7539 [email protected] Ex-Officio Past President MARK MASLOW Resource Development Southern Landscape Group PO Box 397 Evington VA 24550-0397 434-821-6004 [email protected] Executive Director JEFFREY B. MILLER Horticulture Management Associates LLC 383 Coal Hollow Road Christiansburg, VA 24073-6721 1-800-476-0055 Fax: 540-382-2716 [email protected]

1 YR DIRECTORS CHERYL LAJOIE Certification ‘09 Lancaster Farms 5800 Knotts Neck Rd Suffolk VA 23435-1353 757-484-4421 Fax: 7575-686-8637 [email protected] CHRISTOPHER BROWN ‘13 Lancaster Farms 5800 Knotts Neck Rd Suffolk VA 23435-1353 757-484-4421 [email protected] VIRGINIA ROCKWELL Legislation ‘12 Gentle Gardener Green Design PO Box 418 Gordonsville, VA 22942-0418 540-832-7031 (cell) 434-531-0467 [email protected] Educational Advisors DR. ROGER HARRIS VA Tech Horticulture Dept. Head Saunders Hall (0327) Blacksburg, VA 24061-0001 540-231-5451 [email protected] DR. JIM OWEN HARAREC 1444 Diamond Springs Rd Virginia Beach, VA 23455 (757) 363-3804 [email protected] Beautiful Gardens® Plant Introduction Program LISA LIPSEY Program Coordinator VA Tech Dept. of Horticulture (0327) Blacksburg, VA 24061 540-231- 6961 [email protected]

2 YR DIRECTORS TOM THOMPSON, Environmental Affairs ‘10 Natural Art Landscaping 3540 S Belmont Rd Richmond VA 23234-2912 (804) 674-5703 [email protected] DOUG HENSEL Beautiful Gardens ‘08 Great Big Greenhouse & Nrsy 2051 Huguenot Rd Richmond, VA 23235-4305 804-320-1317 [email protected] CRAIG ATTKISSON ‘13 Green Side Up Landscaping PO Box 2026 Glen Allen, VA 23058-2026 804-514-4610 [email protected] MANTS’ DIRECTORS JOHN LANCASTER‘02 Bennett’s Creek Nursery 3613 Bridge Road Suffolk, VA 23435-1807 757-483-1425 [email protected] TOM SAUNDERS ’96 Saunders’ Brothers Inc. 2508 Tye Brook Hwy Piney River, VA 22964-2301 804-277-5455 [email protected] DANNY SHRECKHISE Shreckhise Nurseries ‘12 PO Box 428 Grottoes, VA 24441-0428 540-249-5761 [email protected]

REGIONAL ASSOCIATIONS Central Virginia Nursery & Landscape Assoc. Greta Bjorkquist Hoyt 804-339-3661 [email protected] Eastern Shore Nurserymen’s Association Stuart Burnley 757-442-3548 [email protected] Hampton Roads Nursery & Landscape Assoc Wes Bray (757) 422-2117 [email protected] Northern Virginia Nursery & Landscape Assoc Amanda Caldwell [email protected] Piedmont Landscape Assoc Jessica Primm 434-882-0520 [email protected] Shenandoah Valley Nursery & Greenhouse Assoc Matt Shreckhise 540-249-5761 [email protected] Directors at Large Mike Hildebrand ‘12 James River Nurseries 13244 Ashland Rd Ashland VA 23005-7504 804-798-2020 mchildebrand@ jamesrivernurseries.com Dawn Lerch ‘12 Associate 1701 Ducatus Dr Midlothian VA 23113-4067 804-690-1374 (cell) [email protected] Bill Gouldin ‘12 Strange’s Florist/Garden Ctrs 3313 Mechanicsville Pike Richmond VA 23223 804-321-2200x331 [email protected]

2013 VNLA Officers & Directors

VNLA Newsletter 3October / November / December 2013

4 October/November/December 2013 VNLA Newsletter

Ad - Bennett’s Creek Nursery ...................................... 30 Ad - Bremo Trees ......................................................... 84 Ad - BuyNC Plants.com .............................................. 73 Ad - Carolina Bark Products ........................................ 59 Ad - CNCNA PlantSource NC ..................................... 69 Ad - Colonial Farm Credit ........................................... 84 Ad - Eastern Shore Nursery of Virginia ....................... 45 Ad - Fair View Nursery ............................................... 59 Ad - Goodson & Associates ......................................... 49 Ad - Gossett’s Landscape Nursery ............................... 51 Ad - Guthrie Nursery ................................................... 47 Ad - Hanover Farms ..................................................... 9 Ad - Hardwood Mulch ................................................. 67 Ad - Hawksridge Farm ................................................. 26 Ad - Johnston County Nursery Marketing Assoc ........ 56 Ad - Lancaster Farms ................................................... 72 Ad - Lilley Farms and Nursery .................................... 43 Ad - Mid-Atlantic Solutions ........................................ 23 Ad - OHP - Marengo .................................................... 32 Ad - Pender Nurseries .................................................. 83 Ad - Plantworks Nursery.............................................. 17 Ad - Shreckhise Nurseries............................................ 52 Ad - SiteLight Id .......................................................... 40 Ad - Southern Landscape Group Career ..................... 81 Ad - TD Watkins Horticultural Sales ........................... 5 Ad - Turtle Creek Nursery ........................................... 13 Ad - Waynesboro Nurseries ......................................... 11 Ad - Willow Springs Tree Farms ................................. 57 Ad - Winfall Nurseries ................................................. 57 Editorial - Where’s the VCH Recognition? ................. 8 Events - Calendar ......................................................... 82 Events - Hahn Horticulture Garden VA Tech .............. 64 Events - MANTS 2014 ................................................ 80 Events - Mid-Atlantic Horticulture Short Course January 13 -16, 2014 .............. 65 Events - Mid-Atlantic Horticulture Short Course...14,66 Events - Shenandoah Valley Plant Symposium 2014 .. 63 Events- Grow2014 ....................................................... 64 Letter - Anna Rakes ..................................................... 8 Letter - Cam Sheldon ................................................... 7 Letter - French Price .................................................... 8 Letter - Hinden ............................................................. 8 Letter - Robert Nance ................................................... 8 News - MANTS Switches dates with NC Show .......... 82 News - ANLA/OFA Members Vote New Assoc ......... 41 News - BMP Guide for Producing Nursery Crops ....... 56 News - Boxwood Blight Detected in VA Landscape ... 44 News - Business Immigration Survey Predicts Increased Visa Demand In 2014 .............. 49 News - Garden Media Unveils 2014 Garden Trends ... 46 News - IGC Show Launches 2014 East Coast Edition 48

News - National Sustainability Rating System Certifies New Landscape Projects ................... 57 News - Neonicotinoid Insecticides: Separating Fact from Fiction ................. 50 News - OHP introduces Marengo granular herbicide . 50 News - Phytosanitary Irrigation Webinar Series ........ 43 News - Quiet Talks on Immigration Continue............. 42 News - Sidhu Nursery Buys Briggs Nursery ............... 48 News - SNA Announces 2013 Award Recipients ....... 53 News - Southern Nursery Assoc Elects Officers ......... 55 News - State Fair of VA Green Industry Displays ..... 65 News - TREE Fund in Memory of Bonnie Appleton . 61 News - VDACS Commissioner Leaving ................... 46 News - VT Students at 37th PLANET Career Days .... 51 News - Young Grower awarded to Isaac Brantingham of Riverbend Nursery ................................. 39 Obituary - Ernie Marshall ........................................... 13 Research - Evaluation of Small Stature, Utility Compatible Trees in Virginia ......... 60 Research - SCRI Project Update Series I: Recycled Water Quality .............................. 58 Tips - Armitage's Perennials for the Sun Online ......... 62 Tips - Introducing Strike Plus ..................................... 64 Tips - Managing Urban Soils ....................................... 21 Tips - Realizing Disease Control and Plant Health ..... 61 VNLA - Beautiful Gardens ......................................... 9 VNLA - Certification Quiz #66 ................................... 37 VNLA - Certification Class/Test Schedule 2014 ........ 38 VNLA - Environmental Affairs Report ....................... 10 VNLA - Field Day Photos ........................................... 76 VNLA - Guide to Mid-Atlantic Wetland Plants .......... 71 VNLA - How to Contact Congress ............................. 6 VNLA - Login to Your VNLA Account ..................... 7 VNLA - Member Profile: Shipp & Wilson Inc: Carey White ........................................ 19 VNLA - Member Profile: Shipp & Wilson Inc: Karen Kelly ........................................ 16 VNLA - Nominations for Environmental Steward ...... 79 VNLA - Nominations Nursery Professional ................ 78 VNLA - Photo Contest Rules ...................................... 15 VNLA - Quiz Article: Managing Urban Soils ............. 21 VNLA - Research Gala/Auction .................................. 2 VNLA - Research Auction/Gala Donation Form ........ 75 VNLA - Gresham Scholarship Awarded ..................... 12 VNLA - Laird Scholarship Awarded ........................... 12 VNLA - Summer Tour Photos ..................................... 77 VNLA - Want Private Flight to Ocracoke & Lunch? .. 74

Table of Contents

4 October / November / December 2013 VNLA Newsletter

VNLA Newsletter July/August/September 2013 5

Ad – CW Reeson Nursery

Same as previous

VNLA Mission, Vision and Objectives for 2013

Mission Statement: To Enhance and promote Vir-ginia’s nursery and landscape industry.

Vision: to become the leader and resource for the Virginia nursery and landscape industry.

Objectives Educated, Available Skilled Labor Force - Goal: VNLA will continue to promote programs that will education, train and provide an available skilled la-bor force.

Effective Communication and Advocacy GOAL: VNLA will effectively communication among staff, board, members, partners and the community.

Maximizing and Allocation Resources - GOAL: VNLA will secure increased funding from diverse sources and secure the necessary staff, board and committee members to run a dynamic organization.

Membership and Outreach - GOAL: Expand and communicate the value of membership.

Stewardship - GOAL: VNLA will promote adoption of Best Management Practices.

Strategic Marketing - GOAL: VNLA will promote itself as the leader and resource of the green industry.

What are members problems? How are we going to help them become

more successful?

Classified Ads

Ad - TD Watkins

WANTED: Nursery Manager Bremo Trees, a wholesale ball and burlap

nursery in Bremo Bluff, VA is seeking a man-ager for Bremo Trees. The chosen manager

will be able to lead a team; interact positively with people; manage all aspects of the nursery, especially the business and marketing opera-tions; make a long-term commitment to the

business; and desire to live in a rural communi-ty. Additionally, knowledge of farm or nursery

operations is desirable. To apply, please submit a cover letter and

resume with salary requirements to: Woody Cumbo

PO Box 128 Bremo Bluff, VA 23022

Or [email protected]



VNLA Annual Breakfast Meeting Sheraton Inner Harbor Hotel

Thursday, January 9, 2014; 7-9 a.m. Annual Membership Meeting

Election of 2014 Officers & Directors Review of the New 2014 Strategic Plan

Updates from ANLA and VA Tech Award Presentations











more successful?

Classified Ads

Ad - TD Watkins

Ad - TD Watkins

WANTED: Donations For the VNA Horticulture Research

Foundation Inc Auction/Gala 2014

Contact Matt Sawyer 757-483-1425

[email protected] Gift certifications for:

Restaurants weekend vacation getaway

plants and supplies Artwork

Memorabilia Rare and Unusual Plants

Use Your Imagination!!!!!


VNLA Annual Breakfast Meeting Sheraton Inner Harbor Hotel

Thursday, January 9, 2014; 7-9 a.m. Annual Membership Meeting

Election of 2014 Officers & Directors Review of the New 2014 Strategic Plan

Updates from ANLA and VA Tech Award Presentations











more successful?

Classified Ads

Ad - TD Watkins

Ad - TD Watkins

WANTED: Donations For the VNA Horticulture Research

Foundation Inc Auction/Gala 2014

Contact Matt Sawyer 757-483-1425

[email protected] Gift certifications for:

Restaurants weekend vacation getaway

plants and supplies Artwork

Memorabilia Rare and Unusual Plants

Use Your Imagination!!!!!


Presidents Message I hope that all of our members had suc-

cessful fall seasons and are already thinking about 2014.

The VNLA board is definitely focused on the future. The

2014 budget has been completed as well as an external audit that gave us a clean bill of health. We made a strate-gic planning decision to invest in the branding and promotion of the VNLA. We envision a coordinated message through our website, tradeshow display, and printed materials. We have also prioritized getting the certification re-view online with the help of Virginia Tech.

If you or anyone you know is interested in getting involved with the VNLA please speak up. We would love to have new volunteers to help us develop marketing and education as well as in-crease membership and involvement in the association.

Also, remember to plan on attending the research gala in Baltimore to sup-port horticultural research that benefits us all.

By Matt Sawyer, President VNLA 2013

Ad – VNLA Horticulture Research Ga-

la/Auction

How to Contact Congress

To contact your con-gressman and senator, go the www.vnla.org and click in the legis-lation tab/button, and

then click on the “Legislative Up-date” or go directly to: www.votervoice.net/ANLA/home

Here, you can find your congressman and senators’ contact info and can email them directly from this link. There are also summaries of current issues and sample letters.

“The squeaky wheel gets the oil!”

Vol. 83, No.4; Oct/Nov/Dec 2013 Editor: Jeff Miller

Virginia Nursery & Landscape Association, Inc.

383 Coal Hollow Road; Christiansburg, VA 24073-6721 Internet E-mail Address: [email protected]

www.vnla.org (Association Info) www.VirginiaGardening.com (Consumer Info)

Telephone: 540-382-0943 or 1-800-476-0055 Fax: 540-382-2716 Disclaimer: Published for your information, this newsletter is not an

endorsement for individual products or editorial comments.


6 January/February/March 2012 VNLA Newsletter

VNLA President’s Message

As we get ready to take on a new year, I look forward to working with the members of the VNLA and members of the VNLA Board. We have added additional experi-ence to the Board to compliment the impres-sive talent we already have serving. Like most of us have done recently in business, the VNLA Board has taken a hard look at who we are and how we do it. We met in Lynch-burg for 2 days to establish a Strate-gic Plan. We discussed how to have the most impact on all areas that af-fect our Industry. This is a tall order. It is not a job for just one person. It is a job that will take the talents and commitment of many people. It also will not happen overnight. Plus, 90% of success is showing up, so we will have to participate to achieve the re-sults we hope to have and stay the course.

We plan on focusing on 3 main areas: Industry Advocacy; Publi-cations and Communications and Research and Education. We will also prioritize issues in each area.

One constant theme though that I have felt, is to make sure we are doing what is best for the Industry. This is a moving target and will vary over time. All people will not agree on what is best. However, as long as we as an Industry and Trade Association are viewed as the professional and experts by the public,

all of us will be doing our jobs.

I wish you all a healthy and pros-perous year.

Steve Grigg,

VNLA President 2012

How to Contact Congress

To contact your congressman and senator, go the www.vnla.org and click in the legislation tab/button, and then click on the “Legislative Update” or go directly to: http://capwiz.com/anla/va/home/

Here, you can find your congressman and senators’ contact info and can email

them directly from this link. There are also summaries of current issues and sample letters. “The squeaky wheel gets the oil!”

Vol. 82, No.1; January/February/March 2012 Editor: Jeff Miller

Virginia Nursery & Landscape Association, Inc.

383 Coal Hollow Road; Christiansburg, VA 24073-6721 Internet E-mail Address: [email protected]

www.vnla.org (Association Info) www.VirginiaGardening.com (Consumer Info)

Telephone: 540-382-0943 or 1-800-476-0055 Fax: 540-382-2716 Disclaimer: Published for your information, this newsletter is not an

endorsement for individual products or editorial comments.

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VNLA Website Login

Update Your Contact Info

Pay Your Dues

ReCertification now on line.

See Your CEU’s

Read Previous Newsletters

The VNLA website has had a complete overhaul with a new design, re-organized info tabs and updated information.

You can now log in, activate your account and set up your user name and password. Access and update your contact information See the CEU’s that are recorded for you Virginia Certified Horticulturist

Use the online store to order Certification supplies Renew your membership Additional capabilities will be added on an ongoing basis

How to Log in Go to www.vnla.org/

Click on “login” top right Click on “Activate” in the left column Enter your email address. If you have an email address in the database, it will email your login info and let you setup a user name and password.

Return to the main screen and login with your user name and password.

Go to “My VNLA” and you can see your contact information, sales history, CEU’s etc.

If you do not have an email in the database, contact the VNLA Office for your Member Account Number at [email protected] or 1-800-476-0055

Letter - Cam Sheldon Shoosmith

Scholarship Recipient

Thank you so much for honor-ing me with this scholarship. It will aid my tui-tion payment greatly since I

have decided to pursue my BS after attainment of my Associates Degree this past Spring. I will try my best to represent you well in the continuation of my studies. I do appreciate the op-portunity to attend the Field Day, how-ever I am currently taking 12 credit hours this summer and working with David McCall in the Turf Research Division at Tech full time and will not be able to make the field day event. Please extend my gratitude for the scholarship to others.. Looking forward to receiving your newsletters.

Thanks Again- Cam Shelton

Login to Your VNLA Account



Letter – Brent Hinden Shoosmith Scholarship

Recipient What a difference the Virginia Nurse-ry & Landscape Association is mak-ing in the life of Brent Hinden! Since 10th grade, Brent began purchasing equipment with the goal of operating his own professional landscaping business. He has opened that business and is now taking classes at J. C. Reynolds to gain the knowledge and business skills needed to own and operate his own greenhouses and nursery as well. You are helping Brent achieve his dream. Thank you.

Sincerely, Elizabeth S. Littlefield, CFRE Executive Director

Letter – Robert Nance Shoosmith Scholarship

Recipient I am writing to express my gratitude for your generous $1,500 Albert James (Bert) Shoosmith Scholarship. I was thrilled to hear I was selected to be the recipient of your scholarship and I deeply appreciate your support!

I am a Horticulture major studying Landscape Contracting at Virginia Tech. My goal is to one day become a superintendent for a golf course or manage a large scale plant nursery as well as, run a successful medium scale commercial and residential landscaping company on the side. However, my main underlying goal in life is to be happy with what I do regardless of the amount of income I earn. I have found that plants are my passion and I enjoy working and be-ing around them. I am always looking for ways to achieve my goals, and thanks to you I am one step closer to attaining them.

At the end of my freshman year I was unsure if I was going to be able to attend my sophomore year as a Hokie. My family is enduring various financial obstacles and is unable to

further support me financially. By awarding me the Albert James (Bert) Shoosmith Scholarship, you have lightened my financial burden which allows me to focus more on the most important aspect of school, learning. I always perform my best at everything that I do and I promise that I will con-tinue to work very hard. Your gener-osity has inspired me to help others and give back to the community. I hope one day I will be able to help students achieve their goals just as you have helped me.

I plan on sending the photo for the VNLA Newsletter very soon. I am also very interested in the VNLA Field Day, and hoping I will be able to attend! Once again, I thank you for your generous support that will help me secure financial aid I need to pur-sue my horticulture degree and sow the seeds of success for my future.

Sincerely, Robert M. Nance, Portsmouth, VA

Letter – French Price Shoosmith Scholarship

Recipient To the Entire VNLA, I would like to thank you for awarding me the Shoosmith Scholarship. The generous scholarship will help tremendously this fall as I attend Virginia Tech to study Natural Resources. I am so ex-cited for the upcoming school year and the opportunities made possible by this scholarship. I am grateful for the many organizations that truly care about and support Virginia’s youth. God Bless and Go Hokies! French Price

Letter – Anna Rakes Laird/Gresham Scholarship

Recipient I am writing to express my sincere gratitude to you for making the A.S. Gresham Jr. Award possible. I was thrilled to learn of my selection for this honor and I am deeply apprecia-tive of your support. By awarding me

this scholarship, you have lightened my financial burden which allows me to focus more on the most important aspect of school, learning.

I am currently majoring in landscape contracting in the horticulture de-partment at Virginia Tech. I am also working towards minors in both busi-ness and entomology and expect to graduate in May 2014. Upon graduat-ing, I plan to work towards opening my own plant nursery in my home town of Fieldale, VA. I would like to not only grow and sell plants, but to use my business to teach others of the benefits of plants.

Thank you again for your generosity. The financial assistance you have provided will be of great help to me in paying my educational expenses, and it will allow me to concentrate more of my time for studying. I hope one day I will be able to help students achieve their goals just as you have helped me.

Sincerely, Anna Rakes

Editorial – Where’s the VCH Recognition?

It would not be politically correct for me to draft an article for the VNLA concerning this issue but I have dis-cussed it on more than one occasion with fellow VCH friends.

An article that was printed in my lo-cal paper today is a very nice article about my community involvement. I am pictured with a VCH badge but the reporter does not credit this any-where. They are always willing to mention Master Gardeners but very infrequently do they ever credit us as a VCH. I have discussed this discreet-ly over the years and we are well aware that our experiences, education and history in the industry far out-weigh what a MG does to get the title and personally my volunteer activi-ties in my community exceed the re-quirements that a MG has to give back on an annual basis. We think it’s



unfair that these individuals get so much attention, when we really know what is happening and we are practic-ing it in our day to day roles. I really do not like to be in newspapers so much but I believe it’s important that folks understand how valuable of a resource they can find in a VCH.

Anonymous Member

VNLA - Beautiful Gardens

The Beautiful Gardens Plant In-troduction Program was finally able to do just that this past sum-mer – introduce a new plant. The long awaited VT Spirit daylily was officially released to independent re-tail garden centers across the state of Virginia that actively participate in the Beautiful Gardens program. An-ticipation for the arrival of the VT Spirit and excellent promotions pro-vided by the garden centers created good demand for the daylily that rep-

resents the colors of Virginia Tech. Growing Virginia, in Danville, is the primary grower for the VT Spirit day-lily propagating thousands of plants purchased from the tissue culture lab at the Institute for Applied Learning and Research (IALR) also in Dan-ville. The modest release of plants for 2013 will be followed in 2014 by a more aggressive promotion of the VT Spirit to all garden centers and other plant sales outlets. Posters and bro-chures to be used at the point of sale are being developed to highlight the mature plant with flowers and its care in the garden.

What’s next? . . . . The Ralston Re-membered Hellebore is next and is scheduled for release in 2015 or 2016. It will be available from Dan

River Plants in Danville, also a tissue culture facility, on an individual order basis. This plant was developed by Dick and Judith Tyler of Pine Knot Farm in Clarksville, VA. It stands out in a growing number of Hellebores that are finding their way to the mar-ketplace. Beautiful Gardens will promote this plant along with their plants of distinction during the year of release. A listing of plants of dis-tinction for 2014 is being reviewed and will be released shortly on the Beautiful Gardens web site at www.beautifulgardens.org.

The Beautiful Gardens program is considering options for the future. Sourcing and selecting new plants has been challenging without the benefit of an in state plant breeding program at Virginia Tech or other state schools or institutions. The plants of distinction selected each year need continued support and promotion at the grower and retail levels. We have approached the Master Gardener pro-

Ad – Hanover Farms

VNLA Newsletter July/August 2006 7

LettersThank you for supporting our 7th An-nual Legislative Golf Tournament on June 12 at Mattaponi Springs Golf Club. We had a terrific response with 112 players including a number of elected and appointed state officials, 18-hole sponsors, three food and bev-erage sponsors and numerous spon-sors of gifts and prizes. This is a sub-stantial increase from past years thanks to your efforts.

This event is not only a very enjoy-able way to promote agribusiness to all participants, but it also contributes to the Council’s ability to represent our industry’s interest throughout the year with the General Assembly, Governor’s office state agencies, congressional delegation and the gen-eral public. Our significant accom-plishments are attributable to the sup-port you provide. Thank you.

We look forward to your joining us

again nest year for out 8th Annual Legislative gold Tournament. Sincerely, Virginia Agribusiness Council

Editor’s Note: The VNLA was a team sponsor, prize and give away contributor

and a hole sponsor.

Arbor Day Thanks Many thanks for the wonderful Swamp White Oak that was donated to Lorton Library for Arbor Day this year. It’s doing well and sprouting new growth even as I write.

An article about the ceremony was featured on the library website www.fairfaxcounty.gov/library/branches/lo/oaktreeplanting.htm. It was a lovely day and I know our neighbors will enjoy the tree for many years.

Sincerely, Lorton County Library

Editor’s Note: Vice-Presiden,, Lou Kobus, provided the tree

on behalf of VNLA.

VNLA –Summer Board Meeting Minutes

Friday, June 23, 2006; 9:00 am to 12:30 pm

Virginia Room, Hampton Inn, Front Royal, VA

9:00 a.m. Call to Order – Richard Johnson, President called the meeting to order with the following people present: Lizzy Pine, Lesley Pine, Jeff Miller, Bonnie Appleton, Duane Shumaker, Butch Gaddy, and Billy Crigler.

Guest Introductions – Bill Dutcher, President of the CVNLA, was intro-duced and welcomed to the meeting.

Secretary’s Report, Butch Gaddy reported that the minutes had been printed in the VNLA Newsletter and emailed to the Board. A motion was made to accept the minutes, seconded and passed.

Ad – Hanover Farms



gram here in Virginia to discuss their incorporating some portion of the Beautiful Gardens educational initia-tives into their activities. This could include taking a more responsible role in managing the evaluation sites at the Norfolk Botanical Gardens, Claytor Nature Center in Bedford and at the Urban Hort Center at Virginia Tech. We would also look at the pos-sibilities of their becoming more in-volved with the selection and promo-tion of the plants of distinction. Our goal is to create a broader base of interest and support throughout the professional and recreational levels of horticulture here in Virginia.

Beautiful Gardens was established to generate interest in and expand the sales of ornamental plants grown by Virginia producers. The increasing significance of ‘locally grown’ and the call to ‘plant more plants’ to improve the water quality of the Chesapeake Bay suggests that we continue our efforts to promote the potential for growth in our indus-try and the simple beauty of the plants we select.

Rick Baker, VDACS Marketing, [email protected]

VNLA - Environmental Affairs Report

It has been a busy year. It started off with fireworks over a proposal I made to the board suggesting that the VNLA join some of the many con-servation groups that seem to not know that we exist. What seemed like a no brainer to me caused some pretty heated discussion so, at the moment, we are still considered the “enemy” of conservation. Shame. More on that later, though.

Last year at this time I was in the middle of setting up LEED training courses in Richmond – for the sec-ond time, and this time there were enough people interested so that we could fill the classroom. Had the dates and location set, the instructor

was on board, had the fee schedule finalized and was getting ready to start taking reservations for a seat in the class – until, luckily, at the VNLA board meeting in February, Virginia Rockwell told me that the whole rea-son for taking the LEED Green Asso-ciate classes/test no longer existed. So we cancelled the course and saved everyone interested about $500 in classroom, registration and testing fees.

What happened? The LEED Green Associate credential is the first, most basic step towards more advanced and specific credentials in the build-ing trades. LEED was set up by a bunch of architects and builders to ensure that certain sustainable (there’s that word again) practices were followed in the course of a building project that were uniform nationally and measureable so that LEED scores were consistent all over the country. As LEED “grew up” it was supposed to get more specific by adding certain credentials to the list of specialties. One of those was sup-posed to be specific to landscaping and nurseries – us, but to get there we would have to take the most basic test first, which was the LEED Green As-sociate exam.

This is where the Sustainable Sites Initiative comes in. Something like Sites was originally supposed to be part of LEED so that builders could get points toward LEED certification by doing some specific things to the grounds on which the structure was being built, which until now had not been part of the scoring process. It didn’t work out that way. Long story short, Sites split from LEED making it unnecessary for any of us to have the Green Associate credential to get to the Sites credential, so we pulled the plug on the class. At which time I started trying to find out from the Sites people in Washington when and if they were going to start offering classes to become credentialed in their program so that we could sell our goods and services to build-

ers/developers who needed points toward LEED certification. I received a reply that they were still in the pro-cess of compiling a “scorecard” for Sites and that training would most likely start sometime in 2014 after the bugs were worked out of the scoring process. If it were only that easy.

Sites had been testing its scoring system at several building sites around the country for a while, but earlier this fall the system became active and the scores became real. Great – certification classes couldn’t be far behind. But, I received an email the other day from the Sustain-able Sites people informing me that the three principal developers of Sites – The University of Texas, the US Botanic Garden and the American Society of Landscape Architects are now embroiled in a law suit over the trademark rights to Sites. University of Texas filed the paperwork for trade marking Sites in an effort to keep cer-tain unauthorized parties from using the name. Once the name was trade-marked, Texas would grant uncondi-tional free licenses to the Botanic Garden and the ASLA to use Sites’ name. The US Botanic Garden was fine with that; the ASLA (surprise, surprise) was not. So the ASLA filed suit against UT and now Sites is tied up in court for however long it takes for someone to sort through the mess.

