Page 9 - MNLGA Free State Summer 2021

THIS BUSINESS OF OURS A Mike Hemming

Getting Ready for This

Year's Propagating

ndependence Day a few days early? Well, we can
celebrate Governor Hogan ending mask mandating
Ias of this morning July 2. A good thing, let us hope that
a Covid variant doesn’t set us back because not quite
enough people have been vaccinated. We are at the edge
of the woods, but not quite out of it for sure. Let’s get our
economy back to work and our children educated.

Here, things are continuing to go well although sales are
down a bit from June last year. But that was a special
case with good weather and customers really getting into
sprucing up their landscaping and gardening after the
lockdown started. I wonder how many vegetable gardens
were not planted this spring compared to last.

The irrigation pool liner replacement is still in the "not
done" category. So, we are going along with adequate
watering capacity but not enough that it does take extra
time. I have shuffled some stock around to allow for better
scheduling of irrigation. There are some winter potted #1
hydrangeas that have already out grown their containers
and dry out just about every day. They will have to be
stepped up into #3’s and cut back soon.

We absolutely ran out of #7 and #10 containers and had
to buy some. We have never used many #10’s before,
simply because we never got many brought to us. They
are a good size to step up #5 and #7 plants though. As
near as I can remember it’s been around 30 years since
we bought any new containers. The ease of handling a
stack of brand-new clean containers does ease the shock
of the cost of new ones. Plus looking around at all the
stock stepped up and looking good is very pleasing. We
are rapidly filling up all our growing area which is a very
pleasant problem. Mallow Annie J Hemming cut back a 6 in early April
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Get Active. Stay Involved. • SUMMER 2021 9