Teacher Program Tour Examines Specimen Trees, Greenhouse Flowers ANDY ANDREWS Lancaster Farming Staff WOMELSDORF (Berks Co.) —Upscale home buyers and estate managers share some things in common when selecting their landscaping, according to a certi fied landscape architect “They want the tree now” said Sheldon Dußrow of Dußrow’s Nurseries, Inc., Livingston, NJ. “They don’t want to wait” Dußrow has learned to convert the customer’s wishes into a thriv ing business by specializing in select “specimen” trees that pro vide “instant landscaping” mature trees on carefully planned and constructed landscape designs. Dußrow provided a tour of his tree farm in Womelsdorf Tuesday afternoon to about 30 grade and high school educators and rep resentatives as part of a Barks County Ag In the Classroom Teacher Seminar. The seminar participants, later in the day, also toured Layser’s Flowers in Myerstown. The Dußrow farm, comprising 100 acres in Marion Township, grows and harvests trees and shrubs for its landscape, garden center, and maintenance divisions. The corporation makes its home in Livingston, N J., a site comprising about 37 acres located about 125 miles from Womelsdorf. About 60 acres in Womelsdorf are devoted to specimen shade and flowering trees for the landscape design business. In addition to the nursery division, there are others, including a grounds management division and an upscale garden center, “a boutique center,” said Dußrow. The 40-year-old com pany employs 250. Dußrow said he is one of two certified landscape architects in the landscape design and build division that designs and installs a 4* *Sk Some of the plants are grown through a special thermal root zone watering system, which moves hot water through rubber colls underneath the pot. Temperature of the root zone is maintained at about 72 degrees to help the polnset tlas root in the summer. About a half acre of the root zone watering system Is used during the winter, Layser noted. total landscape package. Dußrow demonstrated that he can grow, package, and transport specimen trees (trees that are large and carefully pruned for design specifications) to eight-inch calip er (the diameter of the tree’s trunk). Specimen trees, he said, are more mature trees, “larger than what you would see in any landscape. “We believe a specimen tree is a key element in the landscape design,” said Dußrow. “A speci men tree makes its mark in the landscape.” Dußrow demonstrated of a caliper gauge on a seven-inch caliper pin oak, one of the feature trees on the actual farm near a house built in 1850 and restored in 1989, shortly after Dußrow located the nursery in Womelsdorf. Consumers seek out the speci men trees which certainly have a huge price tag. Dußrow noted that some will go for the “trophy” trees, the weeping beech or the copper beech, as an example, with high caliper. The cost? About $20,000-$30,000 per tree, he noted. The Dußrows built and land scaped the farm pond. The site of the nursery was once a dairy farm. The nursery at Womelsdorf also plants “liners,” small trees that have a one-inch caliper. “This farm has some of the best soil,” said Dußrow. “Berks Coun ty soils offer some incredible stuff. There is incredible growth to the trees in this soil.” Dußrow noted he was careful in site selection for soil fertility, high moisture availability, soil that drains well, and would not need irrigation after the first year of tree growth. Dußrow noted that one land scape architect insisted that the soil could not maintain the incredible Dußrow provided a tour of his tree farm In Womelsdorf Tuesday afternoon to about 30 grade and high school educators and representatives as part of a Berks County Ag In the Classroom Teacher Seminar. The farm was once a dairy. growth. Yet Dußrow pointed to a crabapple that maintained one inch caliper of growth per year. Some of the Womelsdorf land has high slopes, from 2-5 percent, with a 50-foot differential. But trees of any caliper do well. The trees are obtained from nurseries in Portland, Ore. and shipped during the winter. They are kept in cold storage on the farm, at 40-45 degree tempera tures, until the landscape business can go into the fields in March (if The Laysers make “maximum use of greenhouse space,” noted Donald Layser. Bedding plants and geraniums make up their number one seller. Hanging baskets, in abundance throughout the operation, make up only about 12 percent of total sales. Dußrow demonstrates a four-unUhydraullc tree spade, which can dig and uproot a tree to 4-inch caliper that can burrpw to about 2% to three feet down. workable). The business attempts to “get the trees out and planted, the sooner the better,” he said. Dußrow provided a tour of the farm. He also demonstrated the equipment, including a new, $70,000, 135-horsepower tractor; a three-shank subsoiler, and a tree weeder. He also demonstrated a four-unit hydraulic tree spade, which can dig and uproot a tree to 4-inch caliper that can burrow to about 2'A to 3 feet down, accord ing to Larry Knoll, farm manager. Once the tree is dug, it is placed in a specially designed wire basket that can hold a few hundred pound s of soil with a burlap bag. The rungs at the end of the wire cage are used to tie the tree down after planting. Dußrow also showed various low-growing lilacs, 4-5 foot holl ies, and other types of shrubberies and trees. A new development in the industry has been the use of “bio (Turn to Pago A3B)
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