So, why Sites? Well, for many of the same reasons we wanted to offer the LEED classes. Sites represents anoth-er way in which we can offer our goods and services to a market that is growing every year. It’s the same rea-son there are so many conservation groups, the same reason stormwater management is the hot button that it is, the same reason the Common-wealth has to comply with the EPA regarding runoff into the Bay – the public wants a “greener” environment and is willing to pay for it.



Invasive species remain a priority in Virginia, but nothing much has changed for us with respect to inva-sive plants this year. What has hap-pened has mostly been of an adminis-trative nature. In April I attended a meeting of the Invasive Species Ad-visory Committee where we were presented with updates on wavy leaf basket grass, thousand canker dis-ease, rats, pigs and other nasties that could be coming our way, but nothing that could really hurt us. I did, how-ever, find out exactly how plants come to be on the invasive species list. Right now, a few scientists in the DCR and VDACS search invasives lists of other states plus the federal government for candidates to be add-ed to our list. They meet to discuss the invasive qualities of the species and then simply vote on whether to include it on Virginia’s list or not. While I trust the people who are mak-ing the decisions now – they are all intelligent, conscientious, dedicated, and above all, friends of horticulture,

there is no guarantee that the next group to make these decisions will be.

So at the Invasive Species Working Group meeting a few weeks later, I asked if there was some way in which the process could be made more uni-form and scientifically based; that the VNLA would feel more comfortable if the method by which a plant or an-imal was added to the list was actual-ly written down somewhere. And wouldn’t you know it, one of those hated conservation organizations – the Nature Conservancy, agreed with me, as did the rest of the committee. I am supposed to see a draft of that document as soon as it is finished at which time I will forward it to Jeff and you will find it in the newsletter. It appears that soon we will be somewhat protected from a sneak attack like last year’s general assem-bly bill introduced by that misguided gentleman from northern VA.

And while we’re on the subject of

conservation groups, the Chesapeake Conservation Landscaping Council, which is located in Maryland, ap-proached the VNLA to get our input for their Chesapeake Bay Landscape Professional Certification Program which they plan to launch in Mary-land in 2014 and hopefully offer to other jurisdictions (us) sometime af-ter that. What that means to us is that there will be a way for landscapers to become certified to install stormwater mitigation features (rain gardens, bio-swales and the like) so that munici-palities and the general public can meet the EPA’s requirements in cleaning up the Bay. And in case you missed it – they approached us for our help. Maybe some of those con-servation groups aren’t so bad after all.

Tom Thompson, VNLA Environmental Affairs Chair, naturalartlandscap-

[email protected]

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News – A.S. Gresham Jr. Scholarship Awarded

The winner of the 2013 A. S.

Gresham Scholarship is Anna Rakes. She is attending Virginia Tech and anticipates graduation in 2014.

Following is her essay.

Ever since I was a child, I have had a fascination with plants. Some of my best childhood memories are of the countless hours I spent with my fami-ly in the gardens around our home. As the years went by, my youthful fascination with plants became a more sophisticated hobby. I began to collect and identify various plant specimens, propagate and care for plants, landscape, and even research various diseases and pests that could affect the plants around our home, which lead to my interest in insects. When I began to think about colleges and future careers, I took my interest in plants and insects into account and decided to major in horticulture with a concentration in landscape contract-ing and minor in entomology and business while attending Virginia Tech.

My plan is to complete my bachelor's degree at Virginia Tech, and pursue a career as a landscape contractor. My goal in this career is to help people see and realize the benefits plants have for our everyday lives. I plan to open my own plant nursery and land-scaping business in the future in order to achieve this goal. I will specialize in plants that are beneficial to the en-vironment and economy, and by do-ing so, help my community "go green." I also plan to use the knowledge I gain through my ento-mology minor to educate people on the positive and negative effects of

insects as well as safe methods to control pests.

While attending Virginia Tech, I have taken classes that have enhanced my horticultural knowledge. In 2011, I was assigned a work study position in the horticulture department as a facul-ty and graduate research assistant. As a work study student in this depart-ment, I assisted faculty members as well as graduate students with re-search projects involving potatoes. In the summer of 2012, I earned an in-ternship at the Hahn Horticulture Garden at Virginia Tech. Through this internship, I was offered a posi-tion as a work study in the Hahn Hor-ticulture Garden for the 2012-2013 academic year. These work study po-sitions and internship have allowed me to gain experience in the green-house, laboratory, and landscape fields.

Due to the state of the economy, my parents cannot help pay for my edu-cation; however, this has not stopped me from pursuing my goals. As a full-time student, in order to maintain my grade point average, I cannot work a full-time job to help pay for my expenses at Virginia Tech. Alt-hough I qualify for some grants, they are not enough to pay for my tuition at Virginia Tech; therefore I rely heavily on student loans to pay for my tuition and housing. Earning a scholarship would help lessen the burden of paying back such a large loan.

News – David E. Laird Scholarship Awarded

The winner for the 2013 David E Laird scholarship is Heather Truax. She is attending Virginia Tech in Horticulture and anticipates graduat-ing in 2014. Her essay follows.

As a kid, the highlight of my day was going outside. I grew up in Lexing-ton, Virginia and made countless trips to the Boxerwood Gardens. I was for-tunate enough to go to a grade school

with many programs, including a garden program that made a huge impact on me at such a young age. In grade school I had the opportunity to go on two educational trips with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. I knew then that whatever I did for the rest of my life, it would be outside. I started out my time at Virginia Tech in the College of Natural Resources. While I appreciated the College, it was not the right fit. Spring of freshman year, I went on another trip with the Ches-apeake Bay Foundation. While I did enjoy it and respect the field, I knew that I did not want to permanently go into natural resource conservation. I struggled in school not having a strong enough interest in my major. I eventually made the switch to Horti-culture, spring 2012. Since I have made the switch, I have felt fulfill-ment in my major and looked up to many of my professors as role models of who I want to grow into. Coming in to horticulture was the best deci-sion, yet I have had many struggles since making the change. I feel be-hind the curve on my experience in the field without a lot of the hands on experience a lot of students in horti-culture seem to have. School has nev-er been my strong point as well, but I am hard working and willing to push through.

After several years of working in en-vironmental horticulture after under-grad, I would like to go back to school to gain my masters and even-tually doctorate in Horticulture. I hope to teach horticulture and be like the professors that I have looked up to. Until that point, I plan to work in production and/or growing to save up for graduate school and to gain expe-rience within the field. I hope to be employed by a production company and learn the ropes in the area of or-namental production and gain experi-ence in management. I eagerly look forward to where horticulture will take me and hope to one day make as much of an impact as it has made to me.



Obituary – Ernie Marshall

Ernie Ray Marshall, 62, of Christians-burg, born May 5, 1951, passed away Sunday, July 14, 2013, at Kate B. Reynolds Hospice Home in Winston-Salem, N.C., when the heavens opened up after a courageous battle with a brain tumor.

Ernie loved the outdoors and was al-ways checking on his trees. He was a friend to everyone he met and took eve-ry opportunity to help those in need. He always had a story or a joke to tell. He especially loved being at the family's home in North Myrtle Beach, which he designed and re-built. He walked the beach or biked every day and spent many happy hours on his boat while fishing. He took delight in being fea-tured in a You-Tube video entitled "Myrtle Beach-Call Me Maybe". When he was at home in Christiansburg, he loved planting trees and having a gar-den. He sold Christmas trees at his

store in Christiansburg and gave away wreaths and poinsettias to many, many patrons.

He was born in Radford on May 5, 1951, a son of the late, Quinton and Sadie Phillips Marshall and he was also preceded in death by a brother, Perry Marshall, and grandparents, Everett and Maretha Marshall.

Ernie was a graduate of Dublin High School class of 1970, and New River Community College. He was a promi-nent and brilliant businessman and al-ways had visions for the future. He was the owner of Marshall Nurseries, L&L Wholesale Nursery, J&E Inc., Marshall Rentals and Riner Farms. He was a member of Virginia Finest Association, American Nurserymen Association and the PTA. His trees were featured in the movie Dirty Dancing and the TV Show, Home Improvement. Ernie do-nated the Bi-Centennial tree that stands in the center of the square in Chris-tiansburg.

He was a member of the Fairlawn

Presbyterian Church and an active member of St. Jude's Catholic Church in Radford, serving as an usher and a member of the Knights of Columbus. He built the church rectory and made a number of other contributions to the church. He will be remembered with love by his St. Judes's Church family, his Crescent Beach Family, Caregivers and many friends who supported him through his illness. Survivors include his wife, Jacqueline Poniatowski Mar-shall, to whom he married on August 10, 1974 in New Jersey. He was the love of her life, her best friend, and her soul mate. Ernie will be sadly missed. There are but three things that last, Faith, Hope and Love, but the greatest of these is Love.

He was the proud father of Luke Branden and Lance Ryan Marshall. He always supported them and took pride in their accomplishments.

- See more at: http://tinyurl.com/n7963qq

Roanoke Times

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2014Mid-AtlanticHorticulture

Short Course

JAnuAry 13 -17

presents the

Gary R. Doerr Plant Introductions, Blooms of Bressingham

Nigel Dunnett Professor Landscape Design; Director of Green Roof Centre, University of Sheffield

Bernie Erven HR Management, Emeritus, Ohio State University

Mike Goatley Turfgrass Specialist, Virginia Tech University

James Hitchmough Professor Horticultural Ecology, University of Sheffield

Marriott City Center • Newport News, VA

$115 PER DAY CERTIFICATIONS & CEUs

Get more with Lunch & Learns and Evening Workshops!

INVITED SPEAKERSPeter Becker Senior Vice-President, Mid-Atlantic Division Manager, Bartlett Tree Experts

Reggie D. Millette Author, Garden Photographer, Hosta Expert, Millette Photomedia

James A. Murphy Turfgrass Specialist, Rutgers University

Kelly D. Norris Horticulture Manager, Greater Des Moines Botanical Garden; Iris Expert

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SPECIALTY WORKSHOPS

Detailed schedule available in the fall.

(757) 523-4734www.mahsc.org


VNLA - Photo Contest Rules

1. The contest is open to any pho-tographer (amateur and profes-sional) except members of Board of Directors of VNLA and their families. Entries are limited to VNLA members and their staff.

2. Each photographer may enter up to three (3) digital images per Newsletter deadline (see #6). E-mail images to [email protected]. In-clude your name, phone number and occupation. One winning en-try per photographer per year. You may re-enter non-winning entries.

3. Please e-mail images separate-ly. Feel free to elaborate on any story surrounding the photograph. Photos should be 300 dpi high resolution.

4. All photographs submitted must have been taken within the past five years.

5. All photographs must be relat-ed to the Green Industry. The subject can be located in a nursery, back yard, or in a landscape--just so it is obviously related to the green industry profession.

6. Deadline for submission is 5:00 p.m. on the Newsletter Copy Deadline, which is the 15th of Jan-uary, April, July, and October. All submissions become the property of the VNLA.

7. Model Release forms are re-quired with each photograph which contains a clearly identifiable per-son. Release forms are available from the VNLA office, on request, and are also available for down-load from the VNLA website at Model release in MS Word format or Adobe PDF format.

Judging done by the VNLA Communication Committee.

All decisions are final.

Winner of the October/November/December 2013 Photo Contest

Photo Winner: Karen McDaniel Payton The Noble Gardener, Madison, VA

My front yard. Madison, VA. Magnificent Oak tree and sunrise makes for wonderful mornings:

. Win $50, submit your photos!

Good Luck and Happy Photographing! VNA Horticulture Research Foundation

Gala/Auction WEDNESDAY, January 9

(1st evening of MANTS) The Center Club

(across from the Convention Center) $135 per person (limited to 180 tickets)

(Order tickets through MANTS Registration)

The Jazz Trio plays an eclectic combination of jazz standards as well as Latin Tunes mixed with a few tunes that are a combination of those genre and funk. They also perform originals in the above

mentioned styles www.JimStewartJazzTrio.com/ A seated 4-course Dinner with filet mignon and crab cakes

Drinks, Cocktails, Beer & Wine (2 drink tickets, cash bar) Silent Auction & Live Auction

2014Mid-AtlanticHorticulture

Short Course

JAnuAry 13 -17

presents the

Gary R. Doerr Plant Introductions, Blooms of Bressingham

Nigel Dunnett Professor Landscape Design; Director of Green Roof Centre, University of Sheffield

Bernie Erven HR Management, Emeritus, Ohio State University

Mike Goatley Turfgrass Specialist, Virginia Tech University

James Hitchmough Professor Horticultural Ecology, University of Sheffield

Marriott City Center • Newport News, VA

$115 PER DAY CERTIFICATIONS & CEUs

Get more with Lunch & Learns and Evening Workshops!

INVITED SPEAKERSPeter Becker Senior Vice-President, Mid-Atlantic Division Manager, Bartlett Tree Experts

Reggie D. Millette Author, Garden Photographer, Hosta Expert, Millette Photomedia

James A. Murphy Turfgrass Specialist, Rutgers University

Kelly D. Norris Horticulture Manager, Greater Des Moines Botanical Garden; Iris Expert

Approved Educational

Hours for:

Get the free mobile app athttp:/ /gettag.mobi

Bonsai, Beneficial Insects, Capturing & Marketing Great Garden Images, Plant Propagation, Willow Garden Art, Horticulture Skills Training in Spanish (Dia de Habilidad en Horticultura en Español), Virginia Certified Fertilizer Applicator.

SPECIALTY WORKSHOPS

Detailed schedule available in the fall.

(757) 523-4734www.mahsc.org


8


Karen Kelly

How many remember the mid 1970’s recession and oil embargo? High prices, high unemployment and infla-tion topped out in the 20% range. By the early ‘80s severely affected real estate and construction. In the after-math of this, David C. Wilson and I decided to strike out on our own with the dream of offering superlative quality and design. Our big break came when a friend referred us to a property manager who needed an en-tire office park pruned and renovated - the two of us and one 1-ton truck! This boost allowed us to hire part-time, then full time employees, and begin to grow. We were always very conservative financially - a result of having no big investment of cash at the start.

Our experienced, hardworking and loyal staff is the reason for our lon-gevity and success. Carol Pilgrim joined the firm in 1985. A biology major from William & Mary, her many talents include landscape de-sign, pest and disease identification, and office management.

Carey White (right) joined the com-pany in 1991. With his VA Tech I.P.M. degree and experience, we were able to offer more and better garden care being requested by our landscape customers. We pride our-selves in specialty horticultural care - water gardens, perennial plantings, Japanese gardens, rose care and such. After subcontracting out our lawn work for some years, Brian Jones joined the firm in 2005 to handle soil testing, lawn applications and mow-ing for a growing number of custom-ers who wanted ‘full service’. When David Wilson retired in 1998, Carey bought into company ownership.

Penny Seay and staff help setup displays

at the State Fair

A graduate of both Patrick Henry HS and JSRCC horticulture programs, Penny Seay supervises maintenance properties and sells and designs new landscapes. She is responsible for creating our popular container plant-ings and custom annual color displays too.

Dave Proietti relocated to Virginia from upstate New York and joined Shipp & Wilson in 1996. He has worked as a foreman, and as Landscape Supervisor since David Wilson’s re-tirement.

(l-r) Diana Crook, Penny Seay,

Carol Pilgrim

Recent staff additions include Diana Crook, a well-known award-winning designer in design and sales, and Lyle Almond who came on board this year as a Landscape Supervisor. Nursery management was handled by Vernon Stanley until his untimely death, and now by Sean Proietti.

VNLA – Member Profile: Shipp & Wilson Inc. Karen Kelly & Carey White



April 2012 marked the 30th Anniver-sary of the founding of our company, and it also marks the change in lead-ership from Karen Kelly to Carey White as President and CEO.

We offer landscape design/build and grounds management services, split about 66% landscape and 33% maintenance now. Renovation and maintenance has grown more quickly during this recent recession than new landscape work.

Karen is past president and co-founder of Shipp & Wilson.

Market Niche: Small commercial and mid to large residential work. We do not seek out large install or maintenance work, preferring jobs that allow us some design creativity and specialty garden care opportuni-ties.

Business Philosophy:

We strive to give each client the most thoughtful solution to their individual landscape needs, blending creativity, functionality, and cost effectiveness. We want to enjoy the people we work with and work for.

Best Idea You Ever Stole:

One reason I love the nursery busi-ness so much is the generous sharing of information between people.

Hobbies

I actually enjoy gardening as a hob-by! Also photography, drawing and being outdoors. I volunteer with my neighborhood association, Habitat for Humanity, and various master gar-dener programs around central VA.

Industry Organizations:

Organization, Positions, & Dates: all since 1983

RNA (now CVNLA) board and of-ficer; VNA (now VNLA) board and committee member; VSLD board and officer, twice; ASLA affiliate since 1983; AAN now ANLA) member.

NCNLA member 1983-2009.

Ad – Plantworks Nursery



Karen Kelly Gazebo at the State Fair

Horticulture Pavilion on Laburnum Ave.

Karen has tirelessly (maybe not) worked with the green industry to establish the Horticulture Pavilion at the State Fair of Virginia, providing design, installation, materials and moral support since 1988 – that’s 25 YEARS! In the mid-90’s the gazebo that was the centerpiece of the Horti-culture areas was name the “Karen Kelly Gazebo” in appreciation of her support and dedication.

Other Organization, Positions, & Dates: LGBG Board of Directors 2000-2007

JSRCC Horticulture advisory board, many years.

Honors, Awards

VNA Nurseryman of the Year (now Professional of the Year) 1988

AHS Environmental Award Feb 2008

Maymont Flower & Garden Show, many awards since it started; Best in Show, 2003

Favorite Plant- Combinations are al-ways more intriguing than individual plants or colors.

Dislikes: Doing things twice.

Best Habit: Really hearing what the customer is trying to impart to you.

Worst Habit: Definitely procrastina-tion.

Hero: Roland Hempl (old Glenwood Garden Center) encouraged me to try landscape design as a career, and Billy, TD, and John Watkins taught me to love the nursery business and, by ex-ample, to see the value of industry groups.

Favorite Quote and advice: George Stockner said “People buy from peo-ple they like.”

Helpful Hint When Handling Employees:

Work as a team, solicit input and let employees rise to the challenge of responsibility. Learning new things and personal development are as im-portant as salary and benefits.

Hottest Upcoming Trends:

Vertical gardening, rainwater harvest-ing techniques, natural healing through contact with nature. A lot of today’s ‘green’ interests are revivals of those from the ‘70s. (Do you still have your copy of the ‘Whole Earth Catalog’?)

How or Why Your Company Man-aged to Stay in Business So Long?

You need to really care about people- your customers, your staff, your sub-contractors and your suppliers.

Biggest Challenge, Obstacle or Disaster in Business History:

This recent recession taught us some hard lessons - keep your customer base balanced and don’t rely on one segment or one customer too heavily.

Who is your most significant men-tor and why?

John Watkins, because when I started in the business, he gave me the cour-age to do things I never would have tried on my own, simply by expecting that I could. Also, the USMC. Grow-ing up as a military dependent teaches you adaptability, tolerance and flexi-bility.

Future Plans: Retirement! After al-most 40 years, I hope to travel and spend more time with friends and family.

How has the industry changed since you started in business?

Unbelievably! From the role of wom-en, to the communications and tech-nology, the changes have been so monumental it is hard to describe. From a few wives at nursery meet-ings to many women business own-ers, from manual typewriters (with correction tape) to computers, US Mail to email and text, pay phones to cell phones, reference books to on-line data, annual catalogs to weekly emailed availability lists, hand-laced balls to wire baskets, hand digging to tree spades, field-grown shrubs to all-container nurseries-wow! What will the next 40 years look like!

What do you know now, that you would have liked to know when you started in business?

I would have probably been less cau-tious.

Where do you think the green in-dustry is going in the next 10 years?

Nowhere but up if we can harness the great need that all people have to be in touch with the natural world. I am optimistic - we are part of the best business you can be in!

Karen is a 30 year resident of the Museum District in Richmond VA. She attended Francis C. Hammond high school in Northern Virginia, then Colegio Americano City: Cara-cas, Venezuela. She graduated in 1964. She attended college at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. Karen graduated in 1968 with a BFA in Painting/Art History

Edited by Sandy Miller



VNLA - Member Profile: Carey White

(l) Cary White and Lyle Almond

Carey White is President of Shipp & Wilson. He attended John Handley High School.in Winchester, VA where he graduated in 1978. He at-tended Virginia Tech, obtaining a BS in Integrated Pest Management in 1983. He has been with the company since 1991. Carey along with his wife have 3 children, one (his daughter) is currently attending Virginia Tech studying Horticulture.

He is a member of Sigma Chi Na-tional Fraternity

His industry organizations that’s he has been involved in include

Richmond Landscape Contractors Association (previously RPGMS)

Board member and past president TAC Committee for Fertilizer

Regulations for Commonwealth of VA

VGIC member Hobbies: Fishing is his favorite, fresh or salt water. They also have 3 dogs, 1 hamster and a turtle.

Best Idea You Ever Stole:

Our local grounds management group’s meetings have been a great venue for idea exchange on many topics and problems.

Favorite Plant: It changes- right now it is Magilla Perilla Coleus.

Favorite Flower Color: anything but white

Dislikes: Yuccas, barberry, pyracan-tha - the painful plants to work around!

Best Habit: getting up and coming to work each day

Worst Habit: organization- I am not neat

Dream Vacation: There is a lake on the Texas/Mexico border with huge bass- I’d love to go there.

Hero: My mother, Liz White

Favorite Quote: “Don’t sweat the petty things; don’t pet the sweaty things!”

Aspirations: To always do good quality work and have a good reputa-tion.

Hardest Part of Your Workday: Coming back to the office in the after-noon, making phone calls, and doing paperwork.

Best Part of Your Workday:

Getting out on the jobs in the morning.

Helpful Hint When Handling Employees:

Listen to what they have to say, and be open-minded.

Hottest Upcoming Trend:

More people being willing to spend money to maintain their landscapes.

Best Advice Ever Received:

Be yourself

Biggest Challenge, Obstacle or Disaster in Business History:

Finding and retaining good employees is constantly the biggest challenge.

Who is your most significant mentor and why?

My Mom, who knows and is known by everyone in the Virginia apple industry, and my Dad who inspires me with his tremendous work ethic.

How has the industry changed since you started in business?

Since I started, communications and technology have exploded- we have gone from pagers and pay phones to two-way radios, to cell phones to smart phones. Labor has changed tremendously – in 1991, there were no Hispanic workers in our area.

Where do you think the green in-dustry is going in the next 10 years?

Technology will have an even bigger impact on what we do every day.

The current trends will be supplanted by newer ones.

There will be changes in the way we irrigate and treat lawns, for instance, but I think people will always want a beautiful landscape.

Edited by Sandy Miller


Encourage your employees to complete an online Masters of Agricultural and Life Sciences at Virginia Tech. Students can study from anywhere with the flexibility and support they need!

Who should take this program?

An online masters is a great choice for Green Industry Professionals looking to enhance their current knowledge and take their career to the next level. Online courses are convenient for working professionals because they allow 24/7 access to course materials, so students can study and complete assignments according to their own schedule.

Students learn from top-notch faculty according to their own schedule and needs.

We have your business goals in mind with courses that will address your management needs and increase production efficiency. Courses are taught by Virginia Tech faculty who also teach on-campus courses. Each student works with an advisor to tailor the program to their professional ambitions. The Online Masters of Agricultural and Life Sciences program is an excellent opportunity for employers to get employees the training they need with enough flexibility that they can still continue working.

The Plant Sciences and Pest Management Concentration

This concentration will give your employees the comprehensive understanding of the scientific principals underlying plant sciences and managing ornamental and crop pests. They will learn to implement management schemes that maintain and/or increase your production while conserving soil and water resources to preserve the delicate balance in the agro-ecosystem.

Take your business to the next level-

Contact InformationDr. Holly Scoggins Green Industry Contact Associate ProfessorDepartment of Horticulture

(540) [email protected]

http://www.cals.vt.edu/online/

email Holly now

Urban Nutrient Management Handbook 3-1

Chapter 3. Managing Urban Soils

Chapter 3. Managing Urban SoilsW. Lee Daniels, Professor, Crop and Soil Environmental Sciences, Virginia Tech

What Is an Urban Soil?More often than not, the soils we manage for plant growth in urban and suburban areas have been signifi-cantly altered from their natural state by excavation (cut and fill), grading, topsoil return, or other operations that fundamentally alter their morphological, physical, and chemical properties (Brown et al. 2000; Scheyer and Hipple 2005). In rural areas, similar disturbances asso-ciated with road construction, mining, and utility cor-ridors generate similar soil conditions that frequently limit plant growth (Booze-Daniels et al. 2000). Simply put, urban soils do not contain the natural sequence of intact soil horizons that was described in chapter 2. Therefore, many of our underlying assumptions about soil testing results, plant growth response and overall soil-plant relations may not apply to these materials, and they must be modified to overcome their inherent limitations for plant growth.

Urban Soil PropertiesWhen we compare these urban soils materials with nearby natural soil profiles (see chapter 2), a number of differences are usually readily apparent (adapted from Craul 1992):

• Highly variable in all directions.

• Abrupt differences in soil texture and density (layer-ing) with depth.

• Presence of high-clay materials at the surface/lack of topsoil.

• Soil structure that has been degraded, leading to loss of large pores (macropores) and their vertical continuity.

• High bulk density due to mechanical compaction and lack of structure/macropores.

• Common occurrence of surface crusts on finer-tex-tured materials.

• Soil pH may be higher or lower than normal.

• Restricted aeration and water drainage.

• Interrupted nutrient cycles and associated microbial populations.

• Very low organic matter and nutrient levels compared to natural topsoils.

• Presence of anthropic materials (e.g., wood, rags, cement) and other contaminants (e.g., oil, metals).

• Higher temperature variability due to lack of natural litter layer or vegetation.

Figure 3.1 depicts a number of these plant-growth lim-iting soil factors that we commonly encounter around building sites, particularly (1) high variability, (2) lay-ering, (3) presence of acidic and infertile clayey mate-rials at the surface, and (4) issues related to excessive compaction (high bulk density). Recognizing and deal-ing with these limitations will therefore be the primary focus of this chapter, but other issues and their remedies will be addressed as well.

Figure 3.1. Diagram of urban soils and important plant growth limiting features. Note that the soil limitations in one portion of a home lot may be quite different from those encountered in another location of the same lot. Diagram by Kathryn Haering.

Types of Urban Soil Materials and Their VariabilityThe entire process of site development for housing, construction, or landscape development results in large amounts of soil disturbance, movement, and mixing. The degree of impact ranges from limited surface soil com-paction to complete removal of the native soil profile and its replacement with mixed and dissimilar fill materials (figures 3.1 and 3.2). Thus, while predevelopment native soil properties will be fairly uniform and predictable on a given site due to the long-term effect of the soil-forming factors (see chapter 2) the postdevelopment site will be much more variable and extreme short-range differences in important plant-growth related properties such as com-paction, texture, and pH will be common. While there is an almost endless variety of mechanisms and expres-sions of soil disturbance, the most common types are (1) exposed subsoil materials, (2) exposed cut materials, and (3) filled materials that are compacted and layered.


3-2 Urban Nutrient Management Handbook


1. Exposed Subsoil MaterialsThe simplest urban soil scenario to recognize and deal with is where the topsoil (A plus E horizons) has been removed. Subsoil materials (B and C horizons) are fre-quently encountered at the surface of the ground as a result of erosion of the native topsoil or severe soil dis-turbance associated with earthmoving and construction activities. In most instances, these materials will be red or yellow in color, but they may range from white to gray in certain instances. Unlike topsoil, this material is often quite clayey and dense, devoid of organic matter, and generally resists plant growth. Subsoils in the mid-Atlantic region are usually highly leached, acidic, and infertile and may also be gravelly or rocky.

Figure 3.2. Typical soil disturbance in subdivision during construction. Each lot is graded out (cut and filled) to approximately level the area immediately surrounding the house. Note large amounts of sand and other construction debris that will more than likely be graded out and incorporated into fills.

2. Cut Slopes and BanksCut materials are commonly encountered on sites where the natural topography is rolling or sloping and must be reshaped to accommodate yards, driveways, landscap-ing, and/or drainage features. Cuts are usually a rela-tively minor component of subdivision developments but are a dominant feature on highway rights-of-way, as discussed in more detail later. In general, cut mate-rials expose subsoil and/or deeper geologic strata and may therefore be very clayey and/or quite coarse and rock-like. One limitation of these materials is that dur-ing grading, cut clays will smear and seal and thereby limit water and root penetration. The lower sections of cut materials may also be subject to the limitations described above for exposed subsoils such as clayey textures and acidic pH. However, due to the fact that they are much less variable, less compacted, and tend to retain their native soil structure, cut slopes are usually superior to fill materials as described next.

