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Boxwood is a workhorse you can always count on: Tough, adaptable, evergreen, deer-resistant and beautiful. Sheared or shaggy and available in many sizes and forms, there are few gardens where boxwood doesn’t fit right in. No wonder U.S. boxwood sales are around $126 million annually, a significant source of revenue for growers and nurseries.

But the plant’s fate has come into question since boxwood blight reached the U.S. in 2011. The disease has now spread to 28 states, posing a significant threat to established boxwood plantings in landscapes and historical gardens as well as nursery inventory. Researchers and growers have quickly responded to better understand this pathogen, determine the susceptibility of various boxwood varieties already on the market and develop more resistant cultivars.

A new paper, “Ranking Resistance of Buxus Cultivars to Boxwood Blight — An Integrated Analysis,” was published in the June 2020 Journal of Environmental Horticulture. The paper documents a study conducted by researchers from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Services and Rutgers University who assembled data from prior studies as well as new data to create the most comprehensive, statistically consistent ranking to date of Buxus cultivars to boxwood blight.

A comprehensive study

Researchers used 289 samples from the National Boxwood Collection at the U.S. National Arboretum, one of the most complete collections of boxwood in the world with 700 varieties.

“The National Arboretum is one of the primary groups involved in breeding resistant boxwood, we’ve been screening for resistance for several years,” says Dr. Margaret Pooler, a supervisory research geneticist with the U.S. National Arboretum and USDA’s Agricultural Research Service.

From those initial 289 samples, the researchers chose the 65 most resistant varieties for further study and statistically merged them with data of prior studies of boxwood resistance.

“Instead of publishing yet another disease resistance comparison, we decided to compare our data to that of other studies and put them together to create a bigger study that compiles all the data. We undertook this study because there were several groups who had completed studies to screen for resistance among cultivars but the results of these studies were inconsistent. So we took a statistical approach to tease out what was causing this variability. We looked at all the studies we could find that had data, or we obtained unpublished data from other researchers to conduct a meta-analysis. We wanted to figure out why the results were different and compiled the prior research with our own, so all the data is summarized in one place,” she says.

Chuanxue (Chuan) Hong, professor of plant pathology at Virginia Tech, who summarized some of the unpublished data for the study says, “I think it’s a very important paper because it provides information that can help growers and those in the nursery industry supply less susceptible boxwood plants to their customers. If we can lower the risk of boxwood blight by using more resistant cultivars and practicing good plant maintenance, everyone will have better success. The nursery industry will have fewer returns and everyone downstream will be more successful, and this has a national impact in reducing boxwood blight. Boxwood is important to the American landscape, it is irreplaceable. It’s important to carry the boxwood heritage forward.”

Key findings

The report provides a susceptibility estimate for 131 varieties of boxwood. While no variety showed complete resistance to boxwood blight, some were less susceptible to the disease than others. The ten least susceptible boxwood listed in the study are:

• B. sinica var. insularis 60705 (Korean littleleaf boxwood)
• B. microphylla ‘Little Missy’
• B. microphylla var. japonica ‘Winter Gem’
• B. SB17 (parent plant of NewGen Freedom)
• B. microphylla ‘Compacta’
• B. microphylla var. japonica ‘Green Beauty’
• B. sempervirens 43877
• B. microphylla ‘Northern Emerald’
• B. microphylla var. japonica 4227
• B. sinica var. insularis ‘Wee Willie’

The full article, including the ranking of 131 boxwood varieties, is available at http://bit.ly/boxwood-ranking.

“Our key findings are that there is a lot of variability among boxwood types to the blight and there is nothing that is truly resistant, at least among the plants we have in the U.S. The different plants we looked at have varying degrees of susceptibility. So right now, everything that we know of will get blight if you hit it hard enough with the pathogen,” Pooler says.

Bennett Saunders, general manager of Saunders Genetics, a boxwood grower that is evaluating boxwood varieties for blight, says, “The sempervirens cultivars are very susceptible and we have to get away from those cultivars. Generally, the microphyllas are the most resistant to blight.”

