The arrival of longer days heralds the first real sign that spring is on the way as we are busy preparing for what will certainly be another great growing and gardening experience.
The ‘Plan-Prep-Plant for Success’ process is the same for Your Community Greenhouse staff of Green Team professionals as it is for your home garden and landscape.
Greenhouse Planning
However, our Planning process begins a bit earlier…in August, September & October. After reviewing the flower trial gardens late summer/fall, our design staff begins to make flower variety selections to grow for the next year.
Through the course of several weeks, we review what worked, what didn’t work and draw up a fresh new, plan for the upcoming season. Read More Here
Greenhouse Preparation
After the plans have been made and the rush of the Holiday season calms down, Creek Side preparation begins. Clean up the floors of the greenhouses, turn on the heat and water. The flower containers to be planted are filled with soil down in the barn. Then the containers are placed on carts and hauled up to the greenhouse to be planted. All the containers are carefully arranged on the greenhouse floor or growing bench ready for the next step.
Greenhouse Planting Begins
The perennials will be planted beginning this week in the cool house. Several hundred geranium and fuchsia hanging baskets will be planted next week in the warm greenhouse. Then the planting of the Container Gardens and Hanging Baskets follows in mid-February.
Using the Thriller/ Filler/ Spiller design technique, the planting crew follow recipes that were prepared last summer and fall and place the starter plants in the freshly filled pots. Watering and fertilizing begins immediately after planting to make sure everything gets off to a great start!
We will begin with the larger sizes and move through the list finishing with the small pots in April. This is the time of the year that we are especially excited to be in the greenhouse. If it’s snowing outside, it is nice and toasty inside. If it’s sunny we are soaking up the sun and breathing in the nice humid air. It feels like spring already….
The big colorful combinations of Grown Fresh™ annual flowers are a Creek Side Gardens specialty. A lot of study and research goes into selecting the best varieties and combinations of flowers so that everything grows together just exactly perfectly. You will see what we are talking about when you come to visit this spring.