This first piece was 100% stolen from my bossman, Chris Beytes, who reported on the big announcement on the GrowerTalks Young Grower and Green Profit Young Retailer award winners. So, without further hesitation… here’s Chris! (Doesn’t have quite the same ring as Johnny, does it?)

During the Monday night Unplugged event at a boisterous tavern called GasWërks, GrowerTalks and Green Profit magazine crowned the winners of its annual Young Grower and Young Retailer Awards. Quinten Henning, 23, vice president of Henning’s Farm & Greenhouses in DeMotte, Indiana, was named Young Grower of the year for 2022. And Ashleigh Munro, 32, Garden Centre Coordinator at Kiwi Nurseries in Acheson, Alberta, Canada, won Young Retailer.

Quinten and Ashleigh were two of six finalists chosen for this year’s award. The other finalists for the Young Grower Award were Mike Krueger, Midwest Groundcovers (St. Charles, Illinois) and Erika Ramos, J. Berry Nursery (Grand Saline, Texas). For Young Retailer, the other two finalists were Casey McCollum, Plant Perfect Garden Center (Bismark, North Dakota) and Will O’Hara, Van Wilgens Garden Center (North Branford, Connecticut).

This year marks the 18th annual Young Grower Award for GrowerTalks magazine, which was sponsored by Ball Horticultural Company. It’s the 17th annual Young Retailer Award for Green Profit, which was sponsored by The Garden Center Group. AmericanHort was also a sponsor for both awards.

Ball Publishing created the Young Grower and Young Retailer Awards to recognize young professionals in the horticulture industry who have inspired others with their leadership qualities and are hardworking, passionate, creative and innovative. To qualify for the awards, you have to be under the age of 35 as of the month of July and reside within the United States or Canada.

Craig Regelbrugge, executive vp for advocacy, research & industry relations at AmericanHort, asked that I pass this along to you:

Plant and landscape appraisers, your expertise is needed. The American Society of Consulting Arborists (ASCA) is asking for participation in an industry survey critical to the profession of tree and plant appraisers. The goal of the survey is to determine the essential knowledge areas required by today’s tree and plant appraisers in order to update the current certificate program for this field: ASCA’s Tree and Plant Appraisal Qualification (TPAQ). 

It is important that those of you who perform tree and plant appraisals share your input as key stakeholders of this training and education program. For more information, and to take the 10-15 minute survey, please CLICK HERE. Those who participate will be entered to win one of two $100 Amazon gift cards!

Climate change is rapidly impacting the Canadian (and global) tree landscape, creating an immediate need for information dissemination throughout the urban tree value-chain and space to generate applied-research solutions that can be readily deployed in areas most needed.

To that end, in steps Vineland’s anticipated TreeCulture Research Park! The first of its kind in Canada, this new two-acre facility will be ready to respond to these challenges commencing with the upcoming completion of the first phase of construction.

With an anticipated launch in September 2022, the first phase of construction will initially offer an Open Air Laboratory containing 36 compartments that will eventually expand to an 80-compartment facility. The laboratory will feature Canada’s only individually instrumented tree compartments with integrated sensor technology to recreate conditions faced by trees in urban settings while recording trees’ responses to stress and monitoring weather, soil function and canopy health. The data generated will help develop new analytical approaches and support high-level advancements in the field.

The TreeCulture Research Park conceptually evolved from more than a decade of successful urban forestry research at Vineland, namely their Greening the Landscape program. With completion of this new facility, the program will continue to develop application mechanisms aimed at improving tree survival and increasing the sustainability of tree canopies and shrubs that can be applied in urban settings.

To learn more, click HERE or contact Darby McGrath, PhD VP, Research and Development, 905-562-0320 x623 or darby.mcgrath@vinelandresearch.com.

I’m not sure why, but the more I see the Leading Lomandra (Lomandra confertifolia) series from Star Roses & Plants, the more it grows on me.

Now, my first impression was totally that "Cousin It" may be a better series name, but nonetheless it’s certainly a great plant worthy of consideration in certain niches like rock gardens and perennial borders.

Leading Lime Tight Lomandra.

You may already know the cultivar Lime Tough, which is indeed tough as nails. This year Star introduced two new cultivars that bring the size down to a more manageable 2 ft. green meatball. Those cultivars are:

• Leading Lime Tight Lomandra 

Leading Lime Tight has the same bright green foliage color, strength and durability as Lime Tough but in a smaller size. Its cylindrical shape is ideal for low borders and in landscapes that require lower plant profiles. It's low maintenance, evergreen and drought and salt tolerant. 

• Leading Lime Mist Lomandra 

Leading Lime Mist is a fine-foliaged Lomandra, great for landscaping with its fountain of airy, green leaves. It is very low maintenance once established, as well as frost-, drought- and salt-tolerant.

Both cultivars are Zone 8-11 hardy and prefer full sun to part shade (too much shade and the appearance becomes loose and raggedy. Overall, it’s a fine choice as a filler in really harsh sites and deserves a shot in the landscape.

If you’re looking to create a garden that is alive with color and wildlife, Monrovia has the inspiration to help you bring it to life.

The new Backyard Habitat Guide is a beautiful, downloadable booklet that can help you create a diverse habitat to bring birds, butterflies,and bees to your landscape. The guide features three illustrated garden plans by landscape designer Lisa Nunamaker, including easy-to-follow designs for a hummingbird garden, bees and butterflies garden, and backyard birding garden. 

“Pollinators are essential to the food we eat and the gardens that we enjoy,” says Katie Tamony, chief marketing officer at Monrovia. “Monrovia grows so many colorful and beneficial plants that not only add elegance to the garden, they also offer nectar, pollen and habitat that pollinators need to thrive. This guide pulls it all together, showing us how to create lovely garden spaces that are abundant in life and beauty.”

This new digital guide also features pollinator-friendly plant choices, expert advice and a list of resources for learning more about creating a backyard habitat.

Monrovia’s Backyard Habitat Guide is great for ideas, insights, and story ideas. You can view it here: https://go.monrovia.com/backyard-habitat-guide.

This free GrowerTalks webinar will take place on Wednesday, August 31, at 1 p..m. Eastern/noon Central and should be a really impactful event given the subject will be the evil oomysetes!

The oomycetes (Oomycota), also known as water molds, are a group of pathogens that play a large role in the decomposition of plants and the breakdown of organic matter. While this scenario is perfect for the great outdoors, it can cost greenhouse growers millions of dollars in yearly sales.

In this webinar, Dr. Emma Lookabaugh, Technical Specialist for BASF, will discuss how to look for symptoms of downy mildew, Phytophthora and Pythium, along with prevention and control measures to keep these notorious oomycetes from ruining your crops.

You can register for the webinar HERE.

I decided to put this one in the Our Wacky Wonderful World—Notes from the Edge of Sanity because it seems insane what the DTN folks have done with the subscription-based ClearAg software.

ClearAg was developed for agronomic crops but also includes turfgrass (Zoysia and Burmuda) as well as general vegetation (as in a landscape). So, what makes this insane? All of the weather data provided is satellite based and accurate to about 10 ft. In the screenshot below, you can see the various conditions on July 28 at the Chappell Estate, all of which are continuously monitored via satellite information.

What’s interesting about this is that you can drop pins at multiple locations (e.g. landscapes managed by a contractor) and monitor conditions at these locations remotely. That comes in pretty handy when trying to determine how to schedule crews or schedule irrigation. It also contains historical data so you can better track abiotic (cold, heat,and drought) stress at a specific location. And it calculated evapotranspiration which could be linked to some irrigation systems remotely.

Not too shabby ... that is some serious precision landscaping!