In reviewing this new paper, he says, “The Sheridan series of boxwood are scattered in the middle as far as boxwood blight.” These were developed at Sheridan Nurseries in Ontario in the 1950s and are the crosses resulting in B. sinica var. insularis and include the varieties ‘Green Gem’, ‘Green Velvet’, ‘Green Mountain’ and others. Sheridan cultivars are the most-grown boxwood in the country, and ‘Green Velvet’ might be the most grown boxwood in the U.S. and it has moderate susceptibility to blight.”

The study did not evaluate how a plant’s form or architecture factors into blight susceptibility. Saunders provides his field observations on this aspect: “If a plant is more upright and open it tends to be more resistant because of better airflow. In most cases the disease originates at the bottom of the plant due to water splashing spores onto the plant and then the disease has to grow up through the plant. One upright sempervirens that we’ve seen a little less blight on is ‘Dee Runk.’ The disease seems to have trouble climbing that plant but under intense pressure it will succumb.”

A way forward

Will a truly blight-resistant boxwood ever be developed? That remains unclear for a number of reasons, Saunders says.

“There are landscapes full of susceptible cultivars carrying the disease,” he says.

But there are options to reduce favorable blight conditions.

“If we reduce the numbers of susceptible cultivars in our gardens, replant with more resistant cultivars and use best management practices, we will minimize the chances of ever seeing blight. Maybe the plants don’t have to be totally resistant if we diligently follow best management practices, some of which are very basic, such as mulching boxwood. Chuan Hong has determined that mulching can reduce blight lesions by as much as 96%,” he says.

Saunders notes that more testing is warranted since “some of the plants in the study only had one test done on them and those might benefit from having more testing done.”

Hong says the green industry will benefit from additional trials.

“Those in the industry should push for further evaluations, not only of newer cultivars since the last studies were done, but also of how the most resistant cultivars from this paper perform in different locations around the country. This additional data will further substantiate the existing studies on susceptibility or resistance of the cultivars and help determine whether the cultivars perform differently in different environments,” Hong says.

Pooler expects the evaluations to continue.

“We definitely will evaluate new cultivars that have come out since this study. We don’t know what a truly resistant boxwood looks like. That’s what we would call a negative control and would be one extreme of our study,” she says. “We have plenty of plants to use at the susceptible end but having resistant cultivars as the gold standard; that is still pretty hard to come by. We’re waiting for what comes out from breeders in the U.S. and Europe to see how they stand up to strains of the pathogen. Our number-one objective is to breed new plants and we actively seek out and obtain new cultivars.”

The U.S. National Arboretum has made hundreds of crosses and have thousands of plants in poly houses, Pooler says.

“Some look promising in terms of ornamental characteristics. It’s a matter of getting them tested in the lab and to see how they do in the landscape. We’re doing genetic studies of resistance that will open doors to anyone who wants to breed new cultivars if we can get a handle on the genetics,” she adds.

A collaborative research project has also been established to combat boxwood blight under a Specialty Crop Research Initiative (SCRI) grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

“This project is a collaboration between all the key players in government, industry and academia. It includes pathologists, breeders and even economists, so it’s taking a multi-prong approach,” Pooler says.

“It’s an exciting project,” says Pooler. “We’re hoping it will help us find some breakthroughs in finding resistant boxwood cultivars.”

Martha Swiss is a garden writer and designer in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; https://plantsomejoy.com

Pinelands Nursery & Supply is a different sort of nursery that fulfills a different sort of need. The New Jersey company was founded in 1983 by Don and Suzanne Knezick.

The couple made the decision to make their business wholesale and not retail for what Suzanne calls a very selfish reason.

“I didn’t want to do retail because I don’t want to work Saturdays and Sundays for the rest of my life,” she laughs. “I was 25, weekends meant even more back then.”

Blazing a trail

In the beginning, Don and Suzanne sold container-grown fruit plants to garden centers. It was a nice business, but they wanted to expand and start growing wildflowers. However, Don’s interest in the propagation of native species took center stage a few years later when legislation like the Pinelands Protection Act and the Clean Water Act began to translate into natural resource restoration projects in the late ‘80s.

“Don recognized the new legislation, and requiring detention or retention basins to be vegetated,” Suzanne says. “He saw the stormwater and wastewater regulations coming in and knew there were opportunities there.”

