Several years ago, on a visit to the Rhododendron Species Botanical Garden in Federal Way, Wash., I encountered a low-growing evergreen shrub labelled Microbiota decussata. At first glance I mistook it for its genetic cousin, the juniper, but its soft, elegant texture made me quickly realize that this was something special. In fact, Microbiota decussata is the lone species in its genus, belonging to the same family, Cupressaceae, as its more flamboyant relatives the Thuja, Chamaecyparis and Cupressus. It’s road into cultivation and specifically into American gardens has been a slow process.

The species was first recorded by botanist I. K. Shishkin in 1921 when he found it growing in its remote native range in far-eastern Siberia, bordering on the Sea of Japan. Its discovery, like all discoveries in the newly formed Soviet Union, was considered a “state secret” and it was over 50 years later that restrictions relaxed enough for the plant to be shared with the western world. I’m imagining a Russian botanist during the cold war telling his western colleague, “I’d like to send you this beautiful plant, but then I’d have to kill you.”

Microbiota is hardy to USDA Zone 2 and grows well in full sun to partial shade. It is a low, spreading evergreen groundcover, attaining a mature height of 12 to 24 inches. The foliage is a beautiful bright green during the growing season and fades to a rich bronze-purple in winter. It must have excellent soil drainage and will adapt to regular, even watering or is drought tolerant once established.

In nursery production, it’s critical that Microbiota is grown in a well-drained soil mix or it will be prone to root diseases. Some growers have discovered that it can easily be grafted onto Thuja occidentalis to create a lovely tree form of the plant that makes a stunning addition to the landscape or a beautiful evergreen container specimen. I had a great conversation about Microbiota with Doug Wilson, the curator and caretaker of the conifer plantings at the Oregon Garden. He lauds the merits of this plant and believes that the grafted form is much more desirable than growing it on its own roots.

“It can be grown on its own root system, but you have to be very careful about watering and soil mix, as it is prone to root diseases if it’s too wet,” Wilson says.

Microbiota received the Cary Award in 1998, an awards program that annually honors outstanding woody plants in New England gardens. It is also a selection by Great Plant Picks, which is a comprehensive list of hardy, reliable plants for home gardeners and industry professionals focused on the maritime Pacific Northwest.

It’s hard to believe that the holiday season has again descended upon us. In many workplaces, November and December are months set aside to celebrate the year’s milestones and accomplishments, and to recognize and thank employees for their contributions. Unfortunately, in some workplaces, along with the holiday cheer comes an increase in legal liabilities associated with alcohol use, harassment claims, and injuries. How can you steer clear of these holiday headaches? Read on for some practical tips to minimize risk and still have fun.

From fun to fateful

When it comes to parties, the choices are unlimited. Some businesses celebrate with elaborate gatherings in beautiful restaurants or other venues and invite the employees’ friends and family members. Others have low-key employee luncheons, picnics, or get-togethers at the boss’ home. Regardless of the type of celebration or the location, parties have been known to boost morale, build team spirit, and help create more of a family feeling at work.

Oftentimes alcohol is served at company parties. When it is, employers often rely on employees to exercise “good judgment” when drinking. However, we all know that good judgment and alcohol don’t always go hand-in-hand. For some employees, a mixture of festive activities and alcohol could obscure the boundaries of acceptable work-related behavior and good judgment. Suffice it to say that many workers view office parties with alcohol as a time when the general rules of appropriate conduct don’t apply.

Consider this — an employee has several drinks at the party, leaves, and causes an automobile accident in which injuries occur. Even if the employee isn’t driving a company vehicle, could you (the employer) be held liable? Or what about the manager who gets a little tipsy at the party and begins to flirt, touch, or proposition an employee? Can an employer be held liable for sexual harassment that occurred at a voluntary event held off company property and outside normal business hours? These scenarios represent real risks and potential liabilities that should be considered, especially at holiday time.

Not surprisingly, the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has identified “workplace cultures that tolerate or encourage alcohol consumption” and “workforces with many younger workers” as two out of a dozen work environment risk factors that increase the likelihood of harassment. According to the EEOC, “the presence of one or more risk factors suggests that there may be fertile ground for harassment to occur.”

It’s an unfortunate reality—but office parties can become liabilities for employers. Perhaps this is why many companies have eliminated office holiday parties in the wake of the #MeToo movement.

Minimizing the risk

So how can you limit holiday party liability and still have fun? For starters, consider eliminating alcohol altogether. I know this isn’t a popular option, but it goes without saying that if you eliminate the alcohol, you eliminate the root cause of most holiday party liabilities.

If you elect to serve alcohol, here are a few suggestions to help reduce risk.