3. FillsOverall site development and final land shaping and grading generate extensive areas of filled materials at most sites (figure 3.1). These fills may range from relatively shallow lifts of returned topsoil over intact subsoils to very thick, multi-layered fills of strongly contrasting materials. Fills can often be recognized due to their long linear and uniform slopes or “unnatural” slope shapes and configurations. However, competent grading and landscaping can make fills virtually indis-tinguishable from natural landforms. Fills are typically much more difficult to manage than either exposed sub-soils or cuts for a variety of reasons that are discussed in more detail below. Fill materials tend to be highly variable and layered and compacted, all of which limit plant growth and water movement.

Common Soil Limitations in the Urban Environment

CompactionSimple soil compaction (high bulk density) is the most common plant growth and water movement limitation in urban soils (see figure 3.3). Dense layers in soils are commonly called “pans” and may result from a variety of natural long-term soil processes (e.g., dense Bt hori-zons), but are most commonly formed by site develop-ment and grading machinery. These compacted zones may occur at the surface or deep in the subsoil but are often denser than natural pans or subsoil layers. Arti-ficially induced pans are particularly common where several layers of soil have been disturbed, such as when topsoil is returned to a regraded lawn after house construction, or where cut-and-fill operations have reshaped an area for landscaping. Natural soil structure is usually destroyed by these activities; not only are soils made abnormally dense, but there are no longer any natural channels or planes of weakness for roots, water, and air to penetrate. It is also important to point out that normal foot traffic, game playing, or infrequent tire traffic can also cause compaction of the immedi-ate surface soil, particularly when the soil is moist and readily compressible.

The ability of a growing root tip to penetrate soil is directly dependent on soil strength. Soil strength — which essentially is its resistance to deformation or shearing — is controlled primarily by a soil’s bulk den-sity and moisture content. Workable, loose soils have bulk densities of 1.0 to 1.4 grams per cubic centimeter



1. Exposed Subsoil MaterialsThe simplest urban soil scenario to recognize and deal with is where the topsoil (A plus E horizons) has been removed. Subsoil materials (B and C horizons) are fre-quently encountered at the surface of the ground as a result of erosion of the native topsoil or severe soil dis-turbance associated with earthmoving and construction activities. In most instances, these materials will be red or yellow in color, but they may range from white to gray in certain instances. Unlike topsoil, this material is often quite clayey and dense, devoid of organic matter, and generally resists plant growth. Subsoils in the mid-Atlantic region are usually highly leached, acidic, and infertile and may also be gravelly or rocky.

Figure 3.2. Typical soil disturbance in subdivision during construction. Each lot is graded out (cut and filled) to approximately level the area immediately surrounding the house. Note large amounts of sand and other construction debris that will more than likely be graded out and incorporated into fills.

2. Cut Slopes and BanksCut materials are commonly encountered on sites where the natural topography is rolling or sloping and must be reshaped to accommodate yards, driveways, landscap-ing, and/or drainage features. Cuts are usually a rela-tively minor component of subdivision developments but are a dominant feature on highway rights-of-way, as discussed in more detail later. In general, cut mate-rials expose subsoil and/or deeper geologic strata and may therefore be very clayey and/or quite coarse and rock-like. One limitation of these materials is that dur-ing grading, cut clays will smear and seal and thereby limit water and root penetration. The lower sections of cut materials may also be subject to the limitations described above for exposed subsoils such as clayey textures and acidic pH. However, due to the fact that they are much less variable, less compacted, and tend to retain their native soil structure, cut slopes are usually superior to fill materials as described next.

3. FillsOverall site development and final land shaping and grading generate extensive areas of filled materials at most sites (figure 3.1). These fills may range from relatively shallow lifts of returned topsoil over intact subsoils to very thick, multi-layered fills of strongly contrasting materials. Fills can often be recognized due to their long linear and uniform slopes or “unnatural” slope shapes and configurations. However, competent grading and landscaping can make fills virtually indis-tinguishable from natural landforms. Fills are typically much more difficult to manage than either exposed sub-soils or cuts for a variety of reasons that are discussed in more detail below. Fill materials tend to be highly variable and layered and compacted, all of which limit plant growth and water movement.

Common Soil Limitations in the Urban Environment

CompactionSimple soil compaction (high bulk density) is the most common plant growth and water movement limitation in urban soils (see figure 3.3). Dense layers in soils are commonly called “pans” and may result from a variety of natural long-term soil processes (e.g., dense Bt hori-zons), but are most commonly formed by site develop-ment and grading machinery. These compacted zones may occur at the surface or deep in the subsoil but are often denser than natural pans or subsoil layers. Arti-ficially induced pans are particularly common where several layers of soil have been disturbed, such as when topsoil is returned to a regraded lawn after house construction, or where cut-and-fill operations have reshaped an area for landscaping. Natural soil structure is usually destroyed by these activities; not only are soils made abnormally dense, but there are no longer any natural channels or planes of weakness for roots, water, and air to penetrate. It is also important to point out that normal foot traffic, game playing, or infrequent tire traffic can also cause compaction of the immedi-ate surface soil, particularly when the soil is moist and readily compressible.

The ability of a growing root tip to penetrate soil is directly dependent on soil strength. Soil strength — which essentially is its resistance to deformation or shearing — is controlled primarily by a soil’s bulk den-sity and moisture content. Workable, loose soils have bulk densities of 1.0 to 1.4 grams per cubic centimeter




(g/cm3). In a clayey soil, root penetration is greatly retarded during dry conditions when bulk density exceeds 1.5 g/cm3. The same soil when moist, how-ever, may not impede rooting because soil strength is then decreased. Sandy soils resist compaction due to their larger packing voids between particles and can support adequate rooting at bulk densities approaching 1.8 g/cm3, but will still be limiting at higher levels of compaction.

Soils that are compacted also resist water movement and gas exchange, which can seriously hinder plant growth. Compacted soils also lack macropore space, which lessens water-holding capacity and rooting depth. Due to their lack of large pore spaces, water passes very slowly; therefore, dense soils often alternate between being very wet in the winter and very dry in the summer. Compacted soils also perch wet spots in unexpected locations and enhance runoff over infiltration. Finally, a compacted soil can severely limit plant growth, even if other physical and chemical characteristics such as texture and pH are optimal (see figure 3.4). Thus, soil compaction cannot be recognized by conventional soil testing and is often a “hidden limitation.”

Figure 3.3. High bulk density (2.0 g/cm3) traffic pan on a mining site under loose spoil materials. Similar traffic pans are routinely found in home construction and highway environments. Roots cannot pen-etrate or loosen zones that are packed to a bulk density greater than approximately 1.5 g/cm3 for a clay or 1.9 g/cm3 for a sandy-textured soil.

Figure 3.4. Turf growth limited by compaction. The bare soil on the left was pH 6.5 and fertile but heavily compacted and therefore, not capable of supporting viable turf after seed germination. The turf in the rest of this photo is also growing in moderately compacted soil as evidenced by its “clumpy” appearance.

Soil Layering and Associated ProblemsWhen downward percolating water encounters a com-pacted zone or a zone of strongly contrasting soil tex-ture (such as sand over clay or vice versa), water will back up or “perch” just above the contact and saturate the zone above it. The nature and quantity of poros-ity, particularly the amount of large, continuous pores and channels in the soil, is the primary factor control-ling the rate of water movement. Temporarily perched water tables may persist close to the soil surface from several days to months, depending on local soil and cli-matic conditions. A similar perching occurs when water passes through a coarse-textured soil layer with many large pores and then encounters a finer-textured soil layer (even if noncompacted) with much smaller pores. Perching also occurs — but for an altogether different reason — when water passing through a fine-textured layer encounters a coarser sand or gravel stratum. In this case, the finer-textured clay soil actually holds on to its water so tightly (due to capillary forces or suction) that it significantly slows its movement into the coarser material below. Saturated conditions within the root-ing zone cause a number of problems for plant growth, including lack of oxygen, loss of available nitrogen, and potential heavy-metal toxicities.

Adverse Soil Texture or Rock ContentAs discussed in detail in chapter 2, loamy textures are optimum for plant growth, and most native A horizons (topsoil) are within this texture class. However, sub-soil layers (B horizons) are commonly quite clayey, and deeper C horizons may be very sandy or rocky. Because of the very fine texture and small pore size of clayey soils, water is so tightly held that uptake by plant roots



(g/cm3). In a clayey soil, root penetration is greatly retarded during dry conditions when bulk density exceeds 1.5 g/cm3. The same soil when moist, how-ever, may not impede rooting because soil strength is then decreased. Sandy soils resist compaction due to their larger packing voids between particles and can support adequate rooting at bulk densities approaching 1.8 g/cm3, but will still be limiting at higher levels of compaction.

Soils that are compacted also resist water movement and gas exchange, which can seriously hinder plant growth. Compacted soils also lack macropore space, which lessens water-holding capacity and rooting depth. Due to their lack of large pore spaces, water passes very slowly; therefore, dense soils often alternate between being very wet in the winter and very dry in the summer. Compacted soils also perch wet spots in unexpected locations and enhance runoff over infiltration. Finally, a compacted soil can severely limit plant growth, even if other physical and chemical characteristics such as texture and pH are optimal (see figure 3.4). Thus, soil compaction cannot be recognized by conventional soil testing and is often a “hidden limitation.”

Figure 3.3. High bulk density (2.0 g/cm3) traffic pan on a mining site under loose spoil materials. Similar traffic pans are routinely found in home construction and highway environments. Roots cannot pen-etrate or loosen zones that are packed to a bulk density greater than approximately 1.5 g/cm3 for a clay or 1.9 g/cm3 for a sandy-textured soil.

Figure 3.4. Turf growth limited by compaction. The bare soil on the left was pH 6.5 and fertile but heavily compacted and therefore, not capable of supporting viable turf after seed germination. The turf in the rest of this photo is also growing in moderately compacted soil as evidenced by its “clumpy” appearance.

Soil Layering and Associated ProblemsWhen downward percolating water encounters a com-pacted zone or a zone of strongly contrasting soil tex-ture (such as sand over clay or vice versa), water will back up or “perch” just above the contact and saturate the zone above it. The nature and quantity of poros-ity, particularly the amount of large, continuous pores and channels in the soil, is the primary factor control-ling the rate of water movement. Temporarily perched water tables may persist close to the soil surface from several days to months, depending on local soil and cli-matic conditions. A similar perching occurs when water passes through a coarse-textured soil layer with many large pores and then encounters a finer-textured soil layer (even if noncompacted) with much smaller pores. Perching also occurs — but for an altogether different reason — when water passing through a fine-textured layer encounters a coarser sand or gravel stratum. In this case, the finer-textured clay soil actually holds on to its water so tightly (due to capillary forces or suction) that it significantly slows its movement into the coarser material below. Saturated conditions within the root-ing zone cause a number of problems for plant growth, including lack of oxygen, loss of available nitrogen, and potential heavy-metal toxicities.

Adverse Soil Texture or Rock ContentAs discussed in detail in chapter 2, loamy textures are optimum for plant growth, and most native A horizons (topsoil) are within this texture class. However, sub-soil layers (B horizons) are commonly quite clayey, and deeper C horizons may be very sandy or rocky. Because of the very fine texture and small pore size of clayey soils, water is so tightly held that uptake by plant roots




is limited. Clayey soils also limit plant growth due to higher soil strength, their tendency to dry and crack, their tendency to form crusts after rain events, and other adverse chemical properties as discussed below. On the other hand, very coarse-textured (sandy) or rocky soils are also prone to drought and do not retain added fertil-izer and lime elements.

Adverse pH and Nutrient StatusMost subsoils (B and C horizons) in our region are low in pH (4.0 to 6.0) due to long-term acid-leach-ing processes and are very low in available nutrients because they formed well below the zone of active nutrient cycling and/or fertilization and liming. This acidic condition greatly increases the solubility of nat-urally occurring phytotoxic metals like aluminum and manganese. In certain instances (e.g., Piedmont sap-rolites), however, deep subsoil materials may actually be quite moderate in pH and nutrient cations (calcium, magnesium, potassium), but they will still be very low in plant-available nitrogen and phosphorus. The red and yellow colors commonly seen in subsoil materi-als are due to coatings of iron-oxides, which tend to be ubiquitous in regional subsoils. These amorphous iron coatings along with associated aluminum oxides (which are not readily visible) have the ability to adsorb large amounts of applied phosphorus fertiliz-ers via a process called phosphorus-fixation (see chap-ter 4), particularly when the soil pH is less than 6.0 (Brady and Weil 2008).

In certain instances — particularly where high pH mortar mix or quick lime (see discussion later) have been added to the soil in excessive amounts — the soil pH may be abnormally high (more than 8.2). This can lead to a variety of plant nutrient deficiencies and toxicities and soil physical problems (Brady and Weil 2008). If the soil is alkaline (pH more than 8.2) but weakly buffered, the pH can be readily reduced via addition of aluminum sulfate (Al2(SO4)3) or by add-ing acid-forming organic matter like pine needles and leaves and allowing natural decomposition to reacid-ify the soil. However, if the soil alkalinity is highly buffered (i.e., more than 5 to 10 tons of calcium car-bonate equivalence; CCE) it will be necessary to add elemental sulfur (flowers of sulfur) to quickly form sulfuric acid in soil solution to neutralize the excess alkalinity. This must be done very carefully because, as discussed later, reduced sulfur is highly reactive in the soil and even a minor over-application can drive the soil pH below 4.0.

Low Organic Matter and Microbial ActivityUnless topsoil layers are properly salvaged, stored, and returned, newly constructed urban soils are much lower in their organic matter content and microbial biomass than nearby natural soil profiles. This particularly affects surface soil aggregation, infiltration, and water-holding capacity. The lack of microbial activity may also limit the soils’ nitrogen, phosphorus, and sulfur cycles, which are highly dependent on the active microbial biomass for important mineralization transformations. Reveg-etated urban soils will accumulate stable organic matter levels and microbial communities over time, but their development may also be strongly limited by the com-bined adverse soil properties discussed above.

Inclusion of Mixed and Foreign MaterialsOne of the unique diagnostic features of most urban soils is their inclusion of a wide array of dissimilar nat-ural and man-made (anthropogenic) materials. This is particularly true of soils on residential lots where con-tractors are unlikely to remove excess sand, gravel or other materials due to the cost of loading and hauling. By definition, these materials usually are found in the fill portions of urban soils, but they may also occur in scattered pockets or thin veneers over exposed subsoils or cut areas. Following is a summary of a few of the more problematic materials:

Gravel and sand are commonly found in layers or pockets related to mortar mix areas, temporary roads, or storage areas. These are usually capped with finer-textured fill or topsoil layers, generating a very strong textural discontinuity that limits water drainage.

Cement and mortar mix are usually found in localized areas but may be mixed throughout a given fill layer when materials are bulldozed or moved during final site grading. Mortar mix will impart very high soil pH (9.0 or more) to localized areas for long periods of time until it fully reacts with natural soil acidity. Poorly cured waste concrete can also cause locally high soil pH.

Waste wood, drywall, nails, rags, etc. tend to be dis-carded or to fall into the open excavation next to home foundations and block walls and are commonly mixed into the soils that constitute the backfill. As waste wood or rags decompose, they generate locally anaerobic zones that are adverse to the roots of many native and ornamental plants. Drywall, on the other hand, is pri-marily gypsum and paper and is actually used as an approved soil amendment (after grinding) in several




southeastern states. Nails, wire, metal flashing, and glass are also commonly encountered in this zone and pose more of a safety hazard to the home gardener than a plant growth limitation.

Managing Urban Soils and Their Limitations

Soil Sampling, Testing, and Fertilizer Plus Lime PrescriptionsAppropriate soil sampling and testing is critical to manag-ing urban soils. First of all, you need to take some time to try to understand the nature of your local urban soil land-scape. Start by looking for areas of obvious cut slopes and fills. Using a shovel or a tiling spade, try to discern if you have topsoil return over cut subsoils or exposed cut and fill materials. With a little investigation and thought about how your landscape’s soil materials were moved around, you should be able to discern a pattern. As you do this, pay attention to whether or not the soil is readily “diggable” or dense and resists penetration. Remember that soils are much stronger and resistant to digging and penetration when they are dry, so try to do this evaluation when the soil is moist (but not too wet).

Next, follow the soil sampling instructions outlined in chapter 5, but try to separate areas of cut, fill, and exposed subsoil where possible into different soil sampling zones. Once a competent lab analyzes the samples, follow the fertilizer and lime prescriptions. If areas of strongly contrasting vegetation patterns occur (see figure 3.4), sample them separately. When pos-sible, resample and retest problematic areas in future years to confirm that soil conditions are improving.

It is important to note that the soil testing procedures and fertilizer/lime recommendation systems used by the majority of university and private-sector laborato-ries were developed and correlated for use on natural weathered surface soils and therefore may not accu-rately predict amendment needs for newly disturbed urban soils. This is not to say that soil testing is not appropriate for urban soils, but the results of a given test need to be specifically interpreted for their applica-tion to these types of materials. This is particularly true when unweathered sediments or soft rocks are being revegetated or the road cut exposes unusually reactive materials (e.g., sulfidic soils) as discussed later. Once these urban soils have been managed and equilibrated to support vegetation for several years, however, inter-pretation of soil testing results is more straightforward.

Managing Dense SoilsField determination of bulk density is difficult for an untrained person, but a general identification of com-pacted or dense soils can be estimated via the “calibrated shovel” technique discussed above. Tillage (e.g., roto-tilling) or deep ripping (via a ripper or chisel plow) is the only practical way to improve soil porosity but may be too expensive or impractical for many home lawns or confined urban situations. Hollow-tine aerification can also be effective for surface compaction in home lawns. However, care must be taken to avoid excessive tillage, which can lead to destruction of large aggregates. Too much tillage also decreases organic matter content by speeding its oxidation and decomposition. Addition of compost and/or other organic amendments into surface soil layers will promote aggregation and macroporosity and thereby decrease bulk density over time.

Gypsum and other soil amendments and conditioners are commonly advertised as being able to “cure com-paction.” While these products may improve soil aggre-gation they will have virtually no effect on soil bulk density unless they are actively tilled and mixed into the loosened soil zone. Similarly, certain plants (e.g., switch-grass and alfalfa) are widely touted as being able to root deeply into compacted soils and “loosen” them. This is not a viable solution for highly compacted soils that lack structure and vertical continuous macropores, because the growing root tip of these plants is actually quite pli-able and must find an open soil pore to exploit before it can subsequently enlarge and open it further as it pene-trates downward and subsequently expands in diameter.

Managing Clayey SubsoilsFirst, problems of acidity and infertility must be solved through appropriate soil liming and fertilization strat-egies as discussed above. Usually, another factor to correct immediately is the low organic matter con-tent. Appropriate amounts of compost or other organic materials (see chapter 9) should be repeatedly mixed in deeply (6 inches or more, if possible). Over time, the organic matter decomposes and stabilizes the new surface soil, aiding in essential soil particle aggrega-tion and building nutrient supplies. Remember that the establishment and maintenance of organic matter in the soil does much to aid long-term fertility as well as physical properties like aggregation, infiltration, and water-holding capacity.

Most subsoils are dense and/or clayey, so particular attention must be paid to the problems of poor drainage




and water saturation as discussed next. Even the addi-tion of trucked-in topsoil usually will not solve poor drainage problems caused by clayey or compacted subsoils. Before new topsoil is added or created by the addition of organic matter, poorly drained exposed sub-soils should be deeply ripped or tilled. In many situa-tions the use of raised beds greatly eases the required modification of surface soil properties.

Preserving and Maintaining Native Shrubs and Trees Most of our native woody trees and shrubs in the mid-Atlantic region are adapted to acidic soil conditions but also rely on the maintenance of a litter layer (O horizon) and its provision of essential nutrients as it decomposes over time. Thus, a large majority of the tree’s fine feeder roots exist in the upper 6 inches or so of soil and are generally adapted to a loose and well-aerated surface. Unfortunately, the urban soil development process fre-quently removes the litter layer and compacts the soil. Furthermore, typical home lawn liming targets (i.e., pH 6.5 to 7.0) can drive the soil pH to levels where the trees become deficient in critical micronutrients, par-ticularly iron and manganese. To protect these valuable trees during the construction process, it is important to keep all heavy traffic and fill placement off the soil immediately around and under the tree’s canopy. This will usually require placing a temporary fence around the tree (to the extent of the canopy drip line) and con-tinued vigilance by the homeowner or an informed con-struction supervisor.

After construction is completed, it is best to leave natural litterfall on these areas where possible and to avoid the addition of excess lime or fertilizers to the soil. Unfortunately, many homeowners and landscap-ers desire to establish turfgrass on these areas, which are often undulating due to shallow roots and other manifestations of the formerly forest soil profile. One particularly damaging practice is the placement of thick (more than 4 inches) lifts of topsoil over the roots in an effort to smooth the surface soil out and establish viable turf. This frequently leads to soil compaction, inadequate gas exchange, and a soil chemical environ-ment that is not suitable for the long-term survival of the native trees or shrubs (see figure 3.5).

Figure 3.5. Inappropriate addition of topsoil over native trees: The topsoil material was added too thickly (12 inches) and then com-pacted (as seen at left) to a point that gas exchange by the living tree roots was limited. Most of these white oaks died within two years of this application.

A Common Combination of Problems and a PrescriptionDense, clayey, acidic soils are commonly found throughout the urban and roadside environment and these materials are usually quite low in plant-available phosphorus when they are freshly graded or exposed in cuts. Because of this, it is always important to sample and soil test these materials. Based on soil tests, it is not uncommon to see recommendations calling for appli-cations of lime at 2 to 4 tons per acre, coupled with enhanced phosphorus fertilization (150 pounds or more per acre as phosphorus oxide (P2O5)) to address fertility issues. The addition of high-quality compost (1 inch) and tillage of all amendments to 6 inches will rapidly remediate these problems for turf establishment and growth. This treatment will not correct deeper com-paction problems, however, so other soil modification procedures may be necessary for deeper-rooted land-scape plantings or to solve problems with water perco-lation, as discussed below. It is also important to point out that older established home lawns may actually be quite high in plant-available phosphorus due to long-term fertilization, so phosphorus fertilizer rates should always be based on an appropriate soil test.

Managing Wet SoilsCompacted and/or clayey soils cause numerous water-ing problems. The most obvious is surface ponding caused by slow water penetration into the ground. When dense or high-clay layers limit downward water move-ment, the soil becomes saturated and oxygen — which

28 October / November / December 2013 VNLA Newsletter3-6 Urban Nutrient Management Handbook


and water saturation as discussed next. Even the addi-tion of trucked-in topsoil usually will not solve poor drainage problems caused by clayey or compacted subsoils. Before new topsoil is added or created by the addition of organic matter, poorly drained exposed sub-soils should be deeply ripped or tilled. In many situa-tions the use of raised beds greatly eases the required modification of surface soil properties.

Preserving and Maintaining Native Shrubs and Trees Most of our native woody trees and shrubs in the mid-Atlantic region are adapted to acidic soil conditions but also rely on the maintenance of a litter layer (O horizon) and its provision of essential nutrients as it decomposes over time. Thus, a large majority of the tree’s fine feeder roots exist in the upper 6 inches or so of soil and are generally adapted to a loose and well-aerated surface. Unfortunately, the urban soil development process fre-quently removes the litter layer and compacts the soil. Furthermore, typical home lawn liming targets (i.e., pH 6.5 to 7.0) can drive the soil pH to levels where the trees become deficient in critical micronutrients, par-ticularly iron and manganese. To protect these valuable trees during the construction process, it is important to keep all heavy traffic and fill placement off the soil immediately around and under the tree’s canopy. This will usually require placing a temporary fence around the tree (to the extent of the canopy drip line) and con-tinued vigilance by the homeowner or an informed con-struction supervisor.

After construction is completed, it is best to leave natural litterfall on these areas where possible and to avoid the addition of excess lime or fertilizers to the soil. Unfortunately, many homeowners and landscap-ers desire to establish turfgrass on these areas, which are often undulating due to shallow roots and other manifestations of the formerly forest soil profile. One particularly damaging practice is the placement of thick (more than 4 inches) lifts of topsoil over the roots in an effort to smooth the surface soil out and establish viable turf. This frequently leads to soil compaction, inadequate gas exchange, and a soil chemical environ-ment that is not suitable for the long-term survival of the native trees or shrubs (see figure 3.5).

Figure 3.5. Inappropriate addition of topsoil over native trees: The topsoil material was added too thickly (12 inches) and then com-pacted (as seen at left) to a point that gas exchange by the living tree roots was limited. Most of these white oaks died within two years of this application.

A Common Combination of Problems and a PrescriptionDense, clayey, acidic soils are commonly found throughout the urban and roadside environment and these materials are usually quite low in plant-available phosphorus when they are freshly graded or exposed in cuts. Because of this, it is always important to sample and soil test these materials. Based on soil tests, it is not uncommon to see recommendations calling for appli-cations of lime at 2 to 4 tons per acre, coupled with enhanced phosphorus fertilization (150 pounds or more per acre as phosphorus oxide (P2O5)) to address fertility issues. The addition of high-quality compost (1 inch) and tillage of all amendments to 6 inches will rapidly remediate these problems for turf establishment and growth. This treatment will not correct deeper com-paction problems, however, so other soil modification procedures may be necessary for deeper-rooted land-scape plantings or to solve problems with water perco-lation, as discussed below. It is also important to point out that older established home lawns may actually be quite high in plant-available phosphorus due to long-term fertilization, so phosphorus fertilizer rates should always be based on an appropriate soil test.

Managing Wet SoilsCompacted and/or clayey soils cause numerous water-ing problems. The most obvious is surface ponding caused by slow water penetration into the ground. When dense or high-clay layers limit downward water move-ment, the soil becomes saturated and oxygen — which



moves very slowly through water — cannot reach plant roots. If the saturated condition persists, roots will die from oxygen starvation. Highly compacted soils, even when dry, cause the same problem. Extended periods of water saturation also lead to increased availability of heavy metals such as iron and manganese, which in some soils may actually be phytotoxic. Saturated con-ditions can also accelerate soil nitrogen losses due to denitrification (see chapter 4).

There are a number of ways to manage saturation prob-lems in soil. One is to increase internal water move-ment by improving aggregation and pore space. There are several ways to do this: increasing and maintaining organic material levels, changing or keeping pH in the range between 5.5 and 6.5, adding a soil conditioner such as very coarse sand, cultivation only when mois-ture levels are ideal, and remediating compaction. How-ever, the addition of organic material and associated mixing and tillage is probably the single most-effective action you can take, assuming the underlying soil zone is well-drained and can accept percolating water.

Another way to increase internal water movement in wet soils is to shatter subsoil pans. If just a few deep cracks for water percolation are made down through the subsoil, large amounts of saturated water will flow through them (assuming the underlying layers will accept the water). Alternatively, subsurface drainage can be installed beneath the soil to carry away excess water. This is usually expensive, but may be the only alternative in many situations. Still another approach is to limit the amount of water entering the soil by divert-ing surface water away from the poorly drained area or by digging interceptor trenches just uphill from it. Plastic mulch can also be used to decrease total water penetration.

Acid Sulfate Soil Conditions and ManagementOver the past decade, many highway, commercial, and home residential construction activities in the mid-Atlantic region have exposed what are known as “sulfidic materials” that quickly react to produce “acid sulfate soil conditions” (Wagner et al. 1982). Without question, these materials and their associated effects on plant growth, water quality, and construction materi-als pose the greatest risk of any materials managed in the urban soil environment (Fanning et al. 2007). Even though they are not routinely encountered, their affects are so catastrophic that they deserve detailed coverage

here. Sulfidic soil and geologic materials occur through-out the mid-Atlantic region, but are particularly com-mon in the Middle and Upper Coastal Plain region between Richmond and Stafford County, Va. (Orndorff and Daniels 2004).

Acid sulfate soils are earthen materials that have been degraded by oxidation of sulfides (like pyrite, FeS2) to produce unusually low soil pH conditions (less than 3.9) when they are excavated from nonoxygenated zones below the surface and exposed to atmospheric conditions. As they oxidize, a wide array of acidity and soluble-salt-related plant growth and material damage problems are common. Essentially, these materials con-tain sulfidic minerals that react with water and oxygen to form sulfuric acid. This active set of processes is called “sulfuricization.” The vast majority of acid sul-fate soils is the result of land-disturbing activities that bring previously unoxidized (reduced) materials up to the surface and allow them to react.