The business pivoted to native plant production to fill the need for plants for environmental restoration projects. It’s been a lucrative business, with city and state departments of environmental protection working to undo decades of pollution and ecological nightmares. Pinelands works with governments, nonprofits and general contractors, and the New Jersey nursery has developed a reputation as a go-to source for the DEP-approved native plants they need for the job.

Fran Chismar has been with Pinelands for 13 years and counts “sultan of sales” among his titles. He’s never worked anywhere quite like it. Like the founders, he loves native plants, and he believes they were trailblazers to address the market for environmental restoration projects before it truly existed.

“What I find interesting when Suzanne and Don talk about it is there was no business model for this,” he says. “They had to find their own lane. Today, if there’s a topic, like wetlands or native plants, you can find a million conferences to attend — at least before COVID — to learn about them, or books. But that didn’t exist. They had to really listen to what their customers wanted.”

A different market

Today, 95 to 98% of Pinelands’ business is restoration projects. This presents several challenges that typical ornamental nurseries don’t have to face. First, there’s almost no renewable business. It’s job-driven, and many of those jobs come from government initiatives, whether city, state or federal or nonprofit organizations.

“For our business to boom, there has to be either a natural disaster or a man-made disaster,” Fran says. “Like a hurricane. Or when they widened the turnpike in N.J., the widening impacted wetlands and they had to create all-new wetlands to mitigate that. That’s how our business comes about.”

Despite the fact that Pinelands started working on environmental restoration projects more than 20 years ago, it’s still a viable business model. Fran says the amount of competitors in the field has nearly tripled since he started with the company. The ongoing efforts to improve our environment through regulations continues, most recently with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) Phase II stormwater regulations.

As much as she’d like to believe the world will fix itself, Suzanne thinks Pinelands will still have a niche providing plants to clean up ecological messes many years from now.

“In 2019, we had our best year ever,” she says. “We were looking forward to expanding on that, then COVID-19 hit. Our industry did not quite reap the benefits that the ornamental industry did. We had a decrease in sales this year, but with the steps we took, we’re remaining profitable.”

Of course, 2020 has been a year full of oddities, and any project that required government funding was considered questionable, at best. Tom Knezick, production analyst at Pinelands and one of Suzanne and Don’s sons, explained how quick action when the pandemic began helped the company stay afloat when the projects dried up.

“The way February and March were going, we thought we’d keep riding that wave from the year before,” Tom says. “But it was in about a week span when we realized coronavirus is real, this is going to be a big issue.”

The uncertainty of the pandemic meant any government-funded ecological restoration projects would be shifted to the back burner. To prepare for the fact that many jobs would get pushed back or cancelled completely, the Pinelands team had to make some hard decisions. The company’s biggest expense is labor, so that was the place they decided to cut back on spending. Typically, Pinelands has a seasonal crew of about 25 people. Early on, before the Small Business Administration began offering Paycheck Protection Program loans and the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act was passed in late March, Pinelands decided not to bring the seasonal workers back for 2020.

“We thought, ‘We have to preserve the business because if there’s no business then everyone’s out of a job,’” Tom says.

But the missing labor force didn’t mean that production ground to a halt. Everyone in the office pitched in so that plant material would be ready when the jobs start up again.

“We were all hopping on potting lines and helping unload wagons because we didn’t bring in that seasonal workforce,” Tom says. “If you look at our top line, we took a 25-30% hit compared to last year. But profitability-wise, we’re not quite as profitable as we were last year but we still made money. Which I know a lot of people who go direct to landscapers can’t say this year.”

Another challenge of the ecological restoration business is what to grow. Because there’s no renewable business, it’s difficult to know what you’ll need and how much of it you’ll need on a year-to-year basis.

“You can have a baseline of what you sold the last couple years, but you can have one type of plant where you get a request for 30,000 one year and zero the next year,” Fran says.

Fortunately, restoration sizes are small which lets the grower be flexible.

Propagation is also different at Pinelands than at a typical ornamental nursery, in that 95% of what they grow is from seed they collect themselves, either locally or in the wild. While other nurseries may buy liners or graft, because of the limitations of growing for the ecological restoration market, Pinelands’ growers have to collect the seed and have a place to store it. And because the state frowns upon making profit off of what is collected on their lands, Pinelands collects on its own property or that of private entities that will allow them to collect seed on their property.