Define a work-related purpose for the celebration and plan the event to include stories about employees, highlights from the past year, a motivational talk about the upcoming year, or other business-related topics.

Designate one or more managers to monitor employees. Designated managers should not drink at the event and should keep a watchful eye on employees who are. This includes, but is not limited to, making sure that employees don’t drink in excess, become overly friendly with coworkers or others, engage in behavior that is dangerous to themselves or others, or drive after consuming alcohol in excess. Designated managers should have good judgment and should be educated about the signs of intoxication. They should also be willing and able to address improper conduct. A tall order indeed.

If you elect to have your party at the local pub or a nightspot with a questionable reputation, you could be asking for trouble.

Consider using a ticket system to limit the number of drinks per person.

Eliminate liquor and/or stop liquor or alcohol service before dinner. Serving only beer and wine and/or stopping liquor or alcohol service before dinner can help minimize the potential for problems.

Let the bartender know that the company expects him or her to deny service to any employee who is visibly intoxicated. Arrange for the manager in charge to be notified if an employee or attendee appears intoxicated.

Opt for food that is filling and that stays in the stomach longer to assist with alcohol absorption.

Hopefully, by taking the above measures, this won’t be necessary, but having the option available is wise.

To limit other liabilities, consider these suggestions.

Before the party, inform employees that the company’s sexual harassment policy remains in full force at all work-sponsored events. Remind them about their duty to report incidents of harassment they experience or witness.

Ensure your managers understand that they set the tone for appropriate behavior even when participating in company-sponsored functions outside normal work hours.

Promote family-oriented celebrations scheduled during the afternoon or invite spouses and significant others to evening parties to limit the potential for misbehavior.

Strongly discourage the giving of inappropriate or suggestive gifts at holiday events.

Do not require attendance at the party; make sure employees know that it is voluntary. If you require attendance, you may be liable for workers’ compensation should an employee get injured at the event.

Nix the mistletoe! It increases the temptation for misbehavior.

Thoroughly investigate all harassment claims brought by employees after parties and take prompt and immediate action against any employees who violate harassment policies at office events.

With a little bit of forethought, planning, and wise decision-making, you can eliminate many of the risks and potentially devastating liabilities associated with holiday parties. If you’re the boss, I urge you to stop and think twice about this one. It is, after all, the time of year for joy, not grief. NM

Note: The information in this article is not legal advice. For legal advice, readers should consult with an attorney.

How do we get it done? What’s our next move? Now that we know what we want and why we’re here, where do we begin? You’ve likely heard variations of these questions in your organization—particularly if you’re at any level of planning how to achieve favorable outcomes.

It’s one thing to know why you’re doing something, who you’re selling to, or even what makes your product or service better than the next guy’s. But, until you can adequately and effectively answer for how, your idea, product, sales, or whatever you endeavor to achieve may not become all you hope for.

The biggest how you can ask begs for a coherent approach. It means building a distinct advantage toward a favorable end. This level of “How?” is best answered with strategy.

Strategy exists to solve problems. Often, calling upon strategic planning means that your problem is big—significant, complex, and with higher-than-average stakes. Strategy is the means to simplify and unify activity to get from your Point A to Point B with greater clarity, effectiveness, confidence and efficiency.

Planning without strategy is like feeling around in the dark. You may eventually find what you’re looking for, but it will most certainly be unpredictable, take longer than anticipated, and you run a greater risk of falling on your face along the way.

Here are three things you need to know about strategy to adequately answer any big “How?” and to improve your planning process, no matter what the challenge.

Strategy is about choice.

Strategy is a word and concept that is abused today. People love to use it because it sounds, well, strategic. Unfortunately, calling something a strategy doesn’t make it one. Strategy, to function as it’s intended, means choosing—making significant choices throughout the planning process. In any complex or challenging situation, such choices are hard. Something must be sacrificed to move in a true and distinct direction. If you’re not making hard choices in your planning, you need to ask yourself and others how distinct, clear and achievable is your approach?

Consider this example: When Steve Jobs returned to a struggling Apple in 1997, one of the first things he chose to do was to stop selling so many products. He put an end to more than 70 percent of Apple’s products (laying off more than 3,000 employees in the process) to focus on a handful of truly innovative products. This hard choice allowed Apple to focus its resources around innovation—developing something truly game-changing. The result? The Apple iPod.

There’s little doubt that Jobs’ efforts would have been significantly more difficult and unclear if he had not made this critical strategic choice.

Strategy fits between your goals and plans.

Strategy is not the most important thing. But good strategy is necessary and often critical to be successful. Once you’ve defined your goals, strategy comes next. To delineate between goals, strategy and plans:

• Goals answer, “What is the end for the effort?”
• Plans, which follow strategy, answer, “What are the blueprints for success?”
• Strategy is the point in between that answers, “In what way are we going to coordinate our efforts to get there?”