The normal maximum range of pH for soils in the mid-Atlantic region is between 4.0 and 7.5. In the absence of liming, the great majority of these soils are naturally acidic with a pH between 4.5 and 5.5. In almost all instances, any soil with a pH less than 3.9 in Virginia is indicative of active or historic acid sulfate soil condi-tions and is quite toxic to plant growth and local receiv-ing streams. In worst-case instances, soil pH values as low as 1.8 have been measured at locations such as the Stafford Airport in Virginia (Fanning et al. 2004).

Where Do Sulfidic Materials Come From and What Do They Look Like?Sulfides precipitate naturally in tidal marshes, accumu-late in sediments, and are enriched in certain metamor-phic and igneous rocks. Thus, they occur naturally in many of the sediments underlying our Coastal Plain and in other rock types throughout the mid-Atlantic region. For example, most of the soils in the Fredericksburg/Stafford County, Va., area formed out of parent materi-als that originally contained sulfides, but they oxidized and weathered out of the surface soil horizons (layers) tens of thousands of years ago. These subsoil horizons are usually bright yellow to red in color and are usu-ally quite acidic (pH 4.0 to 5.5). However, many deeper cuts (more than 10 to 20 feet) can reveal unoxidized sulfidic materials that are typically gray, steel blue, or sometimes black in color but still have a high pH (more than 6.5) in situ. Once exposed at the surface, however, the pH of these materials can drop below 4.0 within several months.


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How Do I Recognize Acid Sulfate Materials? Because fresh, unreacted, sulfidic materials have a near-neutral pH, the only way to identify them before disturbance is appropriate testing and lab analyses as described later. Once they react to become “active acid sulfate” soils, distinctive indicators include (1) dead vegetation, (2) red iron staining on concrete and block walls, (3) concrete etching and dissolution, (4) rapid corrosion of iron and galvanized metal, and (5) strong sulfurous odor from rubbed hand samples.

What Is the Potential Risk and Damage From Acid Sulfate Soil Processes?Acid sulfate soil conditions and associated sulfuriciza-tion reactions generate a number of extreme soil and water quality challenges. First of all, plants are killed by the direct effects of low pH, high heavy-metal sol-ubility, and soluble sulfate salt stress. The extremely acidic (pH 1.8 to 3.8) soil solutions and percolates directly degrade concrete, iron, and galvanized metal via a number of mechanisms. Finally, acid runoff and seepage from these materials can seriously degrade local receiving streams. Thus, it is critically important that these materials be isolated or treated to remediate their acid-producing potential and limit damage.

How Do I Confirm Whether or Not I Have Acid Sulfate Materials in My Soil?In addition to the visual symptoms described above, active acid sulfate materials will usually exhibit a com-bination of low pH (less than 3.9) and high levels of potential acidity (total lime demand) relative to native soils. Fresh, unoxidized, sulfidic materials may have a normal pH but will have high levels of potential acidity (see below).

What Is Potential Acidity and How Is It Expressed?Potential acidity is estimated by several lab techniques that have been used and refined by the mining industry since the 1970s to prevent the formation of “acid mine drainage” from coal and metal mines. The most widely used technique is called “acid-base accounting” (ABA), which assumes that all sulfides in the material will fully react to form sulfuric acid and then balances that against the material’s inherent lime or neutralizing capacity. The results are expressed in tons of lime demand per

1,000 tons of material, which handily also happens to be the average weight of 1 acre of soil, 6 inches deep. Reduced sulfur is very reactive and every 1.0 percent of sulfidic sulfur, if fully reacted, generates enough acidity to require approximately 32 tons of agricultural lime-stone (finely ground calcium carbonate (CaCO3)) per 1,000 tons of soil to fully neutralize! Thus, even 0.3 percent sulfidic sulfur in these materials can generate a lime demand of 10 tons per acre (6 inches deep), which is much higher than we ever apply to “normal” soils. Occasionally, Coastal Plain sediments do contain suf-ficient lime (as fine shell fragments, etc.) to completely or partially offset their acid-forming potential, but this is a rare occurrence.

At Virginia Tech, we use a similar technique to ABA for potential acidity called the peroxide potential acidity (PPA) technique. In this method, we use strong hydro-gen peroxide (H2O2) to force the complete reaction of the sulfides and their internal neutralization by carbon-ates. In our experience, it correlates very well with ABA for a wide range of Virginia materials. For example, our long-term research results indicate that acid sulfate materials in the Fredericksburg/Stafford County region average between 10 and 20 tons of lime demand per acre (or per 1,000 tons of soil) in their fresh/unoxidized state. On occasion, we have tested small pockets of materials that exceeded 50 tons of lime per 1,000 tons of soil or per acre net acid demand! Once these materi-als have fully reacted and oxidized, however, they typi-cally require only 4 to 6 tons of lime per acre to bring their low pH (less than 4.0) up to 7.0.

What Can I Do to Remediate Acid Sulfate Soil Conditions?First of all, the only way to prevent these reactions from occurring in disturbed cut/fill materials is to keep them out of contact with the oxidizing atmosphere and water. However, once they are placed and graded on a home site, the only practical way to remediate them is to bulk blend sufficient agricultural limestone (or other approved liming materials) with them to offset the full amount of acidity that will be produced over extended periods of time (i.e., their potential acidity). We also recommend applying 25 percent more lime to ensure long-term alkaline buffering in the system. For example, let’s assume the soil in your backyard has a net potential acidity of 10 tons per acre of lime demand. With the 25 percent buffer factor added to it, you need to add the equivalent of 12.5 tons of lime per acre, 6 inches deep. Usually, your yard will be much less than


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an acre in size, so we need to convert this to a more practical liming rate per 1,000 square feet. As a matter of convenience, one 50-pound bag of agricultural lime per 1,000 square feet is approximately equivalent to 1 ton per acre. So, the basic liming requirement for your back yard would be 12.5 x 50 pounds = 625 pounds of agricultural lime per 1,000 square feet. These materi-als would need to be well-mixed (with a rototiller or air knife) to a depth of 6 inches to ensure full reaction and remediation of the surface rooting zone. Once this material is allowed to react following several rainfall or irrigation events, you should be able to use normal plant/lawn establishment procedures, but we recom-mend adding compost to the surface soil mix whenever possible. It is important to note that the deeper soil lay-ers will not be affected by this treatment, so planting holes for deep-rooted vegetation (e.g., trees) require deeper treatment.

We also recommend a similar remedial treatment for all soils in direct contact with uncoated concrete or foun-dations, block walls, or metal conduits and pipes. The exception would be where those materials (concrete, metal, etc.) are under the water table or buried deeply enough in the soil that they are beyond the depth of oxygen diffusion.

What Kind of Lime Should I Use?The “lime” that we refer to above is “agricultural lime” (CaCO3 or Ca/MgCaCO3) and not hydrated lime (Ca(OH)2) or burnt lime (CaO). These two latter mate-rials are commercially available and occasionally used by the geotechnical engineering community for soil cementation or waste treatment. They do have advan-tages of being more concentrated and quicker to react. However, they are more expensive, can burn your eyes, and can rapidly drive soil pH to very high values that are also toxic to plants. Therefore, we only recommend the use of certified agricultural lime for this purpose. The use of pelletized lime products is acceptable and may make application of the very high rates easier with minimal dusting issues.

Ideally, How Can We Avoid These Problems in the First Place?Based on our work with the Virginia Department of Transportation and others (see website below for details), we have developed a statewide map layer that indentifies all geologic strata that have documented sul-fide risk. Predisturbance geologic drill cores by devel-oper’s consultants in these units should be evaluated for

color, and any gray, blue-gray, or black strata should be tested for total sulfur. If total sulfur is more than 0.25 percent, those same strata should be tested for acid-base-accounting or peroxide potential acidity. Any materials with a net lime demand of more than 5 tons of lime per 1,000 tons of material (or soil) should be iso-lated from the surface and either heavily compacted in place to limit permeability or bulk limed before place-ment to offset acidity production over time.

Where Can I Get More Information?We maintain current information and reports on this subject posted to our research website at Virginia Tech (www.cses.vt.edu/revegetation/remediation.html). Addi-tionally, the most sophisticated program in the world for recognition and remediation of acid sulfate materi-als is carried out in Queensland, Australia, due to its preponderance of acid-forming parent materials. Their website (www.nrw.qld.gov.au/land/ass/index.html) is quite comprehensive and informative, with numerous links to their reports, methods, and regulations.

Soil Conditions in Highway Rights-of-WayIn a typical highway construction corridor, materials lying above the grade of the proposed road are removed (cut) by a variety of earthmoving techniques and hauled to adjacent lower areas for disposal. Whenever possi-ble, the cut materials are utilized as subgrade materials for the roadbed or as fill to span depressions and valleys beneath the corridor. Excess fill materials are usually disposed of in compacted fills as near to the road cor-ridor as possible to minimize hauling costs. The com-bination of cut and fill activity generates fundamentally different surfaces for revegetation as the road-building project progresses across the landscape. Cut slopes will frequently expose a surficial weathered soil profile and then extend well down into the underlying rock or sedi-ments. These materials will therefore vary consider-ably in fundamental chemical and physical properties with depth, particularly in regions like the mid-Atlantic United States, where the geochemical weathering pro-files are deep and soil horizonation is strong. These gra-dations with depth are predictable, however, and will tend to recur in a prescribed sequence as the cuts pro-ceed through the landscape.

Fill materials, on the other hand, tend to be quite dif-ferent from road cuts due to the mixing effects of the earthmoving operations and the fact that they are




typically heavily compacted in place to meet stability and strength specifications. Fill materials may be more or less variable than adjacent cut areas, depending on how they are handled and placed, but they are typically quite compact and lack the well-developed aggrega-tion or structure that undisturbed soils usually possess. Therefore, soils in highway fill materials as a rule will be less permeable to air, water, and roots than their nat-ural precursors. Fills and fill slopes also are plagued by inclusions of aggregate, rock, concrete, and other construction debris that seriously limit their water-retention characteristics. In contrast, soils on cut slopes generally retain the physical and chemical properties of the original soil/geologic profile, but their surfaces are often compacted to some extent by the earthmoving equipment, and the soil is often “smeared” and sealed, particularly in fine-textured soils.

Regardless of whether you are dealing with cut or fill materials, it is critically important to understand that the vast majority of materials that will be revegetated are composed primarily of subsoil or deeper geologic materials that will be very low in organic matter and associated macronutrients, particularly nitrogen and phosphorus. When highly weathered subsoils are exposed, we are often left with a very clayey and highly acidic substrate that will require significant inputs of lime and phosphorus fertilizers before its basic chemi-cal properties begin to resemble native topsoils. Deeper cuts that extend below the weathered soil zone will fre-quently contain large amounts of fresh, unweathered rocks and sediments that can be significant sources of calcium, magnesium, potassium, and other nutrient ele-ments as they rapidly weather in their newly exposed geochemical environment. Acid-forming sulfidic mate-rials (as discussed earlier) are also commonly encoun-tered in deeper road cuts in a variety of geologic settings and can generate extremely harsh soil chemical condi-tions and associated runoff water quality complications as they oxidize.

The cut/fill and site development operations for new highways or other construction activities may cause uncontrolled water flows and sediment loss from bare soil areas. Many small, localized, disturbed areas with seemingly insignificant losses of water and soil will often coalesce into massive and rapid flows of water with high sediment loads, causing severe damage in highway corridors as well as flooding and contamina-tion of receiving streams. Even the initial slow flows of clear water from numerous small areas of disturbance within a highway development corridor can cause progressively larger erosive flows of water. Thus, it is

imperative to minimize water flow and sediment losses from the initial stages of grading operations. Uncon-trolled erosion also can severely degrade the site qual-ity of the eroded area, particularly if applied topsoil, lime, and fertilizers are lost or a less-hospitable sub-strate is exposed.

Manufactured SoilsIn certain high-value situations like landscape planting beds and constructed athletic fields, the use of manufac-tured topsoil materials is a viable alternative to having to manage the pre-existing urban soils (Puhalla et al. 2010). This is particularly true when we consider what is typically available and marketed as topsoil in rap-idly developing areas of the mid-Atlantic. The majority of materials that are marketed and sold as topsoil are generated by the land development and construction process and may or may not be true topsoil as defined earlier (A plus E horizons). Additionally, these natural topsoils are highly variable over time as they are hauled from differing sites with different soil properties, soil-removal depths, and handling/storage procedures. Very few of these materials are offered with any guarantee of pH, texture, or nutrient-supplying ability relative to established soil testing standards.

The “ideal” soil for most turf establishment and land-scaping applications is loamy in texture to ensure ade-quate water-holding capacity and aeration without being sticky and plastic when handled and graded. Beyond that, the soil should be moderate in pH (between 6.5 and 7.5) to ensure maximum beneficial biological activity and moderate to high in plant-available nutri-ents such as calcium (Ca), magnesium (Mg), potassium (K), and phosphorus (P). Good topsoils also contain small but adequate amounts of plant-essential micronu-trients like iron (Fe) and copper (Cu), but should also be low in soluble salts and sodium (Na), which can dis-perse soil structure and harm plants. Finally, the ideal soil would contain approximately 3 to 5 percent organic matter that serves as a long-term source of plant nutri-ents (especially nitrogen), maintains biological activity, and greatly enhances physical properties such as water-holding capacity. Perhaps most importantly, the ideal soil for turf and landscaping applications would be con-sistent over time in all of the above properties so that the user will not have to “fine-tune” establishment and management protocols for each batch of soil received.

There are currently a number of manufactured topsoils available in the region. One example of a manufac-tured soil developed cooperatively by Luck Stone and




Virginia Tech (Greene premium topsoil) is described below. This description is not intended as an endorse-ment of this particular product, but simply as an exam-ple of one of many commercially viable products.

The Greene topsoil product is manufactured from native soil saprolite, compost, and mineralized igne-ous rock dust to produce loamy topsoil that is well-bal-anced in organic matter, available plant nutrients, and pH. This product was developed cooperatively with the Department of Crop and Soil Environmental Sciences at Virginia Tech, and as seen in table 3.1, is equal to or exceeds natural topsoils in productivity potential for most horticultural, landscaping, and gardening applica-tions. The Greene topsoil is high in organic matter (5 to 7 percent), moderate in pH (6.0 to 7.5) and soluble salts (up to 2.0 millimhos per centimeter (mmhos/cm)), and low in sodium. Plant-available phosphorus is more than 70 parts per million (ppm), potassium and magnesium are both more than 100 ppm, and calcium is more than 1,000 ppm. This topsoil also provides balanced levels of plant-available micronutrients (e.g., boron, copper, iron, manganese, and zinc).

The Greene topsoil is higher than natural topsoils in organic matter content and available nutrients because it is carefully blended with fresh, unweathered primary mineral fines and compost to generate the characteris-tics displayed in table 3.1. Perhaps most importantly, the Greene topsoil product has been tested and proven to be quite consistent over time and has been proven effec-tive in a wide range of plant growth uses in research at Virginia Tech and on-site applications by the producer’s client base of landscapers and developers.

Due to the inherent fertility of the Greene topsoil, use of initial or starter fertilizers (especially phosphorus and potassium) is probably not necessary or warranted, particularly in light of current concerns over minimiz-ing losses of nutrients to surface waters. However, ini-tially high levels of available nutrients will be depleted over time by plant uptake, and like any soil, subsequent fertilization will be required. The Greene topsoil prod-uct is not recommended for root zone use with acid-loving plants such as blueberries, azaleas, and native pines unless it is blended with naturally acidic (pH less than 6.0) soil materials.

Modified Soils and MulchesAnother approach to mitigate the adverse properties of urban soils is via “soil modification” or “conditioning,” a process that generally involves the incorporation of inorganic or organic amendments into bulk soil to fundamentally alter important soil physical properties (Wallace and Terry 1998). Certain inorganic amend-ments (e.g., sand or bottom ash) can be added to clayey soils to reduce their stickiness and plasticity, but the volumes required to generate a loamy texture (10 to 40 percent), coupled with the costs and logistics involved limit this approach to high-value locales. Similarly, waste clays from sand mining operations (e.g., slimes) can be added into extremely coarse-textured soils to convert them to loamy textures but similar issues of cost and logistics apply. Other inorganic amendments (e.g., gypsum and lime) can be added to clayey or dispersed soils to promote aggregation, but this usually involves much lower loading rates than textural modification

Table 3.1. Important soil properties for the Greene topsoil compared to highly productive prime farmland topsoil from Dinwiddie County, Va., and the range of typical topsoil properties found in Virginia. Soil property Greene topsoil Prime farmland Average Virginia topsoil

Texture Sandy loam Sandy loam Sandy loam to clay loam

pH (acidity) 6.6-7.2 6.0-6.5 4.5-7.5

Organic matter 5-7% 1-2% 0.5-3%

Available* calcium (Ca) >1,200 ppm 300-600 ppm <50-600 ppm

Available potassium (K) >250 ppm 30-60 ppm <20-80 ppm

Available phosphorus (P) 75-150 ppm 20-30 ppm <5-30 ppm

Available copper (Cu) 1.5 ppm 0.6 ppm 0.2-0.7 ppm

Data compiled from research reports by W. Lee Daniels, Virginia Tech.

* Available soil nutrients are those contained in an acid-extractable form that would be expected to contribute to plant uptake needs over the growing season and are typically expressed in parts per million (ppm) of total soil weight. For a common-sense conversion, 100 ppm of available Ca in a soil would equate to approximately 200 pounds of calcium in the upper 6 inches of topsoil over 1 acre.




and really differs little from conventional liming prac-tice. Certain inorganic soil conditioners (e.g., fly ash or waste gypsum) may also contain significant levels of soluble salts or potentially phytotoxic elements like boron, so their use must be carefully considered and controlled.A wide array of organics (e.g., composts, biosolids, animal manures, and paper sludges) are also routinely utilized to enhance aggregation, porosity, and water-holding capacity in urban soils. Usually, these materials are most effective when incorporated or bulk blended with surface soil layers, which may require up to 25 percent volumetric addition rates. One potential drawback of many organic amendments (e.g., biosolids and manures) is that addition at these rates may pose significant nutrient runoff or leaching risks (see chap-ters 2, 9, 10, and 12). Another long-term management factor to consider is that organic amendments will natu-rally decompose with time, and their “bulking effect” on porosity will thereby decline as well. However, the humus fraction they leave behind will make a very valu-able and long-lived contribution to urban soil quality.

Finally, surface mulches can also be utilized to buffer soil temperature, enhance water infiltration and reten-tion, limit traffic-related soil compaction, and reduce weed competition (Brady and Weil 2008). More detail on use of organic mulches is found in chapter 9.

A more thorough discussion of the full array of soil amendments, conditioners, and mulches and their rela-tive advantages and management is beyond the scope of this book. However, greater detail on these topics can be found in the various resources cited below.

Literature CitedBooze-Daniels, J. N., J. M. Krouse, W. L. Daniels, D. L.

Wright, and R.E. Schmidt. 2000. Establishment of low maintenance vegetation in highway corridors. In Reclamation of Drastically Disturbed Lands, ed. R. I. Barnhisel, W. L. Daniels, and R. G. Darmody, 887-920. Agronomy Monograph No. 41. Madison, Wis.: American Society of Agronomy, Crop Sci-ence Society of America, and Soil Science Society of America.

Brady, N. C., and R. R. Weil. 2008. The Nature and Properties of Soils. 14th ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson Prentice Hall.

Brown, R. B., J. H. Huddleston, and J. L. Anderson, eds. 2000. Managing Soils in an Urban Environ-ment. Agronomy Monograph No. 39. Madison, Wis.: American Society of Agronomy.

Craul, P. J. 1992. Urban Soil in Landscape Design. New York: John Wiley & Sons.

Fanning, D. S., Cary Coppock, Z. W. Orndorff, W. L. Daniels, and M. C. Rabenhorst. 2004. Upland active acid sulfate soils from construction of new Stafford County, Virginia, USA, Airport. Austra-lian Journal of Soil Resources 42:527-36.

Orndorff, Z. W., and W. L. Daniels. 2004. Evaluation of acid-producing sulfidic materials in Virginia high-way corridors. Environmental Geology 46:209-16.

Puhalla, J. C., J. V. Krans, and J. M. Goatley Jr. 2010. Sports Fields: Design, Construction, and Mainte-nance. 2nd edition. Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons.

Scheyer, J. M., and K. W. Hipple. 2005. Urban Soil Primer. USDA-NRCS, National Soil Survey Cen-ter. Lincoln, Neb.: USDA. http://soils.usda.gov/use/urban/primer.html.

Wagner, D. P., D. S. Fanning, J. E. Foss, M. S. Pat-terson, and P. A. Snow. 1982. Morphological and mineralogical features related to sulfide oxida-tion under natural and disturbed land surfaces in Maryland. In Acid Sulfate Weathering, ed. J. A. Kittrick, D. S. Fanning, and L. R. Hossner, 109-25. Soil Science Society of America Special Publica-tion No. 10. Madison, Wis.: Soil Science Society of America.

Wallace, A., and R. E. Terry, eds. 1998. Handbook of Soil Conditioners: Substances That Enhance the Physical Properties of Soil. New York: Marcel Dekker.


Page 12 of 12

Managing Urban Soils

CRAIG: put this box in the blank space on page 12 of the “Managing Urban Soil”

Complete the Quiz on page 37 and get 1 CEU for your Virginia Certi-

fied Horticulturist re-certification!



VNLA - Certification Quiz #66

If you are a Virginia Certified Hor-ticulturist, answer the following

questions from the previous article, mark your answers on the card in-sert to the left and mail or fax back to the VNLA office towards your

recertification CEU’s for your Virginia Certified Horticulturist.

Managing Urban Soils

Quiz

Prepared by: Nanette R. Whitt

1.The differences between urban soil

materials and nearby natural soil profiles are:

a. Presence of anthropic materials.

b. Presence of high clay materials at the surface.

c. Restricted aeration and water drainage.

d. All of the above 2. _______ do not contain the natural

sequence of intact soil horizons. a. Natural soils b .Manufactured top soils c. Urban soils d. Limed soils 3. Pre developed native soils are fair-

ly uniform and predictable due to long term soil forming factors

a. True b. False

4. Exposed subsoil materials,

exposed cut materials and filled materials that are compacted and layered are known as:

a. Soil disturbances b. Soil variability c. Soil interruptions d. Soil nutrients 5. Subsoil materials as a result of

topsoil erosion will be a. Black or tan in color b. Loamy c. Red or yellow in color d. Clay like e. All of the above 6. Cut materials are a usually major

feature of subdivision develop-ment, and a minor component of highway rights-of-way

a. True b. False 7. Fill materials tend to be: a. Highly variable b. Layered c. Compacted d. All of the above 8. The most common problem for

plant growth and water move-ment limitations in urban soils is:

a. Hardscaping b. Improper fertilization c. Soil compaction d. Water run off 9. The ability of a growing root tip to

penetrate soil is directly depend-ent on:

a. Root strength b. Soil strength

c. Root hairs d. Soil microbes

10. Plant growth is hindered by soil

compaction because it resists wa-ter movement and gas exchanges

a. True b. False 11. The optimum soil for plant

growth is: a. Loamy b. Sandy c. Moist d. None of the above 12. Which materials are often found

in soils of residential lots a. Waste wood, drywall, nails,

and rags b. Gravel and sand c. Cement and mortar mix d. All of the above 13. Which is critical to managing

urban soils:. a. Adding compost b. Adding pelletized lime c. Soil sampling and testing d. Soil tillage 14. A large majority of a tree’s fine

feeder roots exist in the upper ____ of soil.

a. 6 inches b. 8 inches c. 10 inches d. 12 inches 15. Too much soil tillage speeds its

oxidation and decomposition which decreases organic matter content

a. True b. False


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News - Young Grower awarded to

Isaac Brantingham of Riverbend Nursery

Isaac displayed his nurturing side when he was a small boy, helping mice, squirrels, rabbits and other in-nocent victims that were assaulted by his grandmother’s cat. He had his own veterinary clinic in his bedroom, where he would nurse them back to health.

This need for taking care of some-thing turned toward the plants he picked at an abandoned house near his home in Virginia, where he would take his wheelbarrow and bring back daffodils, hyacinths, forsythia and wisteria to plant in his yard.

After a few years of collecting flow-ers, Isaac’s mother decided he needed his own place to grow his plants, so she bought him a small windowsill greenhouse and a nurseryman was officially born. From there, Isaac would build his own 10 ft. x 10 ft. greenhouse with a corrugated plastic cover, complete with small benches and an irrigation system with a timer. He learned how to grow plants from seed by reading books and through trial-and-error, eventually giving them to neighbors and friends from

church.

“I had so much fun in that green-house,” Isaac recalls. “I told my par-ents, ‘I could really see myself doing this.’ I didn’t have any family that was in the business or even know anyone that had been in horticulture, but I loved doing it and I was sure there was a way to make a livelihood doing it.”

After two years at a local community college, Isaac went to Virginia Tech University to study horticulture. He moved to Maryland to intern at Den-ison Group, a large landscaping com-pany, but his heart was in the green-house … and his home state of Vir-ginia. Through the university, Isaac found out about a growing position at Riverbend Nursery in Riner, Virginia, and he applied. That was in 2006, and in June of 2011, Isaac was promoted to Head Grower.

No regrets

Easy with a smile or a laugh, with a slight hint of a Southern drawl, our Young Grower winner for this year didn’t have the luxury of being hand-ed a growing job by a family mem-ber. But Isaac says not growing up in the industry was an advantage.

“I had the opportunity to choose this livelihood for myself, so I never question why I’m here,” he stated. “I chose this for myself. I really enjoy what I do. I definitely had support, but no one encouraged me to do this. We’re kind of a small group as nurse-rymen and I’m really proud to be in that group and that I got to make that decision for myself.”

Isaac started his career as a Section

Grower, growing Riverbend’s large offering of perennials and ground-covers. The company started as strict-ly groundcovers 29 years ago—smaller sizes, like 2 in. and 2.5 in. and quart pots. But now, Riverbend handles more than 1,500 perennial varieties in sizes from 2.5 in. to 3 gal. Isaac and his team do grow some sea-sonal color, like pansies and mums for fall, but they pride themselves on being perennial experts for their IGC and landscaper customers.

To make things interesting—and to diversify their lineup a bit—Riverbend owner Jim Snyder decided to become a LiveRoof licensee, grow-ing plants for the green roof compa-ny. Now, Isaac and his team of grow-ers produce plants for green roofs that go on buildings in Virginia, Washing-ton D.C., Maryland and North Caro-lina. Last year, Riverbend Nursery produced 150,000 sq. ft. of plant ma-terial—mostly sedums—for Liv-eRoof. Since it’s now a permanent part of their business, they’re produc-ing their own stock at all three of their growing locations.

“It’s come a long way in a really short period of time,” said Isaac. “We’ve made a lot of mistakes in that time, but we’ve learned so much as far as efficiencies and how to take care of the plants between cutting and planting to make sure we don’t de-velop any disease during storage.”

The LiveRoof business has allowed Riverbend to work with a broader customer base; partnering with con-tractors, architects and roofers are now part of the company’s regular operations. And when things slow down with the perennials, River-bend’s employees stay busy with the green roof projects.

Sedums and perennials and bears, oh my!

As head grower, Isaac has four dif-ferent section growers reporting to him, all of them in charge of a specif-ic area. Audrey McReynolds helps



him with the 1.5 million perennial plugs Riverbend produces annually, along with their PGR applications. Isaac maintains 3 to 4 acres, while Margie Belcher and Rebecca Dabney handle the rest of the nursery—about 85% of Riverbend’s products all to-gether. And Greg Howell handles the sedum stock for the LiveRoofs, har-vesting the cuttings and maintaining the stock beds. Isaac grows and fin-ishes the modules.

Isaac (far left) with his team of growers.

From left: Greg Howell, Rebecca Dabney, Audrey McReynolds

and Margie Blecher

“All of the growers here are very

team oriented; I don’t have to micro-manage any of them,” said Isaac. “I feel like I have the best growers in the world, but the sales team, the opera-tions team, the shipping team, maintenance, production—we all just work really well together. There’s no sense of this department is pitted against this department. Everyone really is a team here and no one wins if one of us loses.

“It’s really a lot of fun to be a part of [a team] like that. I really feel so for-tunate because this is my first job out of college. I haven’t worked any-where else except the landscaper I worked for five years before I went off to school. And to find this right off the bat, I really feel blessed.”

While overseeing all of the growing, Isaac also takes on new challenges, like Riverbend’s new IPM program, which he and Rebecca are working on together. Isaac explained that their biological program is still in its in-fancy stage, but they’ve been testing

them in four propagation houses and plan on expanding as they get a better handle on it. Oh, and Isaac is the one they call when a black bear has been spotted on one of the properties, which seems to happen every year.

Isaac - wood worker, problem solver, inventor

Isaac’s mission is to always find a solution to any problem, which he says he gets from his father.