One of Pinelands’ biggest sellers is smooth cordgrass. The nursery has to collect seed from multiple sites along the coast of New Jersey because some restorations will specify that the plant must be grown from seed that came from within 50 miles of the job site — an added difficulty.

As Pinelands specializes in wetland and salt marsh plant material, even the way the seed is stored is different than a typical seed bank. Some seed is even stored in brine.

Certain plants may be native all over the country, but they might have different characteristics in different parts of the country. With seed collection in New Jersey, Virginia and New York, Pinelands is able to propagate plants that are genetically adapted to local conditions. In the late 1980’s, the nursery started supplying coir logs and mats for streambank stabilization and bio-engineering projects. The company now also offers a full line of erosion control blankets, hydro-mulches, geotextiles and silt fence, which led to the name change to Pinelands Nursery & Supply. In 2006, Pinelands introduced its own custom-blended seed mixes for stormwater management basins and construction sites.

A peaceful transition

After 35 years as president of Pinelands, Don retired. On Jan. 1, 2019, Suzanne took over as president. Their sons, Tom, who serves as production analyst, and Steve, who is seed production manager, are both involved in the nursery. Suzanne had been there since the beginning and handled the books the whole time, so she knew the business extremely well. Still, with Don stepping away, her employees needed to get used to a new management style.

“I give a little more leash to my managers to run their areas,” Suzanne says. “They’ve all been here a long time.”

It’s true. Facilities manager Paul Montrey recently celebrated 27 years with Pinelands and Susan Noval, Pinelands’ nursery manager, has been there nearly as long.

“My dad was like a safety net when it came to the nursery,” Tom says. “When he and my mom started, he did every job there: he was the salesman, he was the delivery driver, he was the propagator. As he started to bring on people who could do one task better than he could, he still knew how to do them and still had a big say in how they were done. When we had that transition of power, my mom said, ‘you know how to this job better than I do so I’m going to let you do it.’ I saw a lot of managers say ‘I had this idea for five years but I knew your dad wouldn’t go for it. But I want to try it now.’ So they’d go to my mom for approval and she’d say ‘you know the job better than me and I trust your instincts.’”

Suzanne appreciates the efforts the next generation is making to improve their business, as well, like the Native Plants, Healthy Planet podcast (see sidebar).

“Tom and my other son Steve are the future of this nursery, and I’m learning that it’s very important to bring younger people into your business,” she says. “You get used to doing things a certain way. Well, times are changing and you have to change with it. When you bring in young people with fresh ideas and they know how people their age want to deal with things, that’s really important to keep your business moving forward and changing with the times.”

The green industry certainly is used to roller-coaster years. But 2020 was a year like no other. When growers should have been knee-deep in their busiest shipping time, no one was sure if there would even be a selling season.

As states began to identify growers, landscapers and retailers as essential businesses, the industry sprang back to life, albeit one with a whole new set of rules. In 2020, many green businesses enjoyed their best sales in years, despite the changing rules and regulations. How will these same businesses maintain the momentum gained during a pandemic? Will consumers stick with gardening with the same fervor once restrictions are lifted? How should the industry handle sales and marketing in the new year? Here are the perspectives from four members of the green industry.

Connie Rivera, founder of CityEscape Garden Center and Design Studio in Chicago

We are a full-service boutique garden center that I like to describe as a small firm that does big things. We’re known for many of the one-of-a-kind or unusual products we sell. We’re located on 3 acres just 10 minutes from downtown Chicago. When I started this business, I wanted to create an experience.

I expect a lot from our vendors, and I encourage all of our grower partners to visit us to see why we have those high expectations. We sell a 15-gallon variegated monstera for $1,500 and we can’t keep the large Pink Princess philodendron in stock that sell for $500.

We draw from Chicago’s North Shore neighborhood with expansive high-end landscapes, as well as people in the city with balconies and small terraces, and customers from the suburbs whose gardens are important to them.

No matter the customer, my mantra is creating an enjoyable experience. We value everyone who walks through that door, and building relationships is extremely important to my staff. We even have a customer that drives from Michigan to shop with us.

Creating an experience comes from my time as a CEO for a national nonprofit. I was always traveling with that job, and when I was on the road I’d run, often to a garden. I didn’t connect the dots that gardens are destinations for me until later when I decided to open a garden center.