A good example of this hierarchy can be seen in the successful approach of the Allies in World War 2. The goal (the end for the effort) was clearly to win the war, to defeat the Axis powers. At the time, the U.S. was faced with the prospect of a two-front war. Without a clear strategy, plans would undoubtedly be murky. However, the overwhelmingly critical factor was the clear and growing threat of Germany to Europe and Russia. Therefore, the Allies made the critical strategic decision to focus first on taking back Europe and defeat Germany. The resulting plans included the D-Day invasion of Normandy (effectively thwarting a German invasion of Britain) by the U.S., the Allied movement upward from Northern Africa and the Russian forces fighting the German army to the east.

Strategy marries strength with opportunity.

The beauty of strategy is that it coordinates and integrates activities around a common goal. What’s more, good strategy finds the sweet spot where strengths meet opportunity. If you identify an opportunity, yet have no strengths to take advantage, how effective will you be? Likewise, if your strengths abound in a certain area, yet no opportunities exist, your strategy could come up short.

To improve the odds of achieving your goals, your strategy will need to amplify your strengths, while playing to the opportunities at hand. Take for example how Procter & Gamble (P&G) has nearly cornered the consumer package goods market. With its humble beginnings in soap and candles in the 1800s, P&G slowly and methodically built a strength producing, packaging, marketing and selling package dry goods of all types. Over the years, the company has taken advantage of opportunities to both develop new products and acquire its way into new product categories. Today, the company’s product holdings cover close to 80 items spanning roughly seven categories of products we buy every day. P&G has employed different business strategies over the years, but has always weighed opportunity in light of the company’s inherent strengths.

Whatever your challenge, follow these three fundamental principles for better strategic planning. Your strategy will be both clearer and more coherent, and you will be incrementally farther down the road toward more successful outcomes sooner.

Aaron Palmateer, PhD, explains how an effective weed control program can also be cost-effective.

1 | What does it cost to build an effective weed control program?

There are a number of approaches to managing weeds, including the use of pre and postemergence herbicides, cultivation, barriers and even more labor-intensive efforts like hand weeding. In a recent study, North Carolina State Extension found that weed management for container nursery crops can cost upwards of $4,000 an acre. Many growers may not realize that what they see as a budget-friendly program could actually be hurting their overall profitability.

2 | What do you see as the key challenge in staying profitable when it comes to weed control?

It’s no secret that labor shortages pose tremendous challenges for nurseries, but taking a critical eye to the total input of a herbicide program can help relieve a portion of that labor stress. In many ways, labor can actually feel more stretched than budgets.

3 | You mentioned “total input” before. What do you mean by that?

Managing a budget for a weed control program will always factor in product costs – but there are also other costs. Every herbicide application will require labor such as site preparation, application prep (equipment, handling, mixing), plus the application itself and any cleanup. Then, that labor cost must be multiplied by the total number of applications required.

Through this model, nurseries start to see that the true cost of a herbicide application also factors in the labor required to apply it. Building an effective weed management program is important — making the program cost-effective makes a notable difference in the bottom line.

4 | How do growers go about building a cost-effective weed control program?

When nursery growers manage their herbicide budget, they often calculate the total cost per acre of control. To calculate the true cost, nurseries should look at the total cost per month of control per acre.

Typically, products that offer longer residual control can naturally reduce the frequency of reapplication and clean-up applications, because they last longer. Over time, this leads to a reduction in overall labor and product costs. On the other hand, products that are less expensive up front often offer shorter residual control — which means they require more applications and more labor, leading to an overall higher cost.

5 | Can you give us an example of how total product costs can vary?

Cost-effective weed control programs take a circumspective approach, factoring in the total cost of an application — which goes beyond the initial price tag.

For example, a product offering up to 4 months residual would need to be applied twice in order to achieve similar results to a herbicide like Marengo^®, which offers up to 8 months residual control. Although the shorter-lived product has a lower upfront cost, the labor requirement is double that of a longer-lasting solution.

Bayer recently calculated the total cost of some of the herbicides on the market. It’s available on our website at www.EnvironmentalScience.Bayer.US/Marengo-cost-in-use.

ALWAYS READ AND FOLLOW LABEL INSTRUCTIONS Bayer CropScience LP, Environmental Science Division, 2 T.W. Alexander Drive, Research Triangle Park, NC 27709. For additional product information, call toll-free 1-800-331-2867. Not all products are registered in all states. Bayer, the Bayer Cross and Marengo are registered trademarks of Bayer. ©2017 Bayer CropScience LP. ES-818-MAR-327-A-R1