“My dad’s the kind of guy that if anyone has a problem or doesn’t know how to do something, they ask him and he can tell him how to do it or he’ll figure it out pretty quick,” said Isaac. “I don’t think I’m as in-ventive as he is, but I definitely feel like I inherited that from him.”

As a child, he would tinker in the workshop with his dad, building small pieces of furniture, birdhouses and other things out of wood they would take from the scrap pile at a local furniture plant. Growing up

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without a television made this young man more curious and motivated to be creative.

Which has now carried over into his career at Riverbend. Jim Snyder, who nominated Isaac for the Young Grower Award, wrote on the applica-tion: “He is personally very inventive and has tools that he will only let a few folks use lest his patent-pending ideas get stolen.” Isaac’s repertoire of homemade tools include upgrades on traditional pruning shears, a plant vacuum that removes debris, fancy gadgets for taking cuttings from stock plants, and a new ergonomic tool that moves flats from one place to another without straining neck and arm mus-cles, which he’s been working on for a few years. He’s in the process of applying for a patent.

And it doesn’t stop at work. Isaac also likes to work in his garage dur-ing his spare time, building and craft-ing new trinkets and tools for the house.

Isaac laughs and says, “It’s funny, when we have friends over, my wife will walk people through the house and say, ‘Isaac made that and Isaac made that …’”

Life changes Isaac will soon be testing his wood-working skills to build a crib for his newborn baby, which he and his wife Meghan are expecting in January. This new venture in their lives will offer new challenges, but luckily, they live on the Riverbend property, so it will be easier for Isaac to juggle work and home life. (So don’t be be surprised if you see Isaac walking around the greenhouse with a baby strapped to his chest in a BabyBjörn come this spring.)

But the Brantinghams are used to a busy lifestyle. Along with their large circle of friends, Isaac and Meg are very involved in multiple church groups and travel quite a bit. Living near the river has offered Isaac the

chance to become an expert fly fish-erman and kayaker. And not only does he tend to plants during the day, but he walks home every night to work in their extensive home garden, canning and freezing the vegetables after harvesting. Isaac and Meg also raise chickens (for meat and eggs), quails and honeybees. And they’ve trained their German Shorthaired Pointer Otter to hunt grouse with them in the fall.

Although Meg had to be converted into enjoying a more rural lifestyle, she and Isaac share the same pleasure from learning new things.

“Meg and I are the same way. If we think of something that we want to do, we’ll just get a book, read up on it and do it,” said Isaac.

A flexible future In his Young Grower Finalist essay for the June issue of GrowerTalks, Isaac said, “This industry demands creativity and forward thinking from the people that wish to be a lasting, successful part of it.” He believes that the mantra of “we always did it this way” isn’t a sustainable way to be viable in this industry. The best way to accomplish this is by being flexible and embracing change.

“On one hand, you have to juggle what you’ve always done well and keep moving that forward. And on the other hand, you have to constantly be working for the next product that might appeal to that new generation and trial those new varieties or trial that new equipment that might make your staple product even better,” said Isaac. “Years ago, after talking to

guys that have been in the industry for a long time, it used to be really easy to produce a perennial and sell it and make a profit. But there are a lot of people out there doing it very well now and you really have to be a step above to continue to be successful and to make a profit.”

In order to do this, Isaac and his team will continue to discover new ways to market their products or try some-thing new by adjusting to changes as they come.

“Here at Riverbend, Jim is always challenging us to think: what are we missing? What product do we not have that we should?,” said Isaac. “[LiveRoof] was a huge commitment and a big change. It has been a great decision and we’ve all benefitted from that. But we’re not thinking, ‘Well, that’s it. We’re done.’ There are probably 100 more things like that out there that we’ll discover, hopefully, if we’re paying attention, that will give us an edge and that will be appealing to the customer 10, 20, 30 years from now.” GT From Grower Talks Magazine, Septem-

ber 2013, Written by Jennifer Zurk; photographs by Mark Widalm

http://www.ballpublishing.com/GrowerTalks/ViewArticle.aspx?articleid=2

0207

News – ANLA and OFA Members Vote to Form

New Association National Horticultural Trade

Association “AmericanHort”

to Launch January 2014 Members of OFA - The Association of Horticulture Professionals and the American Nursery & Landscape Asso-ciation (ANLA) have voted in over-whelming support of the consolidation of the two organizations into a new, national trade association to serve the entire horticulture industry. The an-nouncement followed a 30-day open



ballot and today's in-person vote for OFA's members, held in Columbus, Ohio.

With the consolidation, the new trade association will have the largest nation-al nursery, greenhouse, and garden re-tail membership of any horticulture association in the United States. Those communities will join together with breeders, distributors, interior and exte-rior landscape professionals, florists, students, educators, researchers, manu-facturers, and all who are part of the supply chain to represent our industry with one, strong voice and a greater base of volunteer, staff, and financial resources.

The new trade association, named the American Horticulture Associa-tion, will be known as American-Hort, and will begin operations by January 1, 2014. The mission of Amer-icanHort is to unite, promote, and ad-vance our industry through advocacy, collaboration, connectivity, education, market development, and research.

The association will have its primary office in Columbus, Ohio and an office in Washington, DC to facilitate gov-ernment relations and research activi-ties. Michael V. Geary, CAE will con-tinue as the chief staff executive.

The inaugural board of directors was appointed by the legacy organizations. For the first year, the board will have equal representation from OFA and ANLA. The Board includes the follow-ing leaders:

Chairman of the Board - Mark Foertmeyer, Foertmeyer & Sons Greenhouse, Delaware, Ohio

Vice Chairman of the Board - Dale Deppe, Spring Meadow Nursery Inc, Grand Haven, Michigan

Treasurer - Lisa Graf, Graf Growers, Akron, Ohio

ANLA & OFA <[email protected]> on behalf of ANLA & OFA

<[email protected]>

News - Quiet Talks on Immigration Continue

With Fiscal Impasse Dominating News Cycle

Though a federal government shut-down may intrude, negotiations con-tinue in the hopes of House action on immigration legislation later this year. So far, five bills targeting bor-der security, interior enforcement, E-Verify, visas for the highly educated and skilled, and an agricultural guest worker program have been approved by House committees. Several other bills may be considered, including a resolution for some young people brought to the country as minors, a more general legalization, and a visa program for non-agricultural and non-seasonal jobs that require minimal formal education.

On the farm, nursery, and greenhouse worker front, efforts continue to im-prove H.R.1773, the Agricultural Guestworker Act, or “Ag Act” for short. ANLA and coalition partners met with House Judiciary staff on September 30 to continue discussions focusing on what most see as funda-mental problems with the bill’s visa cap, wage structure, lack of a realistic “at will” employment option, and treatment of the current workforce. Though under heavy pressure to en-dorse the bill, most agricultural groups including ANLA see a resolu-tion of the most fundamental con-cerns as a necessary prerequisite to full support.

Adding to the uncertainty is the fact that a legalization bill is under devel-opment. The details of a legalization program could substantially change – for better or worse – the options and outlook for growers and workers. While current workers without proper immigration status could enter into H-2C guest worker status under the Ag Act, many experts believe that the structure of the program would not appeal to workers who have been in

the U.S. for more than a few years, and have other roots such as stable employment, spouses, and children. Data suggest that half of the unau-thorized farm workers in the U.S. are married, and upwards of three quar-ters of their children are U.S.-born.

Some of ANLA’s most knowledgea-ble and experienced H-2A program users have carefully reviewed the Ag Act, and have voiced concerns that it may fail to resolve serious shortcom-ings of H-2A. Because in many cases the bill uses current H-2A language, or presents alternative language that is ambiguous, current interpretations regarding wages, treatment of “corre-sponding workers,” or the right to maintain an experience requirement or pre-employment drug testing may wind up in the new program.

Political realities further complicate the picture. Because the Ag Act elim-inates most current protections and some economic benefits provided to workers under the H-2A program, Democrats are likely to uniformly oppose it without significant changes that bring it more in alignment with the agricultural employer/worker ad-vocate agreement that was folded into the Senate immigration bill. Without some votes from Democrats, the ex-pected loss of roughly 20 to 50 Re-publican votes would doom the bill to failure on the floor.

With the first possible window for progress on immigration coming in November, House negotiations are expected to continue over the next several weeks.



News - Phytosanitary Irrigation Webinar Series Kicked Off

in October Six universities and USDA-ARS have been involved in a multi-year, multi-disciplinary project looking at water recycling and managing phyto-sanitary concerns in the process. The project was funded through the Spe-cialty Crop Research Initiative, a component of the Farm Bill and a legislative priority for our industry.

The research results and suggested production practices to mitigate de-structive pathogens will be presented in fourteen webinars, of which AN-LA is a sponsor, held over the next fourteen months. The introductory webinar, “A path to plant biosecurity, water and environmental sustainabil-ity: SCRI project overview,” will be presented live on October 8th, 2013.

The series will focus on mitigating the risks of spreading pathogens during irrigation and ways to im-prove recycled water quality. Areas of discussion will center on the fol-

lowing questions:

Why is the capture and re-use of surface runoff important to secure an adequate supply of quality ir-

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Meeting space: https://connect.extension.iastate.edu/irrigation-water/Time: Noon to 1:00 pm (Eastern time)

Date Title Presenter

10/8/2013 A path to plant biosecurity, water and environmental sustainability: SCRI project overview

Project Team

11/6/2013 Disease management and irrigation practices of Mid-Atlantic ornamental nurseries James Pease

12/3/2013 What plant pathogens could be in my irrigation water? Gary Moorman

1/7/2014 How do plant pathogens enter and move around irrigation systems? Gary Moorman

2/4/2014 How do I determine whether water is clean or contaminated? Gary Moorman

3/4/2014 Chlorination of recycled water in nursery production Chuan Hong

4/8/2014 Alternative disinfectant water treatment Warren Copes

5/6/2014 Substrate management practices vital for pathogen risk mitigation Andrew Ristvey

6/3/2014 Irrigation management practices to reduce pathogen movement and survival John Lea-Cox

7/1/2014 Locating a new production facility Chuan Hong

8/5/2014 How may layout of a recycling irrigation system affect pathogen risk? Chuan Hong

9/2/2014 How may water quality change in my irrigation reservoir? Chuan Hong

10/7/2014 What are my options to deal with water pH issues in nursery production? Chuan Hong

11/4/2014 Consumer willingness to pay for certified disease-free and water-conserving ornamental plants

James Pease


rigation water while reducing nonpoint source pollution?

How may this practice potentially impact water quality and recycle and spread destructive patho-gens?

What are the major steps to be taken and current technologies available to address irrigation pathogen and water quality prob-lems?

What is the best way to maximize water treatment dollars?

What are the best designs to build an irrigation system that recycles water but not pathogens?

What are other long-term solu-tions to curbing the spread of pathogens via irrigation water?

To learn more about the webinar series and instructions on how to participate go

to: http://www.irrigation-patho-

gens.ppws.vt.edu/webinar/index.php

News - Boxwood Blight Detected in Central Virginia Landscape

On September 23, 2013, the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Con-sumer Services (VDACS) confirmed the presence of the boxwood blight pathogen (Calonectria pseudonavicu-lata = Cylindrocladium pseudonavic-ulatum) on boxwood (B. microphylla ‘green mound’) from a home land-scape planting in Chesterfield Coun-ty. The infected boxwood were plant-ed nearly a year ago and it is likely

the boxwood blight pathogen was introduced at this site on plants that were grown out of state. The disease had been previously detected in an isolated area of southwestern Virgin-ia, but this was the first detection in a central Virginia landscape. Boxwood blight has been detected in the land-scape of mid-Atlantic states since the disease was first detected in the fall of 2011.

Boxwood blight is a serious disease that results in defoliation and dieback and can render the boxwood unsalable. The disease was first reported in the United Kingdom in the mid-1990’s and by 2002 it had been found in several other European countries and in New Zealand. This disease is particularly troubling for Virginia because box-wood is so prevalent in our contempo-rary landscapes and historic gardens.

Boxwood blight can be recognized by black streaking on the stems and dark leaf spots. Plants typically defoliate within days or a few weeks of infec-tion, depending on environmental conditions. More information to aid in recognizing symptoms is available from Virginia Tech. A pest alert can be found on the Virginia Tech web-site at www.ppws.vt.edu , click on Plant Disease Clinic and then click on Disease Alerts. Listed below are two additional web sites to assist in rec-ognizing signs and symptoms of boxwood blight:

Connecticut Experiment Station: www.ct.gov/caes, click on Boxwood blight. North Carolina State University: www.plantpath.cals.ncsu.edu/extension, click on Ornamentals

Based on field observations, all box-wood species and cultivars, including the most commonly used cultivars of Buxus sempervirens and Buxus mi-crophylla, are hosts to the boxwood blight pathogen. Research from North Carolina State University indicates the cultivars of B. sempervirens (American and English) appear to be among the most susceptible to box-wood blight. These cultivars are also the most dominant in historical plant-ings throughout Virginia. Some culti-vars of B. microphylla show signs of tolerance but still carry and transmit the disease. Research on fungicides from North Carolina State University looks promising; however, once the pathogen becomes established on a site, it can likely persist in the soil for years, making repeated fungicide ap-plications necessary to protect plants from a flare-up of the disease, espe-cially during wet periods. Because this pathogen can likely persist in soil for long periods, keeping the disease from spreading to a site is by far the best option for growers and landscap-ers. A summary of fungicide and host resistance work conducted by North Carolina State University can be found at the following website: http://plantpath.cals.ncsu.edu/ornamentals. Currently, it is not recommend-ed that commercial nurseries use fun-gicides on boxwood because fungi-cide use could mask symptoms and increase the risk of further spread of boxwood blight disease.

The best way to protect your nursery or landscape from boxwood blight is to avoid introducing infected plant material. The Boxwood Blight Clean-liness Program, which was developed



by ANLA and the National Plant Board, is a voluntary program which utilizes best management practices in an effort to prevent the introduction of the boxwood blight pathogen into a nursery operation.

The program uses the following tar-geted strategies:

1. excluding the pathogen 2. water management 3. sanitation 4. inspection (monitoring) 5. training 6. record keeping

(to ensure traceability) Combining these strategies will help protect against the introduction of the disease into a nursery operation and reduce the spread of this disease to established landscape plantings. Pur-chasing plants from nurseries which are participating in the Boxwood Blight Cleanliness Program also re-duces the chances of infection. Spe-cific requirements of the Boxwood Blight Cleanliness Program can be found on the National Plant Board website at www.nationalplantboard.org and clicking on Documents & Policies. Nurseries that would like to partici-pate in the Boxwood Blight Cleanli-ness Program can initiate the process by contacting a VDACS nursery in-spector or contacting VDACS’ Office of Plant industry Services at (804) 786-3515.

Diagnostic services are available to growers, landscapers and residents as part of a multifaceted detection, re-search and outreach effort by VDACS and Virginia Tech to help protect Virginia from boxwood blight. Nurseries should work with the local VDACS nursery inspector to submit suspect samples for boxwood blight testing. Homeowners who sus-pect their plants may have boxwood blight should contact their local coun-ty extension office to submit samples to the Virginia Tech Plant Disease Clinic.

Norm Dart, State Plant Pathologist, Virginia Department of Agriculture

and Consumer Services Mary Ann Hansen, Elizabeth Bush and

Dr. Chuan Hong, Plant Pathologists, Virginia Cooperative Extension

We Want to Hear from YOU!

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News – VDACS Commissioner leaving to go to Farm Credit

of the Virginias

Matthew J. Lohr, 14th Commis-sioner of the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (VDACS), announced today that he will be leaving the agency in early December to begin a new position as Director of the Farm Credit of the Virginias Knowledge Center in Har-risonburg, Virginia. Lohr has been VDACS Commissioner since his ap-pointment by Governor Robert F. McDonnell in May 2010. He current-ly serves as the President of the Southern Association of State De-partments of Agriculture, a post he will leave upon his departure from VDACS.

“Serving as the Commissioner of VDACS has been an amazing honor and opportunity,” Lohr said. “I have enjoyed assisting Governor McDon-nell and Agriculture and Forestry Secretary Todd Haymore in strength-ening our Commonwealth’s number one industry. We have worked tire-lessly to assist producers, promote agriculture and increase its im-

portance and visibility all across the state. It has been a wonderful experi-ence championing an industry I care about so passionately.”

The mission of the Farm Credit Knowledge Center is to facilitate the sharing of knowledge and resources for the betterment of all farmers through customer-focused programs that increase and advance the knowledge base of the agricultural community. “Here I will have the opportunity to build relationships and serve as a resource for young, begin-ning, small, minority and veteran farmers, as well as the established full-time producers,” Lohr said. “It's a very exciting opportunity and one that will allow me to work from Har-risonburg and be at home much more for my two young children.”

“Matt has led VDACS with distinc-tion and honor over the last three and one-half years and the agency is a better place for his service,” said Sec-retary Haymore. “He’s been a great partner in implementing the strategic plan behind the Governor’s decision to integrate fully agriculture and for-estry into the administration’s overall economic development agenda. Our work with the private sector on the Governor’s agenda has yielded much success and Matt deserves credit for achieving those accomplishments. Indeed, his passion for the promotion and betterment of Virginia agriculture is unmatched and I know that he’ll bring the same passion to his new role with Farm Credit.”

Haymore noted that Governor McDon-nell will announce soon a VDACS leadership transition plan for the re-maining months of the administration.

Prior to coming to VDACS, Lohr rep-resented the 26th House District in the Virginia state legislature from 2005 to 2010. A lifelong farmer, Lohr and his family currently operate a 250 acre farm that includes commercial poultry, beef, row crops and sweet corn.

Prior to coming to VDACS, Lohr represented the 26th House District in

the Virginia state legislature from 2005 to 2010. A lifelong farmer, Lohr and his family currently operate a 250 acre farm that includes commercial poultry, beef, row crops and sweet corn.

A graduate of Virginia Tech, Lohr was very involved in the Virginia Farm Bureau Federation, winning the American Farm Bureau “Excellence in Agriculture Award” in 2003. He also served several years as his coun-ty Farm Bureau president and chaired both the Rockingham County Plan-ning Commission and School Board.

As a youth, Lohr was very active in the FFA organization where he served as state president and national vice president in the early 1990s. Elaine Lidholm, Director of Communica-tions, Virginia Department of Agriculture

and Consumer Services, Richmond VA 804.786.7686,

[email protected]

From Landscape Insider

News - Garden Media Unveils its 2014 Garden

Trends Report Restoring and Sowing

"Balance" in Life & the Garden

Garden Media released its 2014 Gar-den Trends Report, identifying sever-al major shifts in the marketplace and twelve trends that will impact garden-ing habits in 2014 and beyond.

1. Ground Up: Recycling food scraps and creating compost is the new recycling. Products like The Green Cyclere make it easy to pre-compost right on the kitch-en counter.

2. Super Foods, Super Models: Edibles are going to the next lev-el with foodies growing every-thing from quinoa to dandelions in straw bales and keyhole gar-



dens.

3. Drink Your Garden: People are drinking their gardens using such super foods from their gardens, like BrazelBerries® blueberries and raspberries to craft cocktails and green smoothies. "Fermenta-tion gardens are the new chick-ens," says Rebecca Reed of Southern Living. People are growing hops for home-brewing, grapes for home-made wine.

4. Dress Up Your Yard: From decorative throw pillows to deco-rative insect traps like the RES-CUE!® OrnamenTrap™ and Perky-Pet®'s shabby-chic mason jar humming bird feeders, people want their yards to have a per-sonal stamp.

5. Bee-neficials: It's all about the bees this year. Bees are at fore-front of environmentally aware consumers' minds, inspiring them to plant native, pollen rich flow-

ers, trees and veggies to provide safe shelters.

6. Cultur-vating: Taking local to the next level, people are growing the world in their gardens, mixing cultures and embracing what is local to their own region.

7. Simple Elegance: Think one col-or flower in an elegant container, like Suntory®'s Surfinia Heaven-ly Blue in an eco-chic, hand-cast NativeCast planter.

8. Frac'd Up: Neat clean lines are out as explosions of color in frac-tional shapes like triangles, cir-cles and squares dominate design.

9. $100 more than the average gardener. They are grilling, growing their own hops for beer, and taking the kids out to play in the dirt.

10. Think Gardens: Plants make us smarter, more productive and less stressed and are showing up in

offices, schools and hospitals across the country. Costa Farms'® '02 For You®: House-plants with a Purpose' campaign communicates the full benefits of indoor plants.

11. Fingertip Gardens: Gardens go high tech with mobile apps and technology, like Suntory®'s easy Virtual Container Designer app.

12. Tree-mendous Reversal: Losing more than four million urban trees a year, Americans are being asked to plant trees. There are many environmental, economical, and emotional benefits of trees. Plant a tree - or care for one you have - this year and be part of this growing trend.

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News - IGC Show Launches East Coast

Edition for 2014 The folks who have brought you the very successful IGC Show at Navy Pier in Chicago for the last seven years have announced the addition of a new IGC Show based on the East Coast beginning in 2014. The venue for this additional show will be the Gaylord National Resort & Conven-tion Center in National Harbor, Maryland, just a few minutes from Washington, D.C.

The dates for this new show will be August 5-7, 2014.

IGC East, as it'll be known, is in addi-tion to the original IGC Show—which will now be known as IGC Chicago. That show will go on as usual during the same week and same fun location—Navy Pier. The 2014 dates are August 18-21.

Why two shows just a few weeks apart? In a few words, to ensure easy access for buyers from across the U.S. Retailers can attend the show that best fits their schedule and travel preferences.

"It's about choice and convenience," says Jeff Morey, co-founder with his wife Cheryl of the IGC Show. "IGC East gives garden centers who were accustomed to doing their buying at the now-defunct East Coast Com-merce distributor show a new, cen-trally located resource with even more order-writing opportunities, plus the industry's biggest educational conference, keynotes, concert, net-working opportunities and more—all at a time of year that makes the best sense for their businesses."

Speaking of vendors, what do they think of the addition of a second IGC Show? Bonide is excited about it and has already signed on. Says Bonide's Tom Feldmann, "Jeff and his team do a terrific job with IGC Chicago, and now IGC East in the Washing-

ton/Baltimore area is a great new op-portunity for garden center retailers and vendors alike." And the folks at Alfresco Home have indicated they are ready to reserve their booths.

I asked if he's concerned whether IGC East would dilute or diminish vendor and/or visitor attendance to the Chicago show. He said that wasn't a worry for show organizers—in fact, it may do the opposite.

"For each of the past seven years, IGC Chicago has attracted thousands of buyers from all over the U.S., scores from Canada and even, some-what to our surprise, dozens from overseas," says Jeff. "But the reality is there are a whole lot of buyers on the East Coast that simply do not make the trip. This is true of all trade shows—the closer they are the more likely people are to attend. So we are bringing the show to them. It's simply too big and too valuable a market to not serve 100%. Because we are dou-bling our marketing budget to almost $1 million, we expect that IGC Chi-cago will actually see higher attend-ance next year (God, weather and the economy willing!)."

Why the D.C./Baltimore Area?

Again, for folks used to attending the Commerce Show, it's the same gen-eral vicinity. Plus, National Harbor is easily accessible from Reagan Na-tional Airport, 1-95, and Amtrak's Alexandria, Virginia, station. Planes, trains and automobiles. You could probably even arrive by boat. A quick look at the Resort's website shows it to be a stunning location, too, over-looking the Potomac River.

If you've never been to our nation's capital - it's worth the trip. All the museums, memorials and such are free admission. Your tax dollars are paying for it - you might as well go see them while you're there.

From Ball Publishing, Buzz Newsletter, August 15

News - Sidhu Nursery Buys Briggs Nursery

In his recent Acres Online e-newsletter, GrowerTalks and Green Profit Editor Chris Beytes caught up with the Sidhu Nursery folks on their latest acquisition of Briggs. Here's what he had to report:

Back in March, I wrote that Briggs Nursery of Elma, Washington, was in receivership. Looks like they've got a new owner now: Sidhu & Sons Nursery Ltd., of Mission, British Co-lumbia. Purchase price: $12 million. Sidhu is a 600-acre producer of broadleaf evergreens, conifers, decid-uous shrubs, trees and perennials, including blueberry plants, based in Mission, British Columbia, Canada.

Details on Briggs' troubles were vague back in March, with the only news coming from a couple of local newspapers, the Daily World and The Vidette. They wrote that Bank of the West had foreclosed against the nursery in January, with Briggs ow-ing the bank more than $10 million. A bankruptcy court appointed Turn-ingPoint LLC to find a buyer.

Two companies bid on Briggs, in-cluding Mountain Top Holdings of Lynden, Washington, which The Vi-dette says has "potential ties to a larg-er Canadian company known as J. R.T. Nurseries." Mountain Top Hold-ings bid $8.5 million, but in a second round of bidding, Sidhu's offer of $12.05 million was accepted on June 21. That includes 400 acres near Elma and all of Briggs' trademarks.

To learn more about the deal, I spoke to Jas Ghuman. She's daughter of the founder, Gurdev Sidhu, and head of Sales & Marketing for the second-generation family business.

"(Briggs] has had an excellent name for decades, “says Jas. "Bruce Briggs, the founder, has an excellent reputa-tion. They've been really good for the broadleaf business and tissue culture



research. The product has always been so top-notch ... we just wanted to be part of that. It was a great op-portunity, perfect for us."

The two businesses have been com-petitors for years, she continued, with similar product lines and overlapping customers. Both businesses have tis-sue culture labs. But there are differ-ences, too, with Sidhu doing more high-volume production and Briggs focusing on lower volume and wider variety. The deal also opens up more U.S. sales to Sidhu.

As for the Briggs reputation, Sidhu Nursery will honor it by keeping the family name on the business.

"We want to carry on the Briggs tra-dition," Jas says. "They've struggled financially the last few years, but we're here to take care of that. We'll see what changes need to be made, without changing the essence of Briggs."

News - Business Immigration Survey

Predicts Increased Visa Demand In 2014

WASHINGTON - In its newly re-leased 2013 Annual Business Immi-gration Survey, the Global Immigra-tion Benchmarking Council (GIBC) reports that business demand for tem-porary visas and green cards contin-ues to rise. Thirty-four percent of companies anticipate hiring more H-1B visa holders in the year ahead, while 25 percent of companies antici-pate hiring additional H-2A or H-2B workers. Respondents state that the projected increase is due to business demand and the unavailability of US workers. The survey, co-sponsored by ImmigrationWorks USA and Ber-ry Appleman & Leiden LLP, reflects responses from the business commu-nity across a variety of industries.

Additional survey findings reveal that:

Businesses rely on the H-2A and H-2B visa programs due to the un-availability of U.S. workers, but find government regulations and wage requirements to be burden-some.

Access to H-1B visas was the top concern for many companies, with close to 30 percent of respondents stating that it was the most chal-lenging issue they faced when hir-ing high-skilled foreign workers.

Most companies that use E-Verify would recommend the program to their peers; however, they feel there should be a safe harbor if they use the system in good faith.

The majority of companies do not pass on visa costs to employees, with over two-thirds of respondents saying that the company pays for all immigration-related costs.

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ImmigrationWorks USA CEO Tamar Jacoby stated that "The message is crystal clear: employers need immi-grant workers to fill jobs when there aren't enough willing and able Amer-icans. The H-2B temporary worker program is getting harder and harder to use - more expensive and wrapped up in red tape. But more than 60 per-cent of employers who participate say they'll apply again next year, in many cases for more workers. Congress needs to act to make these programs work for the economy."

Lynden Melmed, a Partner at Berry Appleman & Leiden LLP in Wash-ington, D.C., noted that "The results of our survey confirm that U.S. busi-nesses are projecting increased de-mand for foreign temporary workers. But absent Congressional action, companies in almost every industry will be shut out of key visa programs. An H-1B visa application may only have a 50 percent chance of being accepted in next year's visa lottery."

Survey highlights are available at www.gibcouncil.org The Global Immigration Benchmarking Council (GIBC) is a global immigration trade group formed to advance business immigration policy through information collection, dissemination, and advocacy. With several hundred companies as To

learn more about GIBC, visit www.gibcouncil.org

ImmigrationWorks USA is a national federation of employers working to ad-

vance better immigration law Tamar Jacoby,

[email protected] 973 744 6117

Founded in 1980, Berry Appleman & Leiden LLP (BAL) is the leading global corporate immigration law firm with of-fices in San Francisco, Austin, Dallas, Houston, McLean, Va., Washington,

D.C., and with overseas Berry Appleman & Leiden LLP: Lynden Melmed,

[email protected], 202 842 5830

News - OHP introduces Marengo

granular herbicide We are extremely pleased to an-nounce the launch of Marengo® G herbicide, following the ultra-successful launch of Marengo liquid herbicide in January.

Marengo G, a granular pre-emergent herbicide with the same active ingre-dient (indaziflam) as Marengo liquid herbicide, is immediately available to production ornamental growers through authorized OHP distributors just in time for the fall herbicide ap-plication season. California registra-tion is pending.

