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This was another beautiful sunny day on the farm. We were repotting Latan's and Manilla Palms. The nursery's irrigation is divided into sections, drip lines and six foot high impact sprinklers, shade house and dry zone. The shade house is for all the new starts, as well as an elevated portion of the nursery with no irrigation, for the Cycads, which require a drier climate.

On top of all that there is a second nursery for the smaller plants. Once they get big enough, we'll repot them and then move them to the big show up front. When you do make a sale, you create open space in the big show (main nursery). Now you have a large area to fill with new plants from the lower nursery. On top of that when you're always propagating from seed to move into the shade house, and then into the lower nursery.

Running a nursery is somewhat like the playing the commodities market, we want a diversified portfolio but also lots of stock in the popular sellers. We try to have lots of healthy bigger plants in the most popular species. For example Areca palms, because they are used for hedges and so will be ordered in large numbers (this is worth the space sacrifice). As well we will try to have some rarer palms that maybe others won't have, so we create a unique niche for ourselves in the market. Things like Gardenias are also extremely popular so we dedicate a lot of space to growing this fragrant flowering plant. With only X amount of square footage to use, we must be diligent about what we grow and how much space it takes up.

I call it the dance, trying to fill the empty spaces with newly repotted palms. Always starting from seed in the shade house, then moving the starts into the lower nursery, and then moving the bigger plants to the big show up front. Balancing all this takes an amazing knowledge of all the varieties of plants you have in the nursery, as well as an understanding of what landscaping companies are looking for. Luckily I work for the master of this dance, my Yoda, David Breen.

One love,

WW