—Lancaster Farming, Saturday, December 18, 1971
16
/Mrs. Esbenshade Is Busy With Poinsettias Now
By Mrs. Charles G. McSparran
Farm Feature Writer
The poinsettia has become
identified with Christmas,
probably because of its lively red
and green leaves and the fact that
it is available at Christmas time.
Actually, the bloom of this
plant is the little yellow flowers in
the center of the tapering red
bracts or leaves resembling
petals
It is a native shrub of Mexico
and South America and gets its
name from a man by the name of
Joel R Poinsett who was an
American ambassador to
Mexico
One of Lancaster County’s
large growers of poinsettias is
“Esbenshades Greenhouse”, -
owned and operated by Lamar
Esbenshade, Lititz RDI, who has
greenhouses on Route 322, just
east of Bnckerville
He started in the business of
growing and selling vegetable
and all bedding plants in 1957
with one greenhouse He now has
13 greenhouses, four of them
have plastic covering which they
renew each year. He became
interested in this business
because he loved flowers.
Mr and Mrs. Esbenshade have
lived in this Brickerville area
since 1959. They have been
growing pomsettias for five
years They raise about 35,000 a
year
While the traditional color of
poinsettias is red, there are also
pink and white ones. Esben
shades have all three colors, but
grow mainly the red ones.
These plants start budding
about September or October. It is
an indescribable beauty to see
these thousands of poinsettias in
bloom.
Mrs. Esbenshade (Nancy) may
be found wrapping them and -
delivering them now to local
retailers and many churches. She
also helped to pot them earlier.
Esbenshades start by buying
their plants the beginning of
June They get most of their
plants from Mikkleson’s of
Astubula, Ohio, but also some
from Paul Ecke of Encinitas,
California. These plants are used
to get their cuttings, which they
start taking the beginning of
August. They get about 10 from
each plant then.
The second time, about the
beginning of September, they get
about 20 cuttings and again about
the beginning of October This
time they get only the ones that
'
Mrs. Esbenshade is flanked with a suits and one of her dresses, all of which
crocheted afghan, lined phonchos, boys' she has made.
weren’t large enough the time
before.
They grow poinsettias which
have been developed to last until
about March. They must pay the
developers a 2'A to 2‘/ 2 cents
royalty on each cutting they
grow.
They buy top soil and mix all
their own soil for potting. They
also use a lot of peat moss and
perlite. Quite a bit of fertilizer is
used, but no spray is needed on
the plants
Steam heat is used for the
greenhouses. They have
auxiliary gas heaters in case of
breakdown of the oil heating
system They have an automatic
alarm which sounds at their
home in case the heat goes below
a certain temperature.
Mrs. Esbenshade advises you
to keep your Christmas poinsettia
plant in good light to retain the
color Also to keep it in a cool
place, particularly at night, and
keep the soil moist.
If you want to hold the plant
over for another year, gradually
withhold water after the plant is
through blooming. Store in a cool
basement until spring, watering
it once a week. Cut back the
stems to about six inches and
repot the plants. More than one
plant can be put in a pot,
depending on the size of the pot.
Sink the pot in the ground in a
protected spot. Prune it back
about August. Bring the plant
indoors before the weather turns
cold and place in good sunlight.
Water regularly. Give it total
darkness about 12 hours a night
during October and November.
Grow Other Plants
Esbenshades’ specialty is
growing geraniums. They grow
35,000 to 40,000 of ten to fifteen
varieties. They buy all cultured
stock in June, then don’t get
disease in them. They take
cuttings from them and start all
of their own plants which they
sell They took their first cuttings
the last week of November and
will continue to take cuttings
until about March. All their
plants are sold by mid-June each
year.
They grow around 3,000 Easter
lilies and this year, for the first,
have about 500 azalea plants.
They grow about 2,000 mums,
the large non-hardy ones, of six
or seven varieties. They usually
grow about 10,000 hardy mums,
but didn’t this year due to other
work. They will probably grow
them again.
Mr. and Mrs. Esbenshade start
Mrs. Lamar Esbenshade starts out to deliver poinsettias. Pots with red and white
blooms like these make a nice combination.
about 11,000 flats or 75,000 dozen
spring vegetable and bedding
plants each year.
Nancy says, “Lamar has been
quite a go-getter ever since he
started and isn’t satisfied with
anything but the best quality. He
has terrific results with ger
mination.”
Steam is piped into the ger
mination area to give enough
moist heat. The plants are kept
under germination from five to
eight days, according to type.
They transplant them about six
weeks after germination. They
put one dozen plants in a small
flat and six of these boxes in a
large flat—or six dozen plants in
a flat.