Like Marengo liquid, Marengo G of-fers production ornamental growers many of the same benefits including consistent plant safety, broad-spectrum weed control, and dependa-ble residual control.

Growers can apply Marengo G over-the-top of production ornamentals in containers and field crops for pre-emergent control of grassy and broad-leaf weeds. Marengo G does not vo-latilize and does not move in the soil once watered-in. The product can be used in shade houses, hoop houses, and hardscapes.

Marengo G should be watered-in with a minimum of .25-inches of water within 21 days of application. For best results, users should water-in as soon as possible.

Marengo use rates range from 100-200 lbs. per acre. The product is available in 50-pound bags, 40 to a pallet.

Marengo contains the first active in-gredient from MOA (Mode of Ac-tion) Group 29. The active ingredient prevents weed seed germination by inhibiting cellulose biosynthesis.

For the specimen label, MSDS, ap-proved state registrations map and

product information (PIB) click hre.

At this time, Marengo G will not be registered in New York. Dan Stahl, OHP VP marketing and busi-ness development, Unsubscribe I © OHP,

inc. I PO Box 51230 Mainland, PA 19451-0230

News - Neonicotinoid Insecticides: Separating

Fact from Fiction Following the unfortunate and acci-

dental bee-kill that happened in Oregon this past June, many activ-ist groups have stepped up their efforts to prohibit or disrupt the use of neonico-tinoids. In many

cases they are trying to identify the use of these insecticides as the sole cause for Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) of European honeybees – a phenomenon, sometimes referred to by the more general term “Bee De-cline,” where the worker bees do not return to their hive after foraging. However, recent reports by the USDA and EPA suggest that the cause of CCD is likely much more complicated than any one factor. Documents developed by ANLA, OFA and SAF attempt to shed addi-tional light on this difficult issue by recognizing the importance of pro-tecting our environment and our pol-linator population, while fulfilling the need to protect our crops from dam-aging insect pests.

ANLA, OFA and SAF have collabo-rated on a letter and a “frequently asked questions” (FAQs) document to help the horticulture industry get a better sense of the challenges we now face regarding our use of neonico-tinoid insecticides. These documents will help growers, landscapers, and retailers explain to their customers why these chemicals are an important



part of our toolbox, and the fact that current scientific evidence supports their responsible use as part of a pest management strategy. For more in-formation, contact Joe Bischoff, AN-LA’s Director of Government Rela-tions ([email protected] ) or Lin Schmale, SAF’s Senior Director of Government Relations ([email protected] ).

For additional information contact: Jonathan Bardzik, ANLA Director of Marketing and Industry Relations at

[email protected]

Shelley Estersohn, SAF Director of Communications at sester-

[email protected]

Laura Kunkle, OFA Director – Communications & Marketing

at [email protected]

News – VT Students Participate in 37th PLANET

Career Days Last March, 26 students and 3 faculty boarded a bus in Blacksburg for the long journey down to Auburn, Ala-bama, to participate in the 37th annual PLANET Student Career Days. PLANET, Professional Landcare Net-work, sponsors this conference as an

outreach to students studying landscape contracting or related majors. Student Career Days (SCD) is an opportunity for students to get together for a long weekend and compete for jobs and in-ternships.

The centerpiece for the conference, however, is a 28-event competition, pitting students from 60 different schools from around the country against each other in a wide array of

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events. The events cover a broad spec-trum of skills necessary in the land-scape industry from plant ID, landscape design, irrigation, management/sales, construction/ installation, plant man-agement, estimation, and various types of landscape machinery. Most events have two students from each school competing.

2013 marks the fourteenth time that Virginia Tech Horticulture has field-ed a team in SCD dating back to our first one in 1995. Each year the con-ference is held at a host school some-where in the country. This year, Au-burn University was the host.

To members of the landscape indus-try, the most important aspect of the conference is the Career Fair. It is their opportunity to see more students interested in landscape contracting in one place at one time than any other event anywhere. Over 70 companies were represented at SCD with the goal of meeting as many potential employ-ees as possible. For students, there is likewise no other venue with as many

potential employers in one place at one time. If a student wants to live and work in California, there are a dozen companies at the career fair from Cali-fornia ready to talk about careers or internships. Over the years, SCD has been the vehicle for many students to find just the right company to work for.

As always, the students from Virgin-ia Tech were strong competitors in many events, placing 16th overall. Wesley Chiles and Josh Wilson placed fifth in Landscape Maintenance, Matt Cox placed fourth in Construction Cost Estimating, Jake Shreckhise, placed fourth in Woody Plant Identification and our best placement of third place in Hardscape Installation, won by Matt Cox and Jacob Chance. Matt Cox also was the recipient of the Stihl $1,500.00 scholarship. Along with their achieve-ments in the competition, they excelled in the Career Fair portion of the confer-ence, making many contacts and with six students acquiring internships.

Next year, SCD will be at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Col-

orado. Virginia Tech Horticulture will be sending another team of enthusiastic students to represent the university and the Commonwealth of Virginia at this important event. The cost of going to SCD is quite high, especially when flights are required. Students pick up the major portion of the tab through individual payments and funds that they raise through the VT Horticulture Club. VNLA is very generous in their support of this effort along with many companies from the region who con-tribute. Along with horticulture stu-dents, several other majors are repre-sented on the Hokie team including students from Crop, Soil and Environ-mental Sciences, Landscape Architec-ture, Urban Forestry, Agriculture and Applied Economics and Agricultural Technology. Preparations for the 2014 team have already begun. If you’d like to be a part of our team and make a contribution to this effort, please con-tact Robert McDuffie ([email protected]).

By Barbara Leshyn & Robert McDuffie

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News - SNA Announces 2013 Award Recipients

Atlanta, Ga., September 3, 2013 - The Southern Nursery Association (SNA) has announced the recipients of the 2013 SNA Awards. The awards were presented at the Annual SNA Business Meeting on Wednes-day, August 7, 2013, at the Georgia International Convention Center dur-ing SNA 2013.

The SNA Awards Program began in 1956, when the late John B. Wight, Sr., suggested to the officers of the Southern Nursery Association that an award be offered annually to the per-son of their selection who, in their opinion, had contributed most to the advancement of the industry in the South and to the welfare of the Southern Nursery Association. This first award, considered a lifetime

achievement award, was named the Slater Wight Memorial Award in memory of the late J. Slater Wight, brother of the late John B. Wight, Sr. Nomination and selection of recipi-ents is made by the SNA Board of Directors.

This year's recipient of the Slater Wight Memorial Award is Dr. Nick Gawel (right), Director of the Ten-nessee State University Otis L. Floyd Nursery Research Center in McMin-nville, TN.

Established in 1974 by David E. Laird, Jr., in memory of his father, SNA Past President David E. Laird, Sr., this award, considered the young nursery person of the year award, is presented each year to recognize qualified young men and women for

outstanding service in the field of environmental horticulture and to offer inspiration for others starting out in the field. The recipient must be 39 years of age or younger and must be a member of his/her state nursery association. Nominations are made by the State Associations within the SNA region with final selection by the SNA Board of Directors.

This year's recipient of the David E. Laird, Sr. Memorial Award is Joseph B. Hillenmeyer, Joseph Hillenmeyer Garden Design, Lexing-ton, KY, who was born into a family with a horticulture tradition that dates back to the 1700's in France and Germany.

Established by the SNA Board in 1992, the SNA Pinnacle Award is given to the individual within the al-lied industry who, in the opinion of the SNA Board, has contributed most to the advancement of the industry in the south and to the welfare of the Southern Nursery Association. This award is limited to SNA members. Nomination and selection of recipi-ents is made by the SNA Board of Directors.

This year's recipient of the SNA Pinnacle Award is Gary L. Stover, Stover Manufacturing, Port Orange, FL.

Established by the SNA Board in 1999, the SNA Environmental Award recognizes individuals and



businesses that have demonstrated exceptional leadership and through their voluntary efforts exemplified inspiration, vision, innovation, lead-ership and action to preserve and pro-tect the environment. This award is not limited to SNA members or to the horticulture industry. Nominations for this prestigious award are made by the SNA Participating State Asso-ciations and SNA Members with final selection by the SNA Board of Direc-tors.

This year's recipients of the SNA Environmental Award are Saunders Brothers, Inc., Piney River, VA, and Dr. John Lea-Cox, University of Maryland. In awarding two Environ-mental Awards this year, the SNA Board acknowledges not only Saun-ders Brothers for water conservation efforts in the implementation of using the Evapotranspiration (ET) based irrigation in their nursery, but also

Dr. John Lea-Cox for his work in the devel-opment of advanced sensor-based wireless networks for deci-sion-based irrigation

and nutrient management. (See arti-cle in the July/August/September 2013 VNLA Newsletter on page 39.)

Two deserving industry members received SNA Honorary Member Awards this year. Each recipient has made outstanding contributions to the association and the industry during their active participation in the Southern Nursery Association. The SNA Board of Directors recognizes Wilbur C. Mull, Classic Ground-covers, Athens, GA, and Dr. Carl. E. Whitcomb, Lacebark Publication & Research, Stillwater, OK, for their dedication to SNA and the field of horticulture.

Wilbur C. Mull, (left) celebrating his 50th anniversary - in business that is- is founder of Classic Groundcovers in Athens, GA to others, a true sign of humility.

Dr. Carl E. Whitcomb, author, lec-turer, researcher and consultant, was born and raised in Kansas.

Other awards for 2013 was the Por-ter Henegar Memorial Award, pre-sented at the SNA Research Confer-ence Awards Luncheon and the Don Shadow Award of Excellence, pre-sented at the Southern Plant Confer-ence. The recipient is selected annual-ly by fellow research workers for his/her concern and work toward im-proving the nursery industry.

The recipient of the 2013 Porter Henegar Memorial Award is John W. Olive (right), Auburn University, Auburn, ALThe Don Shadow Award of Excellence, named for the first re-cipient, Don O. Shadow, Shadow Nursery, Winchester, TN, is present-ed to an individual, corporation or organization that has provided exem-plary service, leadership and generos-ity in the development, promotion and use of new and improved land-scape plants. Recipients must demon-strate a sincere commitment to and passion for expanding knowledge and use of new and improved plants for the landscape. This award is present-ed to an individual, corporation or organization that has provided exem-plary service, leadership and generos-ity in the development, promotion and use of new and improved land-scape plants. Awardees must also demonstrate a strong volunteer and/or service commitment to bringing bet-ter plants to the landscape. Recipients must demonstrate a sincere commit-ment to and passion for expanding knowledge and use of new and im-proved plants for the landscape. Nominations are accepted from at-tendees of the Southern Plant Confer-ence and SNA Members. Nominees may be carried forward from one year to the next. Selection is made by the SNA Board of Directors.



The 2013 recipient of the Don Shadow Award of Excellence is Rick Crowder, Hawksridge Farms, Hickory, NC. Hawksridge Farms is well known in the industry for the development and introduction of new plant cultivars to the trade.

SNA believes industry members should be recognized for their dis-tinguished talents, extraordinary service and life achievements. The SNA Awards Program is designed to recognize professionals who have demonstrated their commitment to the Southern Nursery Association and the industry through these annual awards. For a list of previous SNA award winners, visit the SNA website at www.sna.org.

Founded in 1899, the Southern Nursery Association is a non-profit trade association representing the hor-ticultural industry in the southeastern U.S. SNA provides member services to wholesale growers, brokers, retail-ers, landscape contractors, landscape architects, grounds maintenance con-tractors, interiorscapers and allied suppliers. The SNA strives to unite and advance the horticulture industry through educational, research and marketing efforts.

For more information on SNA, contact Karen Summers, 678.809.9992,

[email protected]

News - Southern Nursery Association Elects New

Officers Atlanta, Ga., September 3, 2013 - Officers of the Southern Nursery As-sociation (SNA) who will serve for the 2013 - 2014 term were elected during the 114th annual meeting held at the Georgia International Conven-tion Center in Atlanta, Ga., during SNA 2013. The election, open to all active SNA members, determines representation from the four geo-graphic regions of the association:

Chapter 1 - Maryland, North Caroli-na, Virginia and West Virginia

Chapter 2 - Florida, Georgia and South Carolina

Chapter 3 - Arkansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Oklahoma and Tennessee

Chapter 4 - Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas

The complete slate of officers is as follows:

Jeff Howell, President, Rocky Creek Nursery, Lucedale, MS

Richard May, Vice Presi-dent/Treasurer/Director Chapter 2, May Nursery, Havana, FL

Eelco Tinga, Jr., Director Chapter 1, Tinga Nurseries, Castle Hayne, NC

Michael Hobbs, Director Chapter 3, Warren County Nursery, McMin-nville, TN

Dusty Knight, Director Chapter 4, Plantation Tree Company, Selma, AL

William Boyd, Immediate Past Pres-ident, Flower City Nurseries, Smartt, TN.

Newly-elected SNA President Jeff Howell and his wife Melinda own and operate Rocky Creek Nurseries, Inc. in Lucedale, MS. Founded in 1962 by Jeff s parents, Owen and Connie Howell, Rocky Creek Nurse-ries was incorporated in 1984 with Owen, Connie, Jeff and his older brother Lee serving as officers. With Lee's untimely passing in 2000, Jeff became company president, a posi-tion he holds today. Rocky Creek Nurseries produces container-grown woody ornamentals, trees and peren-nials.

In addition to his nursery responsi-bilities, Jeff is active in his communi-ty. He currently serves on the Board of Trustees of the George Regional Health System, a multi-county hospi-tal, nursing home and physician's practices enterprise. He is a Sunday School teacher and Lay Leader at Lucedale First United Methodist Church. Jeff is past president of the Mississippi Nursery & Landscape Association and past chairman of the George Republican Party. In 1998 he was awarded the SNA David E. Laird Memorial Award.

Jeff and Melinda, a kindergarten teacher, have two children, Tyler (23) and Jeffrey (20).

Joining the SNA Board this year, Dusty Knight is from Franklinton, LA, where he worked for Windmill Nursery and Zelenka Nursery of Fol-som, LA for 20 years. In 2000, he and his wife Joan moved to Prattville, AL, where he brought that 20 years of experience to Plantation Tree Company as manager. Plantation Tree Company has over 400 acres of premium quality field-grown shade and ornamental trees and shrubs in production. Established in 1993, Plantation Tree Company has quickly



set the standard for quality field grown trees and ornamentals and in-troduced three plants to the industry. A superb Vitex 'Lilac Queen', an unu-sual Magnolia 'Cinnamon Twist', and an outstanding magnolia that has be-come a standard in the industry the 'Green Giant' Magnolia.

Dusty and Joan have two children and two

grandchil-dren. Dusty is an avid

hunter, fisherman,

and loves to spend time with his grand-children.

For more information on SNA, contact .Karen

Summers, 678.809.9992, [email protected]

News – BMP Guide for Producing Nursery

Crops Best Management Practices v 3.0 NOW AVAILABLE ONLINE

The Best Management Practices (BMP) Guide is designed to help growers identify and promote excep-tional management practices, meth-ods and procedures. These manage-ment practices can be implemented regardless of nursery size or location and empowers container and field-grown plant producers to operate at a higher level of efficiency and effec-tiveness while implementing proac-tive management practices necessary to produce plants with minimal envi-ronmental impact.

This ever-popular guide has become recognized as the undisputed bench-mark for horticultural BMPs in the U.S. with more than 6,000 copies in

use today. The Best Management Practices Guide, v 1.0 was published in 1996 with an updated v 2.0 printed in 2007. Version 3.0 has been updat-ed to include the latest best manage-ment practices, an enhanced irrigation section and two new sections - Con-structed Wetlands: A How To Guide For Nurseries, as well as information on the RMA Crop Protection Insur-ance Program.

In addition, printed copies of v 3.0 will be available later this year. This industry guide is currently being translated to Spanish and will also available later this year on the SNA website and in print.

The Best Management Practices Guide v 3.0 is a valuable reference tool and is FREE to the industry - for viewing! Printed copies will be avail-able later this year at a nominal charge to cover shipping and han-dling.

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Funding for this update project is made possible by the USDA's Risk Management Association (RMA) in cooperation with the North Central IPM Center at the University of Illi-nois. RMA’s mission is to promote, support, and regulate sound risk man-agement solutions to preserve and strengthen the economic stability of America’s agricultural producers. As part of this mission, RMA operates and manages the Federal Crop Insur-ance Corporation (FCIC). RMA was created in 1996; the FCIC was found-ed in 1938.

Karen Summers, 678.809.9992, [email protected]

Or contact the VNLA office for a print copy. [email protected]

News - National Sustainability Rating

System Certifies Eight New Landscape

Projects WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Sus-tainable Sites Initiative™ (SITES™) has announced eight new projects that have achieved certification under the nation’s most comprehensive rating system for the sustainable design, construction and maintenance of built landscapes. These projects, as part of a group of 150 projects participating in an extensive, two-year pilot pro-gram, have applied the 2009 SITES guidelines and met the requirements for pilot certification.

The newly certified projects are Blue Hole Regional Park in Wimberley, Texas; Harris County WCID 132’s Water Conservation Center in Spring, Texas; American University School

of International Service in Wash-ington, D.C.; Bat Cave Draw and Visitor’s Center at Carlsbad Caverns National Park, N.M.; Mesa Verde Visitor and Research Center at Mesa Verde National Park, Colo.; George “Doc” Cavalliere Park in Scottsdale, Az.; the National Renewable Energy Laboratory Research Support Facility in Golden, Colo. and Scenic Hud-son’s Long Dock Park in Beacon, N.Y.

SITES is a partnership of the Ameri-can Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA), the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center of The University of Texas at Austin and the United States Botanic Garden. SITES was created to fill a critical need for guidelines and recognition of sustain-able landscapes based on their plan-ning, design, construction and maintenance. The voluntary, national rating system and set of performance benchmarks applies to sites with or without buildings.

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News - Shorts Garden supply dealers post record June gains

The latest report from the National Re-tail Federation shows building material and garden supply dealers posted steady growth last month, up 8.4% un-adjusted from the previous June. How-ever, seasonally adjusted comparisons from the previous month show a 1% decline. This is in line with the overall retail sales for June, which show strong year-over-year increases but flat month-to-month gains. Sales rose 6.7% over last year, but increased only 0.2% seasonally adjusted over May. “After months of speculation, consumers are beginning to pull back,” said NRF chief economist Roasalind Wells. “Retailers can expect the second half of the year to show moderate gains due to the slowdown in the housing market and other economic factors.”

Targetnow second most-shopped retailer

Target is now second only to Wal-mart, according to Retail Forward’s recent ShopperScape report. One-quarter of all U.S. primary household shoppers visit a Target, Target Greatland or Su-perTarget store monthly. The report also found the retailer racks up repeat visitors. Two-thirds of Target’s past 6-month customer base returns to its stores on a regular basis. Children’s apparel, decorative home fashions, small housewares and appliances and toys generate the most interest among shoppers. Target and Wal-Mart typi-cally share customers, the report shows.

Weekly Dirt, Carol Miller, [email protected]

New England summerretail sales slide

After a strong April, garden center sales across new England hit a decline due to a stretch of rainy weekend, said Bob Heffernan, Conn. Nursery & land-scape Association Executive Secretary.

Soggy gardening conditions were

problematic enough for the Boston Globe to run an article on the situation in June. Sale were particularly bad north of

Connecticut, he said. Many garden cen-ters still have their yards filled with spring inventories. Area landscapers report more stable, steady business.

New tax deductioncould apply to growers

A new tax deduction could apply to nursery crops, ANLA has announced. The deduction, part of the American Jobs Creation Act, applies to gross re-ceipts of any sale, exchange or other disposition of qualifying production property grown or extracted in the US. The deduction was phased in at 3% and will increase to 9% by 2009. One re-striction is that the deduction cannot exceed 50% of wages paid by the tax-payer that year. The deduction is also available to individuals via their ad-justed gross income. ANLA helped secure the new tax deduction for nurs-ery growers in cooperation with the Small business Legislative Council in 2004.

Science takes a shot at dormant weed seeds

Weed control can be tricky, especially considering weed seeds can lie dormant for years waiting for favorable condi-tions. USDA scientists are looking at developing fungi and bacteria that will target these banks of thousands of mil-lion of dormant seeds. The concept is to bolster the activity of beneficial mi-crobes that already exist in the soil. This concept could be considered “pre-pre-emergence control,” as traditional pre-emergence herbicides kill weed seeds just at the stage of germination when tiny seedlings are emerging from seeds.

Weekly Nursery E-Mail, Todd Davis, [email protected]

Ad – Winfall Nurseries



"The effort and time these projects have spent to field test SITES 2009 guidelines and ensure their site is sus-tainable is commendable and has been a tremendous resource for in-forming the development of the SITES v2 Rating System, which will be released later this fall," said SITES Director Danielle Pieranunzi, who is based at the Wildflower Center.

Since June 2010, pilot projects have been testing the 2009 rating system created by dozens of the country’s leading sustainability experts, scien-tists and design professionals. The diverse projects represent various types, sizes and locations as well as budgets. There are now a total of 23 certified pilot projects with more pro-jects continuing to pursue pilot certi-fication until the end of 2014.

A new rating system, SITES v2, will be published this fall, using infor-mation gained through the pilot pro-ject certification process. The projects certified up to that point will have qualified under the 2009 rating sys-tem. It includes 15 prerequisites and 51 additional, flexible credits that add up to 250 points. The credits address areas such as soil restoration, use of recycled materials and land mainte-nance approaches. Projects can achieve one through four stars by amassing 40, 50, 60 or 80 percent of the 250 points.

The one local newly certified project incorporates sustainable features and practices and have received ratings listed below:

•American University School of International Service, Two Stars, Washington, D.C. This entrance plaza is a gathering place for students and faculty that is integrated with a LEED® Gold building to manage 100 percent of stormwater on the site and, as a result, needs no irrigation. The site features a Korean garden with adapted plants, an edible herb garden, an apiary and regional mate-rials. The university has a zero-waste policy that includes recycling and

composting landscape clippings and debris and coffee grounds from the student- run coffee shop inside. For more information about SITES, visit

www.sustainablesites.org

Research - SCRI Project Update Series I:

Recycled Water Quality

Water pH Dictates Chlorine Performance Dr. Chuan Hong, Virginia Tech In 2002, we reported an improved chlorination protocol recommending 2.0 ppm free chlorine at sprinklers for irrigation water treatment (VNLA Newsletter 72(2):40-44). This proto-col has since been widely used in the or-namental horti-culture industry throughout the Common-wealth and across the country. Chlo-rination still is by far the most cost-effective water treatment today but this technology also has its own share of problems. Thus, it is important to manage these problems and reduce their impacts to the minimum. The question we ask here is how to max-imize chlorine performance in the context of recycled irrigation water quality and make the most out of chlorine dollars. Specifically, we will discuss: (i) water pH range and diur-nal fluctuation pattern in runoff con-tainment/ irrigation ponds, (ii) how they may affect chlorine chemistry and its pathogen-killing power, and (iii) steps taken to improve chlorine performance and the economic return of this water treatment.

Water pH range and diurnal fluctuation pattern in irrigation reservoirs Water in irrigation ponds directly re-ceiving runoff from production areas is alkaline for the most time of year as illustrated in Figure 1. Water pH readings in this pond of eastern Vir-ginia were taken hourly for a 6-year period from 2006 to 2012. Water pH fluctuated from 5.0 to over 12.0 dur-ing this monitoring period. Overall, only 5% of the hourly pH readings fell between 5.00 and 6.99 while 95% were at 7.00 and above. This pH range and water basicity was totally unexpected in the first place, but later we found out that they are actually not uncommon for runoff water con-tainment ponds.

Figure 1. Distribution of hourly water pH readings in a runoff containment pond

Another surprise finding was the ex-tent of diurnal water pH fluctuations in the same ponds. Water pH always read the lowest in the early morning from 4:00 to 8:00 AM and the highest in the evening from 5:00 to 9:00 PM. Water pH is closely related to photo-synthesis activity in the ponds. When the sun rises, algae and other photo-synthetically-active agents remove carbon dioxide, a weak acid, from water to make carbohydrate. Conse-quently, water pH goes up. This pro-cess is expedited with rising tempera-ture. This was particularly obvious from 10:00 AM to noon when water pH rises sharply. The greatest diurnal

1% 4%

20%

32%

31%

9%

3% 0%5.00‐5.996.00‐6.997.00‐7.998.00‐8.999.00‐9.9910.00‐10.9911.00‐11.9912.00‐12.99



pH fluctuation observed during this project ranged from 6.5 in the morn-ing to 10.0 in the evening, mounting a 3.5-unit difference from the lowest to highest point of the day. These sea-sonal and diurnal water pH fluctua-tions have tremendous impact on chlorine chemistry and its pathogen-killing power.

Chlorine chemistry and killing power How much this potential pathogen-killing power of free chlorine may be realized at production facilities depends largely on their water pH levels. This is due to chlorine chemistry. Chlorine in water could be in three forms: dis-solved chlorine gas (Cl2), hypochlorous acid (HOCl), and hypochlorite ion (OCl-); and they have very different pathogen-killing powers. For example, hypochlorous acid was estimated to be 20 to 80 times more effective in con-trolling Escherichia coli than hypo-chlorites. These three forms of chlorine co-exist in equilibrium, water pH de-

pendent (Figure 2). At pH 4.2 to 5.3, nearly 100% of chlorine is hypo-chlorous acid but this percentage drops sharply with increasing water basicity. This means that the same level of free chlorine could have rather different pathogen-killing powers, depending upon the pH level in waters to be treat-ed.

Figure 2. Equilibrium of three forms of chlorine dependent on water pH

It is impractical to treat water at pH 5.0 or below due to severe corrosion. Thus, the water pH range for the best chlorine performance is between 5.0 and 5.3. Chlorine is most efficacious at this narrow pH range and its path-ogen-killing power decreases with decreasing percentage of hypocho-rous acid in increasingly basic water

environments. The estimated loss of chlorine pathogen killing power is at least 4% at water pH 6.0, 25% at pH 7.0, 84% at pH 8.0, 90% at pH 9.0 and 94% at pH 10.0 (Table 1).

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Virginia Nursery & Landscape Association



Table 1. Increasing loss of killing power

of chlorine with increasing basicity

* Assuming the best scenario that OCl- is 1/20 as powerful as HOCl Steps to improve chlorine per-formance and economic return As discussed above, recycled water is mostly alkaline but chlorine is most efficacious at pH 5.0 to 5.3. Thus, any strategies and practices that lower the pH level in waters to be treated will improve chlorine performance and economic return. Based on the latest water quality data from the SCRI project, we recommend the fol-lowing:

Irrigating plants in early morn-ing when water pH is at its lowest point of diurnal cycle. This recommendation should work for all production facili-ties that are set to turn chlorin-ation on whenever irrigation cuts on. This practice alone could greatly increase chlorine performance compared to irri-gating plants in the evening when water pH could be 3.5 units higher than that in early morning. This practice will work particularly well for pond water with most pH read-ings at 9.0 and below. An ad-ditional benefit of this practice is reduced lengths of wetness and drier plant foliage that is suppressive for pathogen

growth and disease develop-ment.

Taking water pH measure-ments regularly and acidifying water as needed prior to chlo-rination. This is essential to ensuring the best chlorine per-formance and the greatest eco-nomic return. As illustrated in Table 1, chlorine dollar is wa-tered down to 10 cents or by 90% if alkaline water at pH 9.0 is chlorinated without pre-acidification. Please note that water pH reading must be tak-en at the time of irrigation as it may change substantially at different hours of the day.

Whether and how water quality, in particular of water pH, in irrigation ponds may be manipulated to further improve chlorine performance is cur-rently under investigation by the SCRI project team and collaborating growers. As these studies progress, new results will be reported in the future articles of this Recycled Water Quality series. For more info, contact Dr. Chuan Hong,

VA Tech HAREC, VA Beach, [email protected]

Research - Evaluation of Small Stature, Utility

Compatible Trees in Virginia

Over the last year we have continued to maintain, measure, and observe the trees in this field trial, which com-prises roughly 250 trees from 25 cul-tivars. Maintenance included mulch application and weed control in the field plots and structural pruning of the trees. Annual growth measure-ments were taken on trees in both Blacksburg and Virginia Beach dur-ing March 2012. At that time, the fol-lowing measurements were made: tree height, trunk caliper, crown spread, health rating, and root sucker rating. Pest ratings were performed twice during the growing season: dis-eases and early season insects were documented in May and late season insects were documented in August. This regimen of maintenance practic-es and data collection will be repeated in 2013. Due to in-kind support from the Hampton Roads AREC, we were able to stretch our budget for research and maintenance supplies. Therefore we are entering 2013 with some left-over grant money, which we will ap-ply to project costs in the coming year.