We also have a landscaping business that serves many municipal and HOA contracts, as well as the Midway and O’Hare airports.

So when the shutdown came in March, I remember it very well. I was in Florida at the time and I wondered what were we going to do and how was I going to plan for something like this.

When I found out we couldn’t be open for shopping, I called a Home Depot not far from us. I asked to speak to the garden center and I asked if they’re open. When they said, ‘Of course. We’re open because we sell paint, lumber and other supplies.’ That really bothered me, and at that moment I chose not to stand down while Home Depot was open and I wasn’t.

I met with the mayor’s right-hand man about how upset I was and he asked me a lot of questions about my business. It wasn’t long afterward that we were deemed essential and were allowed to open. Our first priority was to make it safe for staff and customers. We reduced our operating hours, we reduced the amount of staff on the floor, I had masks made for all of my staff and we sanitized everything all day.

We offered curbside pickup, delivery and FaceTime shopping, which was a big hit. We still offer it now because we try to accommodate everyone to meet their needs.

We gained a ton of new customers. Part of it was because we were one of only a few garden centers that stayed open. Customers found us for the first time because there as was a climate where people wanted plants and good things. We were open and doing it in a way that made people feel safe.

It was our best retail year ever.

We saw more and more families with young children come into the store. And after talking to many of our new and existing customers, there’s going to be more family time and more time spent at home even after COVID-19. People found value in how they spend their time, and plants and gardening were a big part of that. I think there is going to be a ‘new normal’ in our world.

In 2021, I am concerned about the supply chain. We are taking as much product that is not perishable as early as possible. We are seeing some of our plant orders cut. Some growers had to dip into their 2021 inventory, so we may not have some of the larger sized product we’re used to selling. But I’m in constant contact with our growers, and all of our spring and summer plants have been prebooked for retail and our landscape business.

Lyndsi Oestmann, president of Loma Vista Nursery, Ottawa, Kansas

In late March, I felt like I was getting a little more information that would help us figure out what was going on and if we needed to make drastic changes. I was concerned with the health of the business and the safety of the employees.

We talked to vendors and they offered some flexibility. Our biggest question was whether we’d be able to ship our product at all. We were in the middle of our B&B shipping season and we did have some customers cancel orders. Some of those cancellations were significant and that fueled my concern. Those businesses were thinking the same thing I was: we’re going to do what we can to protect our business and make sure we have access to cash.

Our sales team started working right away on where to move that product. Some of it we held and some we moved in spring and summer.

Once we were deemed essential by the state of Kansas, we wondered where the rest of our product would go. But we didn’t have to wonder for long because things got crazy and our garden center customers were getting really busy.

What some of the garden centers did during the quarantine was tremendous, such as getting online orders set up and curbside pickups.

Our success as a grower is dependent on the success of garden centers, landscape contractors and rewholesalers. We feel really fortunate that people turned to gardening during the pandemic. We had to get really creative to service that sales surge, because we’re set up to do a certain amount of shipping per day or per week. Our dock was so busy, that we had to open up another area of our nursery to help with shipping. People who’d never been involved in shipping had to step up to help and learn that part of the business.

In 2020, it wasn’t just one small challenge that usually comes up in spring like normal years. It was several challenges at once, such as historic demand, employee safety and shipping constraints. There were so many things you had to think about and do differently to be able to maintain the operation. There were so many things to navigate, whether it was an actual rule the government put out or if it was making sure our employees are comfortable, or making sure our customers knew we were doing what was necessary and safe.

A lot of product that would have been sold in 2021 was moved in 2020, so that creates shortages on some product. Customer communication is always important to us, but because we weren’t able to go to trade shows and do customer visits, we relied on Zoom calls and asked more questions and ordered earlier than normal.

Our customers are planning for a big year again in 2021, so we made some strategic decisions to have more product available this year. We’re doing two phases of perennial production; we’re being flexible and we’re making more real-time decisions.

Consumers’ purchasing habits have changed and will likely stay that way for things like curbside pick-up, online orders, and delivery. That is now ingrained in their habits, just like with grocery shopping. I think we should be able to demand a good price for that product at retail but getting material to them in a timely matter is the most important detail right now.

