Buckeye Yard and Garden onLine

Last week's BYGL highlighted a recent green industry study tour to Israel in mid-March. This week's BYGL highlights the return visit last week of Israel's Ministry of Agriculture's Extension vice-director and vegetable department head Omar Zeidan and floriculture specialist Shlomo Israel to Ohio for a taste of our plant treasures. Jim Chatfield, a Unitarian, traveled last week with Omar, a Muslim, and Shlomo who is Jewish, and lead off this nondenominational travelogue by quoting Buddha: As you walk and eat and travel, be where you are, otherwise you will miss most of your life."

The group started with a stop at Johnson Woods Nature Preserve near Orrville to get a feel for "natural Ohio." Wildflowers were not yet up as this somewhat late spring was not fully awake, but there were at least leaves of spring beauty and hispid-leaved buttercup as harbingers of spring's awakening. There were woodpeckers knocking away on trees throughout, and the wonderfully cacophonous din of peepers and other frogs near and in the waters of buttonbush swamps at Johnson Woods. A vernal welcome!

Of course, the travelers took full measure of Ohio State University's Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center in Wooster. They toured the arboretum, meeting with Secrest Arboretum curator Ken Cochran and other scientists, with everyone learning about horticulture production in Israel from seminars by Omar and Shlomo, and then set out to look at some of Ohio's vigorous and growing green industry. Tour stops included Rhoads Farm Market and Split Rail Nursery in Circleville in Pickaway County, Justin Marotta's Possum Rum Greenhouse near Bellville in Richland County with his over 300 fuchsia types and more, and Ohio's largest wholesale nursery, Willoway, and largest wholesale greenhouse, Green Circle Growers, both in Lorain County, as well as a few others.

At just these few stops in a few days, Omar and Shlomo saw some of Ohio's best. They viewed over $100 million dollars worth of Ohio's diverse horticultural production. This included everything from linden trees being dug for the B&B market, to refreshingly lively new cultivars of violas, to nursery stock being shipped as far as Colorado, to an almost unimaginable number of flowers being grown and shipped to garden centers in Ohio and other states (literally millions and millions of flats of bedding plants). In the vein of the Kiplingesque "He who only England knows, knows England least", Ohioans sometime forget the jewels we have in our own backyard until traveling elsewhere and also seeing Ohio anew through the eyes of visiting friends.

One of the important engines of the economic growth of the green industry in Ohio is a new system of producing tree "liners" in Ohio. For many decades, Ohio and other eastern states relied heavily, though not completely, on Oregon and the Pacific Northwest for young trees that were lined out in beds and grew to size more quickly in that more moderate climate. These tree liners would then be shipped eastward and then Ohio nurserymen would "finish" those trees for a year or two or more before sale in this half of the country.

That still goes on, but Dr. Hannah Mathers (OSU, Horticulture and Crop Science) working with Willoway Nursery and others has developed a new system for growing tree and shrub liners in Ohio using retractable roof greenhouses and other technology to efficiently compete with the West Coast liner production. This system is fueling growth of Ohio's "green" economy and our group saw the fruits of this new research and its applications both at Willoway and at Split Rail Nursery where they plant trees that started with Willoway's liner production here in Ohio.

Speaking of fruits, though this is a late start to the season, we saw wonderful strawberry plants at Rhoads fruit farm in Circleville that will bear fruit three weeks earlier than usual around late-May due to special cultivars and plasticulture techniques. We saw fruit trees for sale at Petitti's greenhouses in northeast Ohio. Vegetables showed off Ohio's growing local foods movement with wonderful salads and entrees at South Market Bistro in Wooster where chef Mike Mariola works magic throughout the season with the freshest herbs and vegetables available. On the flower front were wonderful cultivars of florist geranium at USDA's Ornamental Plant Germplasm Center located on the main OSU campus in Columbus, and those cheery looking, cold-loving violas and pansies everywhere we went. Ohioans: get thee to a garden center now!

Near the end of our trip on Wednesday at Green Circle Growers, Shlomo Israel was very pleased to see their source of potassium phosphate fertilizer. Bags proudly sent around the world from the Dead Sea area; from Israel to Ohio. Danny Gouge of Willoway Nursery brought this story full circle with a story told earlier in the day. He recently was contacted by a garden center owner in Sydney, Australia, who while checking out Willoway's website, saw pictures of the wonderful pink-variegated 'Shirazz' Japanese maple that Willoway offers as part of their Novalis line. Danny could not help her by sending, but he did direct her to a New Zealand source for this lovely maple. The wondrous world of plants.