A technical update on the project was presented at the annual meeting of the Mid-Atlantic Chapter of International Society of Arboriculture in October 2012 in Cumberland, MD. Approxi-

pH Free chlorine composition (%) Efficacy

estimate * Efficacy (%)

Loss of killing power (%) Hypochlorous

acid (HOCl) Hydrochlorite ion (OCl-)

5.0 100 0 100+0/20 100 - 6.0 96 4 96+4/20 96 4 7.0 74 26 74+26/20 75 25 8.0 22 78 22+78/20 26 74 9.0 5 95 5+95/20 10 90 10.0 1 99 1+99/20 6 94



mately 85 people attended the presen-tation. The presentation is available online at http://frec.vt.edu//Documents/MTRP_MACISAEW2012.pdf (presentation is best viewed by saving to your local computer and then opening the file).

We continue to receive inquiries about the evaluations and the associ-ated outreach work that we are con-ducting through Virginia Cooperative Extension and the Municipal Tree Restoration Program rhttp://utilityfriendlytrees.org/). Most notably, the Charlottesville Area Tree Stewards recently contacted us to ob-tain some preliminary information about creating a utility tree arboretum in Charlottesville.

Eric Wiseman, Ph.D., Department of Forest Resources & Environmental Con-servation Virginia Tech, 228 Cheatham

Hall Blacksburg, VA 24061-0324

Laurie Fox, Ph.D., Hampton Roads Agri-cultural Research and Extension Center Virginia Tech, 1444 Diamond Springs Road Virginia Beach, VA 23455-3315

This project received partial funding from the Virginia Nurserymen's Horticul-

tural Research Foundation in 2012

Tips - Realizing Disease Control and Plant

Health For growers, sending your ornamen-tals to market is like watching your kid drive off to college. Parents hope that they’ve shaped their children to be the best they can and given them the skills to care for themselves. The nurturing is done and whatever hap-pens next is essentially out of their control.

Just as parents nurture their chil-dren—growers nurture their plants, making sure they produce the healthi-est, best-looking crop to sell and buy. While the ornamentals industry de-fines plant health in many ways, most

would agree it means growing a plant with healthy foliage, healthy roots and a solid number of blooms. It also means producing a disease-free plant.

Once plants leave the greenhouse or nursery, growers can no longer pro-tect them from disease, temperature extremes, lack of water, too much sun or other damaging effects they might encounter before reaching their final destination. In short, plants can un-dergo stressful transitions—from the greenhouse or field to truck to garden store, all of which can affect foliage, blooms and roots and leave plants more susceptible to disease.

This is a risk for growers, whose rev-enues and reputation ride on the health and beauty of their ornamen-tals. This is especially true for grow-ers selling through “pay on scan” – meaning growers receive payment only after product is scanned for final sale. Buyers most likely won’t pur-chase plants that look sick or wilted, in turn erasing dollars from the bot-tom line.

Keep Plants Disease - Free and Healthy

The same factors that promote growth in greenhouse and nursery plants can also create a breeding ground for dis-ease – routine watering, fertility lev-els, moist soils and sometimes closed systems. The enemies are many: downy mildew, powdery mildew, anthracnose, botrytis, fungal leaf spots, rhizoctonia, fusarium and cyl-indrocladium.

Growers can’t afford the outcome of disease so they research and select pest management programs that target potential disease pressures. However, not all fungicide solutions are alike.

Products labeled for disease control are highly regulated by the Environ-mental Protection Agency (EPA). Before the EPA registers a pesticide, it mandates that manufacturers prove the label claims are accurate. Often times, the product undergoes as many as 120 tests to determine how, when and where it’s appropriate to use the pesticide. Because of this, an active ingredient can take an average of 10 years to reach end users.

News - TREE fund established in Dr. Bonnie Appleton's Memory

In memory of Bonnie Appleton, the Mid-Atlantic Chapter of ISA and Trees Virginia have established an account with the TREE Fund http://www.treefund.org/archives/6718 with the intent to endow a fund honoring Bonnie’s contributions to the arboriculture industry. Contact Contact Janet Bornancin at 630-369-8300 x 201 to contribute or learn more or go to http://www.vtnews.vt.edu/articles/201

2/07/073112-cals-appletonmemoriam.html

Laurie J. Fox, Ph.D., Virginia Tech Hampton Roads AREC, 757-363-3807,

[email protected]



Labeled for Disease Control and Plant Health

Like many products developed, sometimes the true potential isn’t ful-ly evident until adopted by the mar-ket. For the past 10 years, BASF has studied pyraclostrobin—an active ingredient used for disease control—and found the product to have added plant health benefits.

First discovered in the crop market, corn treated with pyraclostrobin-based fungicide verses untreated, re-ported stronger stalks and better abil-ity to tolerate stresses—such as heat, drought, and cold. BASF then tested to determine whether other pyra-clostrobin-based products could de-liver improved disease control and plant health for turf professionals, greenhouse and nursery growers.

BASF has devoted the past five years to researching ornamental plant health in the lab and in the field, working side-by-side with expert growers. The trial series evaluated four high valued ornamental crops’, petunia, geranium, impatiens and pansy, tolerance to drought stress and cold stress.

Research revealed that plants treated with pyraclostrobin-based fungicides are disease free and show fewer signs of stress during temperature extremes and drought conditions. These plants also recover more quickly after ship-ping, have higher fresh weights and fewer damaged leaves than untreated plants. Today, Pageant® Intrinsic brand fungicide is the only fungicide in the ornamentals marked labeled for both disease control and plant health, and BASF continues to develop fur-ther the use of Pageant Intrinsic on other ornamental species for im-proved plant health benefits.

Growers have always had a number of fungicide options that protect against disease. Today, growers now have a solution labeled for protecting against disease and help activating the plants’ defenses—making them

better prepared to withstand stressors.

Always read and follow label directions. www.IntrinsicPlantHealth.com .

By Kyle Miller, Senior Market Develop-ment Specialist, BASF Professional Turf

& Ornamentals

Tips - Armitage's Herbaceous

Perennials for the Sun Online

The perennials "crash course" for the green industry For more information see http://tinyurl.com/nue5dfs Perennials are easy to grow, easy to propagate, and offer gardeners a fas-cinating variety of colors, forms and textures.

Armitage's Herbaceous Perennials for the Sun is a self-paced, self-study online certificate program authored by the Dr. Allan Armitage, one of the world's leading experts on and re-searchers of perennials. In this pro-fessional development course, you'll learn the characteristics, propagation methods and optimal growing condi-tions of 20 species of sun perennials.

The course is online, so you can pro-gress at your own pace, on your own schedule.

The course centers on Dr. Armitage's textbook, Herbaceous Perennial Plants: A Treatise on their Identifica-tion, Culture, and Garden Attributes. Other resources include online access to the professor's audio clips describing each plant's history, propagation, flow-er structure, identifying characteristics, and pros and cons. You'll assess your knowledge through self-tests, interac-tive exercises, and end-of-lesson quiz-zes that provide instant feedback.

Course Date: Enroll at any time For more details about the course,

please view How it Works & Learning Objectives

Course Format: Online Course Fee(s): $249 regular fee (US Funds) $199 association and partner rate $50 30-day extension (Only one

extension is granted per partici-pant.)

Group Discounts are available for organizations registering 5 or more participants. For additional information about group enroll-ments, contact Pam Bracken at +1-706-542-3537.

Prices are listed per person. Who Should Attend: Home garden enthusiasts Master Gardeners Commercial landscapers Nursery and garden center em-

ployees Continuing Education Infor-mation: Successful graduates will earn: 2.4 Continuing Education Units

(CEUs) from the University of Georgia. Definition of CEU.

A Certificate of Program Com-pletion from the University of Georgia

Instructor: This is a self-paced, self-study course. The course is authored by Dr. Allan Armitage. He is well known and highly acclaimed as a writer, speaker and researcher. He is recog-nized as a leader in introducing out-standing plant varieties to the indus-try. At the University of Georgia, he runs the research gardens where new plant material from most of the flow-er breeders in the world is evaluated. The Trial Gardens at UGA are among the finest trial gardens in the nation. They are open to the public through-out the year.

For more information on Dr. Armitage view About the Course Author. Prerequisite Courses: There are no prerequisites.


540-942-6735 www.waynesboro.va.us

[email protected]

Save the DateMarch 20, 2014

Join us on the first day of Spring8am-4pm

$80.00 early registration fee until Jan. 15

3rd Annual

Dr. Allan Armitage University of Georgia

Bill ThomasExecutive Director - Chanticleer

Jenks FarmerPlantsman, author, nurseryman

Adrienne RoethlingGarden Curator - Paul J. Ciener

Botanical Garden


Textbooks Requirements: Required Textbook: Armitage, Al-lan M. Herbaceous Perennial Plants: A Treatise on their Identification, Culture, and Garden Attributes. 3rd Edition, Stipes Publishing. 2008. (ISBN 9781588747754). The re-quired textbook must be ordered sep-arately from your course enrollment.

Suggested Textbook: Armitage, Al-lan M. Armitage's Garden Perenni-als: A Color Encyclopedia. Timber Press. 2000. (ISBN 0881924350). This textbook is not required but will be an excellent resource for your per-sonal library.

Suggested Textbook Vendor: You may order these textbooks from any textbook vendor/supplier, online at this website, or at from MBSDirect at 1+1-573-446-5299 or +1-573 446-5254 or 1-800-325-3252 (U.S. only), or online.

Textbooks will be shipped inde-pendently of your online course ac-cess details, so you should allow ex-tra time for their delivery.

Technical Requirements: Throughout the online course you will encounter many images, maps, links to external websites, animated exercises, and audio/video clips. To take full advantage of all these fea-tures, you will need a Windows- or Macintosh-based computer with a browser and a Flash player. A fast Internet connection is highly recom-mended. View Technical Require-ments for more details.

Events – Shenandoah Valley Plant Symposium 2014



Tips – Introducing Strike Plus

OHP, Inc. is pleased to announce the immediate availability of Strike Plus fungicide through authorized distribu-tors.

Strike Plus is a WDG formulation which contains two active ingredients for dual modes of action (MOA), giv-ing more broad-spectrum control of troublesome foliar diseases. Strike Plus can be used both inside and out-side as a preventive or curative. Users simply adjust the rate accordingly. The product contains triadimefon, the active ingredient in Strike® 50 WDG fungicide, plus trifloxystrobin, the active ingredient in Compass® 0 fun-gicide. With the combination of a sterol inhibitor (triadimefon) and a strobilurin (trifloxystrobin), Strike Plus provides comprehensive control of many diseases including powdery mildew, rusts, anthracnose, leaf spots, botrytis, boxwood blight, and others.

The combination lessens the high re-sistance potential that users face when using a strobilurin fungicide by itself. Strike Plus is packaged in one-pound containers, 12 to a case. The product carries a Caution signal word and 12-hour REI. OHP will phase out Strike 50 WDG but will maintain federal and state registrations for a period of time so growers can use up existing stock. For the specimen la-bel, MSDS, approved state registra-tions map and product information (PIB) click here.

We thank you for your support of our Strike Plus launch and continued support of the entire OHP line of quality pest and weed control prod-ucts. Please contact me or your local OHP regional sales manager here if you have questions. Dan Stahl, OHP VP marketing and busi-

ness development, OHP, Inc. PO Box 51230 Mainland, PA 19451-0230

Events- Grow2014 Save the Date: Saturday, March 8, 2014 – Grow 2014: A Celebration of Trees, presented by Lexington Horticultural Symposiums at the VMI Center for Leadership and

Ethics, Lexington, Virginia

Dr. Michael Dirr is to plants what Bill Gates is to technology. Every horticulturist, landscape architect, landscape designer, reputable plant nursery, and serious tree geek has a copy of Michael Dirr’s Manual of Woody Landscape Plants, considered the standard handbook for trees and shrubs. He is the author of numerous other books and was a revered horti-culture professor at the University of Georgia for many years. And – he is actually coming to Lexington! Dr. Dirr will be the keynote speaker for a new horticultural symposium, Grow 2014: A Celebration of Trees. He’ll be joined by Vince Dooley, retired coach of the University of Georgia Bulldogs and an avid gardener (and friend of Dr. Dirr) who will talk about the horticultural journey of a football coach and Nancy Ross Hugo, co-author of the Remarkable Trees of Virginia who will discuss the rewards of looking closely at ten common trees of North America as featured in her recent book, Seeing Trees: Dis-cover the Extraordinary Secrets of Trees. Seating is limited, so sign up now via the symposium’s website, www.grow-2014.com.

Continuing education hours will be offered for the day, in addition to book signings and book sales. The

$75 fee includes lunch. Visitors arriv-ing on Friday have the opportunity of a free tour of historic Lexington with

a trained guide. www.grow-2014.com.

The $75 fee includes lunch. Boxerwood Nature Center and

Woodland Garden 963 Ross Rd.Lexington VA

24450 www.boxerwood.org 540-463-2697

Events – Hahn Horticulture Garden VA Tech

10th Annual Garden Gala

Mark your calendar for June 14th, 2014 for the 10th annual Garden Gala. Ask anyone who’s attended - it’s seriously the most fun you can have at a fund-raiser; fabulous food and drinks, enter-tainment, marvelous items at auction, and more, all in a gorgeous garden set-ting. We’ve enjoyed the support of our alumni and friends from the green in-dustry since the very first Gala – please join us in this very important fundrais-ing event on our 10th anniversary! The Garden operates on gifts, funds raised by special events, and facility rentals. These dollars help with equipment pur-chase and maintenance, new plants, garden renovations, student wages, and more. Gala Sponsorships start at $300 (Bronze) up to $2000 (Corporate Plati-num) and come with complimentary tickets. It’s a great way to show your support for the impact Virginia Tech Horticulture and the Hahn Garden makes as we provide hands-on training for future green industry professionals as well as education for the community. And to our past sponsors and attendees – a huge “thank you!” We hope to see you again in June!

Dr. Holly Scoggins, Associate Professor and Garden Director, Dr. Holly Scoggins

– [email protected] , (540) 231-5783.


News – State Fair of VA Green Industry

Displays

FYI: Attached is a summary of the survey of the volunteers who staffed the green industry exhibits at the State Fair this year.

VGIC Volunteers: Rick Baker, VDACS Terry & Joel Koci Jeff & Sandy Miller, staffing and takedown

VNLA Volunteers:

Rick Baker, VDACS Shawn Peck Beverly Gravatt Claudia Swanson Gina Hamlin Jim Hassold Doug Hensel Tom & Elizabeth Thompson, staffing, setup and takedown Laura Matherly Brian Watson Scotty Guinn Dilworth Karen Kelly, setup Terry & Joel Koci Susan Molloy Jeff & Sandy Miller, staffing and takedown

VCTGA Volunteers:

John Houston Ron & Loraine Hoke John & Virginia Carroll, set-up Marie McGee, staffing and setup Danny Neel, VDACS Dave Robishaw, VDACS Greg Lemmer Jeff & Sandy Miller, staffing and takedown

Events - Mid-Atlantic Horticulture Short Course

January 13 -16, 2014 VIRGINIA BEACH, VA -The Mid-Atlantic Horticulture Short Course will be held 13 — 16 January 2014, at the Marriott at City Center in Newport News, Virginia. This is the Green Industry educational highlight of the Mid-Atlantic region. Interna-tional, national and regional speakers present new techniques, university research and advances in all aspects of horticultural industries. The four-day event is divided into industry-specific tracks; participants can mix and match classes to suit their train-ing and continuing education needs.

2014 Invited Speakers & Work-shop Leaders Gary R. Doerr, Blooms of Bressing-ham Linda MK Johnson, Professor Biology & Botany, Chatham University Nigel Dunnett, Professor Landscape Design & Vegetation Technology; Di-

rector of Green Roof Centre, Univ. Sheffield Sandy Kittmar, Plant Specialist, Iseli Nursery Bernie Erven, Emeritus, Human Re-sources & Management, Ohio State University James A. Murphy, Turfgrass Specialist, Rutgers University Kelly D. Norris, Horticulture Manager, Greater Des Moines Botanical Garden; Iris Expert, Mike Goatley, Turfgrass Specialist, VTech James Hitchmough, Professor Horticul-tural Ecology,University of Sheffield Rebecca Sweet, Garden Designer, Harmony in the Garden Thomas Woltz, Principal, Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects James Ingram, President, COO Bartlett Tree Experts

Continuing Education Available From These

Professional Organizations: American Society Landscape Ar-

chitects' LA CES (ASLA's Contin-uing Education System

Pesticide Applicator Recertifica-tion (10 states + the District of Co-lumbia)

Association of Professional Land-scape Designers

Professional Grounds Management Society (PGMS)

Certified Nurseryman (or state equivalent)

Professional Landcare Network (PLANET)

Crew Manager and Advanced Crew Manager (is a Virginia Hor-ticultural Foundation program)

Virginia Certified Horticulturist (VCH)

Virginia Certified Advanced Horti-culturist (VACH)

Golf Course Superintendents As-sociation of America (GCSAA)

Virginia Dept. Professional Occu-pational Regulation (registered



News – State Fair of VA Green Industry

Displays

FYI: Attached is a summary of the survey of the volunteers who staffed the green industry exhibits at the State Fair this year.

VGIC Volunteers: Rick Baker, VDACS Terry & Joel Koci Jeff & Sandy Miller, staffing and takedown

VNLA Volunteers:

Rick Baker, VDACS Shawn Peck Beverly Gravatt Claudia Swanson Gina Hamlin Jim Hassold Doug Hensel Tom & Elizabeth Thompson, staffing, setup and takedown Laura Matherly Brian Watson Scotty Guinn Dilworth Karen Kelly, setup Terry & Joel Koci Susan Molloy Jeff & Sandy Miller, staffing and takedown

VCTGA Volunteers:

John Houston Ron & Loraine Hoke John & Virginia Carroll, set-up Marie McGee, staffing and setup Danny Neel, VDACS Dave Robishaw, VDACS Greg Lemmer Jeff & Sandy Miller, staffing and takedown

Events - Mid-Atlantic Horticulture Short Course

January 13 -16, 2014 VIRGINIA BEACH, VA -The Mid-Atlantic Horticulture Short Course will be held 13 — 16 January 2014, at the Marriott at City Center in Newport News, Virginia. This is the Green Industry educational highlight of the Mid-Atlantic region. Interna-tional, national and regional speakers present new techniques, university research and advances in all aspects of horticultural industries. The four-day event is divided into industry-specific tracks; participants can mix and match classes to suit their train-ing and continuing education needs.

2014 Invited Speakers & Work-shop Leaders Gary R. Doerr, Blooms of Bressing-ham Linda MK Johnson, Professor Biology & Botany, Chatham University Nigel Dunnett, Professor Landscape Design & Vegetation Technology; Di-

rector of Green Roof Centre, Univ. Sheffield Sandy Kittmar, Plant Specialist, Iseli Nursery Bernie Erven, Emeritus, Human Re-sources & Management, Ohio State University James A. Murphy, Turfgrass Specialist, Rutgers University Kelly D. Norris, Horticulture Manager, Greater Des Moines Botanical Garden; Iris Expert, Mike Goatley, Turfgrass Specialist, VTech James Hitchmough, Professor Horticul-tural Ecology,University of Sheffield Rebecca Sweet, Garden Designer, Harmony in the Garden Thomas Woltz, Principal, Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects James Ingram, President, COO Bartlett Tree Experts

Continuing Education Available From These

Professional Organizations: American Society Landscape Ar-

chitects' LA CES (ASLA's Contin-uing Education System

Pesticide Applicator Recertifica-tion (10 states + the District of Co-lumbia)

Association of Professional Land-scape Designers

Professional Grounds Management Society (PGMS)

Certified Nurseryman (or state equivalent)

Professional Landcare Network (PLANET)

Crew Manager and Advanced Crew Manager (is a Virginia Hor-ticultural Foundation program)

Virginia Certified Horticulturist (VCH)

Virginia Certified Advanced Horti-culturist (VACH)

Golf Course Superintendents As-sociation of America (GCSAA)

Virginia Dept. Professional Occu-pational Regulation (registered



Virginia Landscape Architects) International Society of Arboricul-

ture (ISA) Virginia Dept. of Conservation &

Recreation's ) Nutrient Manage-ment Program

Irrigation Association (IA North Carolina Board of Land-

scape Architects (NC BoLA) Virginia Society of Landscape

Designers (VSLD) Programs and registration available in fall. More information is available from

www.mahsc.orq, on the event's Facebook page or by calling 757-523-4734.

The Mid-Atlantic Horticulture Short Course is produced by The Virginia Hor-ticultural Foundation, a 501(c) (3) non-profit organization that provides educa-tional programs in horticulture for pro-fessionals and the public. PO Box 64446

Virginia Beach, Virginia 23467 (757) 523-4734 - Fax: (757) 366-9604

www.mahsc.org [email protected]

Fall VNLA Board Meeting Minutes

Wednesday, October 23, 2013 -

10 am – 4 pm Virginia Department of Forestry

Building, Charlottesville Room 2054

10:10 a.m. - Welcome, intros and hopes for the day

What are our members’ prob-lems? How is the VNLA going to

make them more successful? The meeting was called to order at 10:10 a.m. with the following pre-sent: Matt Sawyer, Sonya Westervelt, Jim Owen, Cheryl Lajoie, Virginia Rockwell, Christopher Brown, Craig Attkisson, Tom Thompson, Mike Hildebrand, Bill Gouldin and Jeff Miller. (Absent: Steve Grigg and Doug Hensel)

Fund Accounts 1/1/13 9/30/13

VNA Horti-culture Re-

search Fndtn 672,269 669,801

VNAHRF Checking 24,108 31,571

VNAHRF Beautiful Gar-

dens 13,651 19,346

VNLA Money Market Fund 187,703 52,215

VNLA Rainy Day Fund 278,121 286,692

VNLA Check-ing Account 5,465 22,001

Shoosmith Scholarship

Fund 195,531 203,170

Laird/Gresham Scholarship

Fund 66,101 68,512

CW Bryant Scholarship

Fund 37,980 40,642

Total Assets 1,480,929 1,393,950

MANTS check in the

mail 220,200

1,613,950

Secretary’s Report – Sonya Wester-velt moved to approve the June Board Meeting Minutes as emailed to the Board, seconded and passed.

Financial Reports – Sonya Wester-velt and Jeff Miller reviewed the 2013 3rd Quarter Financial Reports and the 2014 Draft Budget. The 2012 Financial Report from the CPA firm, the 990 and 990T tax returns for the VNLA, the 990 tax return for the VNA Horticulture Research Founda-tion and the Accounting for the Shoosmith Trust for 2012 had been emailed to the board on October 11, 2013. It was moved to approve the financial reports, seconded and

Events – Mid-Atlantic Horticulture Short Course



passed. It was suggested that activity class reports be used in QuickBooks for some reports. These are in place and Jeff will review and prepare re-ports.

2014 Budget Notes – a footnote will be added that the increase in the Mis-sion H2O line item is for additional work they are undertaking to manage pending changes in groundwater management in all areas east of I-95.

CW Bryant Scholarship Fund will be fully funded at the end of this year with a $10,000 transfer of 2013 sur-plus funds. This will enable the addi-tion of another scholarship in 2015.

2012 Audit Review – A conference call was held with Deanna Cox and Joy Craig, with the CPA firm Robin-son, Farmer, Cox Associates. They had just finished a full audit, financial reports and tax returns for the 2012 calendar tax year. They indicated that their unqualified opinion was the equivalent of and ‘A’ grade on the 2012 Audit. Adjustments were made on how the interest/dividend income are recognized and unrecognized gains and losses are recorded in QuickBooks to reflect filings with the IRS tax returns. They noted that hav-

ing a small management office team makes it difficult to have in-office segregation of duties on handling re-ceivables, payables, deposits, check-book reconciliations, etc. There is oversight by the Treasurer through quarterly reviews of check registers and access to the online bank ac-counts to review deposits and ex-penses.

Executive Director’s Report – Jeff Miller (emailed) 2014 VNLA Marketing/Branding Program – Jeff Miller reviewed his proposal to do a complete makeover of the VNLA marketing/branding coordination across all the VNLA activities and committees by contract-ing with a consulting/design service. It was the consensus of the board to allocate $7,000 in the 2014 budget for this. Virginia Rockwell will write up a brief for a request for proposal. A temporary Marketing Committee would be established with the chairs

VNLA Dashboard Metrics Current Member- 494 Membership 1 year 510 Peak Membership 632 Current VCH 551 VCH Count 1 Year 549 Total Income YTD 149,938 Budget Year 2013 392,225 Total Income YTD 180,582 Total Expenses 250,442 Budget Year 2013 392,100 Total Expenses 241,668

** does not include fund interest

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November/December 2007 VNLA Newsletter 70

Designing With Elegant Silvers, Striking Plants for

Every Garden; Saturday, January 19, 9:30 - 11:00 am

Silvers are the shimmering chameleons of the plant king-

dom. Their silvery appearance is caused by water-conserving hairs, scales, powder, waxy coatings or air

bubbles. The beauty and drought-tolerance of familiar

downy silvers such as lamb's ears and artemisias have long

made them favorites in the herb garden and perennial bor-der.

Karen Bussolini will discuss and show beautiful slides of the many inventive ways gardeners across the United

States have used these stalwart plants in containers, bor-

ders or the larger landscape. She will pay special attention to the use of silvers for our hot and humid summers, pro-

tective adaptations, and using color and texture to create

exciting combinations. She will also touch on historical

uses from medieval times to modern xeriscaping. $20 members / $30 non-members.

Copies of The Unsung Season and Elegant Silvers will be available for purchase at each lecture, and the author will

sign copies.

Down to Earth Gardening; Saturday, February 2, 8:30

am - 4:30 pm

A horticulture symposium on gardening smarter, problem solving and going green with the best new plants

Join Horticulture magazine and Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden for a day-long garden symposium featuring these

topics and speakers:

Gardening Smarter, Problem Solving and Going

Green: Nan Sinton

Down to Earth Gardening with keynote speaker, Ireland's

Helen Dillon -It's more than putting plants together and

making pictures in the garden. See how to rethink, re-

design and manage change in a smaller space

The Elements of Organic Gardening with David How-

ard, head gardener to HRH The Prince of Wales. Explore the process of creating an organic garden the Highgrove

way.

Conifers to Fit Your Space with Richard L. Bitner. See

how to choose conifers that fit smaller gardens, and add

year-round interest to problem sites.

Plants that Go Green with Bill Cullina

Registration fees: $129 regular rate / $119 for Horticulture subscribers and Lewis Ginter members. Registration avail-

able through Horticulture magazine only at

www.hortprograms.com or call toll-free 1-877-GDN-PROG (1-877-436-7764)

Tree Care Symposium February 15

Professionals in tree care, green industry professionals,

and advanced gardeners are invited to attend the Tree Care

Symposium, Friday, February 15, 2008, 8:30 am - 4:30 pm. To receive a detailed program, email regis-

[email protected]

A Workshop for Professionals on Designing with Stone

Gordon Hayward, garden designer and author; Friday,

March 7, 9 am - 1:30 pm (9 am - 12 pm workshop, 12-1:30 pm lunch & conversation with Gordon Hayward)

Walls and walkways, terraces and steps, benches, boulders and bedrock, water and stone, standing stones and sculp-

ture - stone is at once beautiful and useful in the landscape.

In this day-long workshop for professionals, you will learn

how to design with stone to create a lasting framework as well as a wide range of stone features, ornaments and de-

tails that will add a sense of age and permanence to your

client's garden. Gordon will also discuss the practical is-sues of setting walkways, terraces, and walls, how to set

boulders and standing stones, and how to site any number

of stone garden features to underpin the garden's itinerary. $75 Garden and VSLD, VNLA, and AS LA members/ $85

non-members. Presented in cooperation with the Univer-

sity of Richmond School of Continuing Studies Landscape

Design Certificate Program. Recent Alumni and current students of this program should contact the Program Spe-

cialist, Gary Ray, for a special offer.

Small Buildings, Small Gardens, Saturday, Mar. 8, 9:30 - 11:30 am

Join acclaimed garden designer and author Gordon Hayward for this discussion about structures in small gar-

dens. Hayward looks closely at how gardeners can use

small buildings and built structures such as gazeboes and

arbors, pergolas and bridges, fences and decks to help find just the right place for new gardens. Learn how these

structures ease the design process by helping you see how

to develop new gardens in relation to existing or new structures. Built structures in our gardens are magnets for

family, guests and visitors. Learn how structures help

viewers frame their relationship to the garden. Finally,

when you see how built structures in your garden provide anchors, centers and starting places for good garden de-

sign, you will gain confidence in designing your own gar-

dens. $25 members / $35 non-members.

Gordon Hayward's book Small Buildings, Small Gardens

will be available for purchase and signing.