In the spring they are busy
selling plants from 9 a.m. to 9
p.m. Mrs. Esbenshade is at the
greenhouse all the time then.
They have one man who works
for them full time, one boy who
works from December to June
and in the spring season three full
time workers and three part time
workers.
They don’t deliver wholesale
any more and wholesalers come
from as far as Philadelphia,
White Haven in Luzerne County
and Valley Forge. They supply
retailers as far as Philadelphia,
Harrisburg and Middletown.
They used to grow tulips and
hyacinths, but found it is better to
grow a few kinds of plants and
buy those to sell.
They do not sell cut flowers
either. There’s such a demand,
but Mr. Esbenshade doesn’t want
to expand unless he would have
someone to take some of the
responsibility.
Esbenshades live on their 40
acre farm, but have rented the
ground for the past two years to a
neighbor who grows com and
raises baby steers. Two or three
years ago Esbenshades finished
about 30 steers when they far
med the ground themselves.
They picked one field of com and
used one field for silage.
Lamar, the son of Mr. and Mrs.
Aaron Esbenshade of near New
Holland, grew up on a farm till he
was 12 years old. His parents then
moved to near Morgantown,
where they had three mushroom
houses and he helped with
growing mushrooms. His father
is in the produce business now
near New Holland.
Nancy’s parents, Mr. and Mrs.
Charles Sauder, live near Blue
Ball. Mr. Sauder has a feed mill
and sells all kinds of feed to
farmers.
Lamar is an ambulance driver
for Brickerville. He is a member
of Lancaster County Florist Club
and attends their meetings.
Mr. and Mrs. Esbenshade have
six children. Linda is 11 years old
and goes to Warwick Middle
School. She plays accordion, has
been taking private lessons for
three and a half years. She has a
good voice and is in her school
chorus. “She is a terrific cook”,
her mother says. “She has baked
delicious pies since she was nme
years old.” She gets lots of
practical experience when her
mother is working at the
greenhouse. She has been in a 4-H
cooking club two summers. She
has been in the Girl Scouts two
and a half years also. She loves to
read and is beginning to sew. She
recently made herself an outfit.
Fred is 10 and in the John Beck
Elementary School. He plays
guitar. He has been in the Boy
Scouts one and a half years.
Roger is nine and in the John
Beck School. He has been in the
Boy Scouts also for one and a half
years. He plays mandolin.
Linda, Fred and Roger play
their instruments together at
churches. Roger says he’s going
to run a green house someday. He
and Fred grow some plants now.
These children come by their
music talent naturally because
Lamar plays the steel guitar and
accordion. He is chorister at
church. He sings in the Cheerful
Anthems Male Chorus which has
made some recordings and in the
Living Heralds Quartette. The
other three in the quartette are
Paul Musser of Ephrata, Jay
Martin of East Earl and
Raymond Horst of New Holland.
Lamar also sings solos at church,
weddings and special meetings.
The whole family sings
together and Mrs. Esbenshade
plays the piano.
The three younger children are
Jodi, five; Steven, two and a half
years; and Scott, fifteen months.
Esbenshades are members of
the Ldtitz Mennonite Church. Mr.
Esbenshade, besides being
chorister, teaches a teenager
School class. Mrs.
Esbenshade is in the sewing
circle. They are assistant youth
advisors and participate in all
youth activities. They are
members of a four couple prayer
group and also attend Wednesday
night prayer meetings at church.
Mrs. Esbenshade tries to go to
PTA meetings when she can.
She does a lot of sewing. She
made coats and all the children’s
clothing when the three oldest
children were smaller. She still
makes a lot of clothes for all the
children and all of her own
clothes. She says “I love to sew.”
She made her sister-in-law’s
wedding gown. She is making
drapes now for her house. She has
crocheted a baby afghan, a baby
sacque and bootie set.
Esbenshades have a garden
and all of the family work in it.
Nancy does all the picking of
vegetables.
They have their own peaches
and pears. They have two
freezers where they store their
own meat and vegetables. Nancy
cans the fruit.
In spite of all the work
Esbenshades own a 19 foot
Thunderbird motor boat and do a
lot of boating. They go to Long
Level, Port Deposit, Md., or down
to the bay.
Mr. and Mrs. Esbenshade and
the three oldest children love to
water ski.
Linda, Fred and Roger took
swimming lessons
The three youngest ones love
water, but wear life jackets, as
they haven’t learned to swim.
They like to camp out as a
family.
They used to have a camper
They were at a church camp a
week last year. The cabins were
full so they stayed in a lean-to
shelter with bunks in it.
Mr. and Mrs. Esbenshade love
to travel. They were on a week’s
(Continued on Page 19)