For more information or to register contact Phyllis Laslett at

Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden; [email protected]



of the Public Relations (Sonya Westervelt), Communications (Matt Shreckhise), Membership (Mike Hil-debrand) and Legislative (Virginia Rockwell) Committees in conjunction with the Executive Director to estab-lish guidelines, meet with the con-sultant and review progress and ap-prove results.

Multiview – Jeff reviewed a proposal from this firm to solicit advertising for the website and the Newsletter. They are currently doing this for SNA, ANLA and several state asso-ciations. It was the consensus of the board to table this for future consid-eration.

Committee Reports Certification – Cheryl Lajoie noted that she had been in contact with Dave Close on the possibilities of getting the Certification manual and review classes online through Virgin-ia Tech’s online education network. Mike Wallace is working on review-ing the Plant Id section of the manual.

The VNLA had received a request from the Deep Meadows Correction Center for information on participat-ing in the Virginia Certified Horticul-turist Program. It was the consensus of the Board to send a VCH Study Manual to the Center.

Chesapeake Bay Landscape Certi-fication – a report had been emailed to the board with the agenda and re-ports. Shereen Hughes, with the Wet-lands Watch organization, has been working to develop and coordinate a Chesapeake Bay Landscape Certifica-tion Program in Virginia and had dis-cussed this with Virginia Rockwell and Cheryl Lajoie. She presented a background and the objectives to the board. Attached is a copy of her com-plete written report. After questions and suggestions from the Board, is was moved that this be integrated as an addition to the Virginia Certified Horticulturist Program as a separate section and as another level of certifi-cation. It was suggested that the VNLA have a third-party review the

addition, so that the certification would be accepted by Bay related entities.

Legislative/Regulatory Review – Virginia Rockwell/Bill Gouldin VAC Legislation Appreciation

Banquet – Virginia Rockwell noted that the VNLA would be sponsoring a table of eight at the banquet, including two legislative seats.

Legislator plant gift baskets will be distributed to members of the General Assembly and the Governor’s Office on February 20, 2014. Members will be asked to help with the distribution.

VAC State Policy Meeting, Monday, November 11, 2013 – Virginia Rockwell, Bill Gouldin and Jeff Miller will be attending to represent the VNLA.

Native Plant Conferences – Virginia reported that she and Tom Thompson had attended these conferences during the summer and this fall promoting the use of the VNLA Guide to Virginia Growers as the “go to” source for Virginia grown native plants. An updated Noxious Weed law became effective July 1, 2013 with a new list of 8 plants, up from 1 listing previous-ly.

Rural Virginia Caucus – Vir-ginia represented the VNLA at this meeting where the main con-cern was education.

Education – Matt Shreckhise report-ed that he, Steve Grigg, Roger Harris and Jeff Miller had met with Dean Allen Grant (College of Agriculture & Life Sciences [CALS]) at Virginia Tech and Bill Gouldin and Sonya Westervelt participated via confer-ence call to discuss how the green industry could help with the VA Tech CALS Strategic Plan and Green In-dustry Priorities which included:

Developing high-value horticul-tural products, businesses and systems

Providing programs to assist the commonwealth in adjusting to the economic and environmental im-pacts of urban sprawl

Enhancing rural ecosystems Agricultural profitability and en-

vironmentally sustainability

The consensus of the discussion was that the priority is to promote the agriculture industry in urban settings and the green industry could: Help produce promotional re-

sources for careers through VA Tech CALS degrees and the Communications and Marketing Group on campus

Help fund current Horticulture Department staff to help develop promotional materials, web and social media contact/info avenues

Help CALS and Horticulture lev-erage their interaction with the industry to engage high school students about the green industry opportunities and the huge impact it has on the economy in Virginia

Use the Virginia Certified Horti-culturist program and relationship building to promote careers

Dean Grant noted that there is more collaboration across departments and integration of missions, especially between Horticulture, Plant Patholo-gy and Crops, Soils and Environmen-tal Sciences (CSES) and that they are hiring faculty who can work across departments, as in three recent new hires to work in plant genomics. He is looking to the CALS departments to develop action plans.

Landscape Management Network, in partnership with Caterpillar®, pro-posed partnering with the VNLA to host business management workshops specifically for landscape contractors at no cost to the association, other than marketing the program. The VNLA would receive registration revenue back from the workshops. It was the consensus of the Board to table this proposal.


WWW.CNCNA.ORG


VT 2-yr Ag Technology Program – Matt Shreckhise noted that Dr. Alex White had asked that the VNLA help promote this program to potential high school students around the state.

Public Relations – Sonya Westervelt had previous submitted a written re-port on Field Day and Summer Tour and noted that there was a net loss for the events and a closer review of costs and pricing will be done next year. (copy attached) . It was also suggested that instead of having actu-al exhibitors at Field Day, to ask them to be a Sponsor and not feel obligated to staff a display at Field Day.

2014 VNLA Field Day and Summer Tour - Sonya suggested that the 2014 event be held at Virginia Tech, part-nering with the Horticulture Depart-ment and CALS.

SNA BMP Manuals for grower members – Jeff provided a written report of an email from SNA con-cerning the availability of the 3rd edi-tion of the BMP manual which the VNLA could obtain copies to provide to VNLA member growers.

“Plant Something Campaign” for Spring 2014 – Jeff reported that the VNLA had just received the licensing for this program and information will be available by MANTS.

Communications – Matt Shreckhise reported that Shipp & Wilson Inc would be the next member profiled in the Newsletter.

Publications – Grower Guide - Craig Attkisson reported that a new native listing section will be added to the 2014 Guide to Virginia Growers and that he was looking for appropri-ate photos for the cover. Christopher Brown volunteered to help get some potential photos.

Environmental Affairs – Tom Thompson discussed an upcoming meeting of the Georgia Native Plant Initiative and the focus of the day being industry-based talks/ discus-

sions aimed at realizing the econom-ic/ecological potential of native plants. He suggested that the VNLA should have a representative at the meeting and/or consider a similar meeting in Virginia. Jim Owen will check with contacts at the University of Georgia to get some feedback on the meeting.

Research – Matt Sawyer reported that the 2014 Research Gala/Auction was set to be at The Center Club in Baltimore on Wednesday, January 8 and will be a return to an upscale event, black tie optional. Dinner will be a seated dinner, with a live and silent auction and a jazz trio. The Committee will also put together a short presentation of where the re-search funds come from and how they have been used in the past.

2014 funding requests for Boxwood Blight research will be handled through the VNA Horticulture Re-search Foundation 2014 grants.

Beautiful Gardens (written report attached) Doug Hensel - absent Membership – Mike Hildebrand dis-tributed a list of VNLA members who had not renewed their member-ship for 2013 and asked board mem-bers to indicate who they could call about renewing their membership. Contacts will also be made with cur-rent “core” members to “Please Help Us!” and to ask:

Why they are still members? What will keep you as a VNLA

member? What does the VNLA need to do

to make VNLA membership bet-ter?

There was a discussion on getting VA Tech students more involved in the VNLA. A motion was made to offer a 1-year free membership and the member rates for the VCH Study Manual and the Virginia Certified Horticulturist exam to senior 4-year students and 2-year students in the Ag Tech program. It was seconded

and passed.

LEAN Programs – Jim Owen pre-sented an option for the VNLA to host a LEAN program for its mem-bers and had a qualified contact who could conduct a program. No action was taken.

Member signs at MANTS – Chris-topher Brown presented a prototype VNLA member flag to distribute to VNLA member exhibitors at MANTS. The consensus was that he should proceed with this an find op-tional display methods. Jeff Miller will get a count of VNLA members exhibiting at MANTS.

Board and member ribbons for members at MANTS – it was the con-sensus of the board to have badge rib-bons available for members attending MANTS:

VNLA Board Member VNLA Member

Jeff will check to see if they can be distributed at MANTS registration. They will also be available at the VNLA booth and at the membership meeting.

Jeff will get together a list of previous member volunteers to help with specif-ic projects vs. being on a long term committee.

Strategic Planning – Mark Maslow (absent)

Old Business Woodrow Wilson Foundation fund request – Matt Shreckhise will get info to the VNLA office.

Virginia Green Industry Council – Virginia Rockwell reported that she had participated in the VGIC strategic planning meeting on October 17. A lot of time was spent reviewing back-ground of the VGIC and discussion on a new direction. The consensus was that they needed to be more than a “decorating group” (VAC Banquet, State Fair, etc.) There was a positive vote that they do have real work to do and will work towards new strategies. More details will be forthcoming.



[continued on page 74]

VNLA – Executive Directors Report

Meetings Attended HRNLA dinner cruise meeting in

Newport News on August 1 Field Day – August 2, site visit at

Brent & Becky’s Bulbs to review setup etc. for Field Day

Senegal Delegation – represented the VNLA with Roger Harris at a meeting of about 20 university leaders and government ministry leaders from Senegal. Virginia Tech was the first stop on a 2-week tour of US universities and agricul-ture operations. (9/13/13)

Virginia Agribusiness Council – Regional meeting at Virginia Tech with CALS leadership, department heads, other Ag industry represent-atives and our local General As-sembly Delegates.

Virginia Tech CALS Homecom-ing – Setup VNLA display with other Ag industries, 3 hours before the Marshall game.

Meeting with Dean Allen Grant – met in the Dean’s office with Steve Grigg, Matt Shreckhise, Roger Harris, (Sonya Westervelt and Bill Gouldin on conference call) to dis-cuss the CALS Strategic Plan which has the green industry as one of their priorities. 2013 Financial Report – Audit completed by CPA, changed way investments funds income is rec-orded to match 990 tax returns. VNLA Budget Conference

Call on October 10. State Fair – Coordinated VNLA/ Beautiful Gardens/ Plant More Plants/Virginia Certified Horticulturist displays at the State Fair with the Vir-ginia Green Industry Council, VSLD and the Virginia Christmas Tree Grow-

ers. We had 13 VNLA members staff-ing the VNLA display, with 2 shifts per day. There were 2 days with no staffing and 2 days with just one shift. Jeff & Sandy staffed the exhibit on the last Sunday, and took down the displays.

Website related

LinkedIn – The VNLA now has a closed group on LinkedIn http://www.linkedin.com/groups/Virginia-Nursery-Landscape-Association-5034766/about

Facebook - VNLA is on Face-book at http://www.facebook.com/VNLA1932 with 259 likes, up from 230 “Likes” in June. Most of the posts have had a reach of 30-60. When we listed job opportunities, it jumped to 215 - 260

60 members have activated their online accounts on the VNLA website, up from 54 in June.

The Re-Certification Applica-tion is now available online for submission and payment. CEU transcripts and re-certification no-tices will be sent out in Novem-ber.

The map lookup for members with Virginia Certified Horti-culturist on staff is online and linked directly to the association management database. This was formerly on the consumer website www.virginiagardening.com

Website upgrades in the works: Grower Guide and Native Plants addition

VNLA Marketing/Branding Makeo-ver – I think it is time for the VNLA to do a coordinated makeover of all of our marketing/branding as in coordinating graphics, displays, brochures, website, etc. The Christmas Tree Growers Asso-ciation did this 2-years ago and have developed a good coordinated market-ing program to members/potential members and consumers. The work was contracted out to Tom Kegley,

Kegley Communications in Riner, VA. http://tomkegley.com/ He has worked for a graphic design/advertising firm in Roanoke and developed all of Carolina Nurseries Novallis marketing materials for 6 years. A VNLA committee would need to meet with him to establish cri-teria, scope etc. The estimated cost would be $7-10,000.

Membership – develop a color mem-bership brochure with benefits and association info and then use the appli-cation as an insert as it changes in 2013. Ongoing with Mike Hildebrand

Virginia Agriculture magazine, had a meeting with Chelsa Luttrell, Journal Communications Agribusiness Publish-ing about the VNLA sponsoring an ad, no action

Intern – The College of Business did not have anyone sign up for our intern-ship as part of their class schedule. We interviewed one person, but they would not get any school credit for it.

We will get on the intern list with the VA Tech College of Business for an intern during the spring semester if they have someone that fits our needs. We will probably need to provide some stipend at the end of the internship. We had two applications from Horticulture students for this summer, but they were looking for paying jobs.

Boxwood Blight - (Email from Chuan Hong, 10/18/13) VDACS will be host-ing a 2-hour info session on boxwood blight for producers and other interest-ed parties in Galax in the evening of November 7 beginning at 6.30 pm. Both Mary Ann and I will be there to support this effort. Hope you (extension agents) and some of your master gar-deners will be able to join the session. You folks are really in the front line of a battle against this emerging destruc-tive disease that could ruin some box-wood production businesses, signifi-cantly impact our historic gardens, and change the landscape in Virginia.



Considering the limited distribution of this disease in Carroll County and Vir-ginia in general, the best strategies to protect our ornamental horticulture in-dustry, historic gardens and consumers are containment and exclusion. Alt-hough these regulatory strategies must be executed by VDACS, getting people existing info and tools and developing new knowledge and tools they need to protect themselves and the community are essential to winning this battle and that is where we, VCE, could make a huge difference.

Online Woody Plant Instruction Modules by Alex X. Niemiera are now online and attached is a report for the Newsletter. Members can enter the Woody Plant Modules by going to: www.hort.vt.edu/Woody/Introduction/ Once at this site, then you will have to enter a username and password. For the username, enter: hosting.VNLA For the password, enter: Woody2013 By Jeff Miller, Exec. Dir. VNLA 10/23/13

Event – VNLA Research Gala/Auction 2014

Ad – Lancaster Farms

Quality is a Matter of Choice

Annuals ❀ Azaleas ❀ Broad Leafs ❀ Conifers ❀ Fruits ❀ Perennials ❀ Roses ❀ Shade & Flowering Trees

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5800 Knotts Neck RoadSuffolk, Virginia 23435



New Business Nominating Committee for 2014 officers/directors – Steve Grigg will follow up on this for the annual meet-ing in January.

Office Depot proposal for member discounts – Jeff Miller will look into this more.

The Board accepted a letter from At Large Member, Dawn Lerch, She has been on the board for two years and felt that this position should be passed on to someone active with the industry/academia.

3:15 p.m. - Final thoughts and adjournment TASK LIST FOR NEXT MEETING 1. What are our members’ prob-

lems? 2. How is the VNLA going to

make them more successful?

"Strategy gets you on the playing

field, but execution pays the bills." Gordon Eubanks

Want a Private Flight to Ocracoke and Lunch?

VNLA Research Gala recipients enjoy flight to Dogfish Head Brewery, Delaware.

Jack Little, Tscharner Watkins, Louis Chandler and Jack Campbell thoroughly enjoyed their flight from Hampton, Va., up the Bay to Rehoboth Beach Delaware where a

leased suburban awaited to wisk them promptly away to Dogfish Head Brewery for a tour and tasting. The brewery is named after a Point of land in Maine (similar to 'Nags Head') where the Dogfish Shark lurks the waters. Our chauffeured limo then took us to the Dogfish Pub at Rehoboth Beach for an early afternoon lunch and further tastings.

Our DP (designated pilot), Matt Sawyer of Bennett's Creek Nursery was an exceptional host for the trip.

I'd like to thank Bennett's Creek for putting this trip up for auction at the last Gala and we are already conspiring to purchase the next one at MANTS in January 2014!

Tscharner Watkins III

Don’t miss the social event of the year! VNA Horticulture Research Foundation Gala/Auction

Wednesday, January 8, 2014 The evening will feature light hors d’oeuvres, four course seated dinner, bar

(two drink tickets per guest + cash bar) and the Jim Stewart Jazz Trio. Black tie optional.

To donate items for the auctions, please contact Matt Sawyer (757-535-6658, [email protected])

Ticket information will be in the MANTS registration packet

This is the major fund-raiser event for the Foundation. The net proceeds from this event are added to the investment account managed by SunTrust Bank.

The income from the investment account is used each year to fund worthy re-search projects that could benefit the green industry.


VIRGINIA NURSERYMEN’S HORTICULTURAL RESEARCH FOUNDATION, INC.

383 Coal Hollow Rd, Christiansburg, VA 24073-6721 Phone: 540-382-0943 – 800-476-0055 – Fax: 540-382-2716 – Email: [email protected]

Donor Information Form

Donor Company: _________________________________________________________________________

Contact Person: __________________________________________________________________________

Address: ________________________________________________________________________________

City: __________________________ ST: ___ Zip: ____________-__________

Office Phone: (____) _____-____________ Fax: (____) _____-____________

Email: __________________________________________________________________________________

$ ______ Reception/Auction Sponsor$ ______ Direct donation to Research Foundation $ ______ Gift Certificate (list who and where to redeem the certificate, or how to obtain the item, if different from the above contact information)

Item Donation and description: _______________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________________________

Retail Value: $ ____________________ (approximate)

VNLA member accepting donation: __________________________________________

List additional items separately on the back of this sheet

The donor did not receive any goods or services from the VNA Horticulture Research Foundation, Inc in return for the above listed contribution(s). The Virginia Nurserymen's Horticultural Research Foundation, Inc is a non-profit (501(c)(3) corporation. Over the course of time that this program has been active, we have funded in excess of $200,000 in original research from donations and income from our $550,000 research endowment. We are an active state association with an on-going fundraising program, which should further enhance our ability to support good research in the years to come.

It is the policy of the Virginia Nursery & Landscape Association that no overhead money be taken from funds donated for research projects. It is permissible to deposit these funds into various accounts that have been established for nursery research.

The Virginia Nurserymen’s Horticulture Research Foundation, Inc is a 501(c)(3). A financial statement is available upon written request from the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, Office of Consumer Affairs, PO Box 1163, Richmond, VA 23218-1163.

Call for Entries: Virginia Professional of the Year

You are invited to submit your nomination for the 2013 Distinguished Virginia Professional of the Year. This award is given annually by the Virginia Nursery and Landscape Association to honor a member of our green industry. *

The selection criteria are based equally on a candidate who has spent their career promoting and advancing the green industry. This individual is selected on the basis of long term contributions to the local and/or state organizations of Nursery and Landscape Associations.

A committee of the previous three recipients of this award, along with the approval of the Executive Director of VNLA, will make the final selection. The winner will be introduced at our Annual Membership Meeting at MANTS in January.

The person you nominate must be a VNLA member or work for a firm that is a member of VNLA. A previous recipient of the prestigious award is eligible again after five years.

Name of nominee: Title

Company: _____________________________________________________________________________________

Address: ______________________________________________________________________________________

City: ______________________________________________ ST _____ Zip code: ___________________________

Phone: Email:

Briefly list your nominee’s achievements, accomplishments, and involvements in the horticulture industry

You may also send any additional information such as biographical date, articles, etc. that you feel would be helpful in evaluation your nominee.

Your Name: Title:

Company: _____________________________________________________________________________________

Address: ______________________________________________________________________________________ City: ______________________________________________ ST _____ Zip code: ___________________________

Phone: Email:

Mail to: Selection Committee DEADLINE: December 6, 2013 Virginia Nursery and Landscape Association 383 Coal Hollow Rd; Christiansburg, VA. 24073-6721

Fax: 540-382-2716; Email: [email protected] . Questions: Call 1-800-476-0055 *The selection committee has the option of not selecting a recipient if there is not an outstanding individual.

In this case theselection committee members will remain the same for another year.

383 Coal Hollow Road

Christiansburg, VA 24073-6721

540-382-0943 1-800-476-0055

Fax: 540-382-2716 Email: [email protected]

Website: www.vnla.org

Nomination Form

Environmental Steward of the Year Award Name: ________________________________________________________________________________________ Company: _____________________________________________________________________________________ Address: ______________________________________________________________________________________ City: ___________________________________________________ ST _________ Zip: ______________________ PH: ________-_______-______________ Fax: ________-_______-______________ Email:________________________________________________________________________________________ Website:_______________________________________________________________________________________ Name of Project:________________________________________________________________________________ Description of the problem, the process for resolving the issue, benefit to the environment, costs to implement, anticipated financial savings, BMP practices that have been implemented and any additional comments or background information. Date Project was implemented: ____/____/_________ Date Project completed ____/____/_________ (or anticipated competition date) Attach copies of plans, photos, before and after, if available for the judges to better understand and judge the project. Environmental Affairs Chairperson: Tom Thompson, 804-276-5893, [email protected] DEADLINE: December 6, 2013

This form is also available online at www.vnla.org/

MANTS® has perfected the Fine Art of doing business

That’s why we are known asThe Masterpiece of Trade Shows™

MANTS has perfected the art of bringing exhibitors and attendees together to buy, sell and share information on the latest plants, products and services.· Conveniently located, modern facility· Over 975 exhibitors, in over 1,500 booths· Ideal timing – after the holidays, before the spring rush· Just business, all business· Our 44th consecutive year· Unlimited Inner Harbor attractions to enjoy after the Show ends

www.mants.comOn-line Registration is available

24/7 beginning October 1.

@mantsbaltimore#mants

P.O. Box 818Brooklandville, MD 21022

410-296-6959 · 800-431-0066fax 410-296-8288

MANTS® has perfected the Fine Art of doing business

That’s why we are known asThe Masterpiece of Trade Shows™

MANTS has perfected the art of bringing exhibitors and attendees together to buy, sell and share information on the latest plants, products and services.· Conveniently located, modern facility· Over 975 exhibitors, in over 1,500 booths· Ideal timing – after the holidays, before the spring rush· Just business, all business· Our 44th consecutive year· Unlimited Inner Harbor attractions to enjoy after the Show ends

www.mants.comOn-line Registration is available

24/7 beginning October 1.

@mantsbaltimore#mants

P.O. Box 818Brooklandville, MD 21022

410-296-6959 · 800-431-0066fax 410-296-8288

NEED A CAREER,

NOT A JOB?

It is time you talk to Southern Landscape Group; a high-end residential and commercial

landscape design/build firm in Lynchburg, VA. We service Lynchburg, Roanoke and

Smith Mountain Lake. We have been in business for fifteen years and have established a

reputation as the market leader. We employ only the best people who have a passion for

what they do and work everyday with a focus on our core values and mission statement.

Currently, our team is seeking qualified candidates for the following positions which

require a valid driver’s license with an insurable driving record:

Landscape Design Assistant: (minimum 3 yrs. of experience or degree in Horticulture)

Works beside experienced designer and assists sales staff with: field study, base

maps, landscape designs, sketch-up, estimating, excellent computer skills a must.

Landscape Sales Professional: (minimum 3 yrs. of experience with industry knowledge)

Meets with clients and prospects, identifies client needs, prepares estimates,

designs landscapes, identifies prospects and promotes the company. Unlimited

earning potential.

Horticulturist: (minimum 4 yrs documented experience or degree in Horticulture):

Works with 1-3 team members that focus on horticultural related items for clients.

Plant health care, pruning, seasonal color, landscape installation, water feature

maintenance, vegetable garden maintenance.

Health insurance, retirement plan, paid vacation, disability and life insurance available.

E-mail resume to:

[email protected]

visit us online @ www.soscapes.com

NEED A CAREER,

NOT A JOB?














earning potential.






E-mail resume to:

[email protected]


NEED A CAREER,

NOT A JOB?














earning potential.






E-mail resume to:

[email protected]



January 8-10, 2014, MANTS Baltimore Convention Center 800-431-0066 [email protected] www.mants.com

January 8, 2014, VNLA RESEARCH GALA/AUCTION, The Center Club, Baltimore, www.vnla.org

January 9, 2014, VNLA ANNUAL MEMBERSHIP BREAK-FAST MEETING, Sheraton Inner Harbor Hotel, Baltimore, www.vnla.org

January 13-17, 2014, MID-ATLANTIC HORTICULTURE SHORT COURSE (MAHSC), Newport News, VA http://www.mahsc.org/

January 9, 2014, 6:00 p.m. VIRGINIA AGRIBUSINESS LEGISLA-TIVE BANQUET, Old Domin-ion Bldg, Richmond Raceway Complex, 600 E. Laburnum Ave, Richmond http://www.va-agribusiness.org/

January 13-17, 2014, MID-ATLANTIC HORTICULTURE SHORT COUSE (MAHSC), at the Marriott at City Center in Newport News www.mahsc.org 757-523-473 (new date period)

January 13-15, 2014, CENTS Trade Show, Columbus, OH www.onla.org

January 13-17, 2014, GREEN & GROWIN' SHOW Greensboro, NC www.ncnla.com

January 29-31, 2014, GULF STATES HORTICULTURAL EXPO Mobile, AL www.gshe.org [email protected]

January 21-22, 2014, NEW JERSEY PLANTS TRADE SHOW-www.njplantshow.com

January 27-30, 2014, VIRGINIA TURFGRASS COUNCIL CONFERENCE & TRADE SHOW, Fredericksburg Convention Center, www.turfconference.org

February 20, 2014, VNLA GENERAL ASSEMBLY PLANT DISTRI-BUTION, General Assembly Building, Richmond, VA Volunteers needed. Contact: Vir-ginia Rockwell at 434-531-0467, [email protected]

February 7-9, 2014, MACEVENTS HOME & GARDEN SHOW, Greater Richmond Convention Center, 800-332-3976, www.MacEvents.com

February , 2014, SHENANDOAH VALLEY NURSERY & GREENHOUSE ASSOC, Winter Short Course 8 am - 3:30 p.m. at the Workforce Center at Blue Ridge Community College 540-665-5699, [email protected]

February 12-14, 2014, CVNLA/LEWIS GINTER WINTER SYMPOSI-UM, www.cvnla.org

February 23, 2013, VSLD WINTER MEETING with Claire Sawyers, The Authenic Garden at the Gari Melchers Studio Pavilion, Fredericksburg, VA www.vsld.org

March, 2014, VIRGINIA CHRISTMAS TREE GROWERS Winter Summit, Wytheville Meeting Cen-ter "Experience a Real Tree" [email protected] 540-382-7310 www.VirginiaChristmasTrees.org

March 20, 2014, SHENANDOAH VALLEY PLANT SYMPOSI-UM, Best Western Inn & Confer-ence Center, Waynesboro, VA 8 am - 4 pm Sponsored by the Waynesboro Parks & Recreation Dept. and the Virginia Nursery & Land-scape Association 540-942-6735 [email protected] www.waynesboro.va.us

April 26-May 3, 2014 HISTORIC GARDEN WEEK IN VIRGINIA, sponsored by the Garden Club of Virginia, http://www.vagardenweek.org/

For a Current Calendar of all Green Industry Events, go:

http://virginiagreen.org/events.htm

Mid-Atlantic Nursery Trade Show to Switch

Show Dates with Green & Growin’ Show For January 2015 Events

Baltimore, Md. - The Mid-Atlantic Nursery Trade Show (MANTS), the premier green industry marketplace now in its 44th year, today announced a change of date for their January 2015 trade show event. Due to sched-uling concerns, MANTS will swap show dates with North Carolina-based Green & Growin’ Show for January 2015 only.

In 2015, MANTS will be held from January 14-16 at their home venue, the Baltimore Convention Center. The Green & Growin’ Show will be held January 5 - 9, 2015, in Greens-boro, NC. Educational sessions will be January 5-7, 2015 at the Sheraton Four Seasons Hotel and the trade show January 8-9, 2015 at the Greensboro Coliseum.

Upcoming Events

Need Extra CEU’s???

Write an Article for This Newsletter!

Earn 1 CEU! Contact: 800-476-0055 Email: [email protected]

Discover Diversity…

PENDER NURSERY, INC.Locally-owned n Since 1945

Diversity

Encore® Azalea

Southern Living

Natives Perennials

Edibles

Timely Deliveries

Roses

PO Box 155 n Garner, NC 275298:00–4:30 Monday–Friday919-772-7255 n Fax 919-773-0904www.pendernursery.comsales@pendernursery.comwww.facebook.com/PenderNursery


Discover Diversity…

PENDER NURSERY, INC.Locally-owned n Since 1945

Diversity

Encore® Azalea

Southern Living

Natives Perennials

Edibles

Timely Deliveries

Roses

PO Box 155 n Garner, NC 275298:00–4:30 Monday–Friday919-772-7255 n Fax 919-773-0904www.pendernursery.comsales@pendernursery.comwww.facebook.com/PenderNursery

Keep growing.

One day you may outgrow your current operation. Farm Credit will be there to help you expand.

Whether you need to purchase real estate, build new houses, buy more equipment or need a revolving line of credit for plant stock, we have the financing you need.

Every business has growing pains. Give us a call and we’ll be sure your financing isn’t one of those.

farmcredit.com

800-919-FARM

Lending support to rural America™

Your Roots Are In Virginia!

383 Coal Hollow Rd.Christiansburg, VA 24073-6721

Bremo Bluff, VA

Phone: 434-842-8733 Fax: 434-842-3823

email: [email protected]

Prsrt. StdU.S. Postage

PAIDBlacksburg, VAPermit No. 107

vnla sep/oct/dec 2013 newsletter

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