For the industry to keep the consumers we gained in 2020, we need to look at two things. First, gardening will lose its appeal quickly if people aren’t successful, so we have to make sure we sell healthy plants to the garden center, so they have healthy plants to sell to the consumer. And we have to provide care and maintenance tips to make sure people are successful.

Second, we were deemed essential, so we need to make sure we stay essential in the eyes of the consumer. We do that by ensuring our employees and customers are safe and healthy and market the health and wellness benefits of our product appropriately.

Bob Bertog, president of Bertog Landscape Co. in Wheeling, Illinois

In March, the industry was in panic mode and no one knew what would happen. We were planning for the worst and we ran into the issue of fear from our workforce.

To help with safety, we sent two trucks to a jobsite instead of one, our crews kept everything wiped down during the day and we had a sanitation crew come in every night to disinfect everything.

Once people started sheltering at home, there was a huge spike in demand for design/build projects and we pounced on that. We ran specials on raised garden boxes and containers for customer who wanted to plant their own vegetables. We had to find creative ways to get people what they wanted. We did a lot of hardscapes and created outdoor rooms. Our sales staff concentrated on keeping in touch with all the new customers we gained and getting them on board with a maintenance project. Some people made a very large investment and they need to protect that investment.

I don’t see the demand going down until at least July because I don’t see people going back to offices until at least the summer. People still want to enjoy the outdoors for recreation and have a place to set up an outdoor office.

2021 will be a little challenging because of some product shortages, but our design team said they’ll get creative. We’re also facing a labor shortage in 2021, so that will have an impact on our business.

Sue Markgraf, owner of GreenMark Public Relations in Mundelein, Illinois

I’ve never been more proud of this industry. We stepped up to the plate to meet people where they are, and that speaks volumes about where we can go in the future and the potential we have in 2021. It was tough at the beginning because of the uncertainty we were facing, but we moved quickly with logic and reason and creativity. The challenges of 2020 made us think outside that proverbial box. We were able to grab on to tactics we may have tried eventually but had to grab on to now such as online transactions and virtual conferences.

We absolutely can maintain the momentum we created in 2020. We have a customer demographic that’s interested in being home and strengthening their life experience at home. They’re interested in strengthening relationships with family and with the environment at home. We’ve taken the indoors out and really capitalize on being outside.

In 2020, our customer has learned they love plants, and they don’t want the love affair to stop. So, we have to continue to innovate and be creative in our marketing message. The brand story in 2021 is not necessarily the logo story, it’s the people story. As long as customers and clients can relate to your people, even in a time of social distancing, we can still have those relationships.

When the pandemic started, we encouraged our IGC clients to do FaceTime shopping, which was a tremendous success. This is not a time for our industry to say, ‘no, we can’t do that.’ We have to try, we have to be creative and use the technology available to us.

We need to make sure education is at the top of our message in 2021.

Our products lift people’s moods, impact their spaces and help the environment, and enjoying the outdoor space was the silver lining of the pandemic. People are interested in their own comfort and nurturing right now, and our industry can provide product and spaces that bring comfort. Your marketing message in 2020 must be told with heart. Capitalize on our messages of hope.

Growers, your message should also target the consumer, not just your customers. Your story is one of the most important parts of the supply chain message. Telling your personality story offers a different perspective on life that people in times of struggle are hungry for, and not necessarily in times of a pandemic.

This year provides a beautiful opportunity for us. It’s an exciting time for our industry. We must market our products and services in a way that’s relatable to consumer with practical messages told with joy.

In December, the Nursery Management staff asked liner growers to discuss market shortages, various trends and how the increased demand for plants in 2020 is likely to affect 2021 sales. Liner growers often have the pulse on the market before the rest of the industry since they’re the first stop in the supply chain.

The running themes from our conversations: order early, be flexible and expect plant demand to be high again in 2021.

The beginning of the 2020 quarantine created some anxiety among the green industry, but that was quickly swapped with action when most states deemed garden centers as essential, allowing them to stay open, and consumers clamored for plants. Being at home 24/7encouraged both experienced and new gardeners to buy plants for the inside of their homes, to beautify their outdoor spaces and to grow their own food. That resulted in double-digit sales increases among growers across the country.

“We are up 22% in gross revenues for 2020 and our bookings for 2021 are ahead of 2020 by a similar percentage,” says Brian Decker, president of Decker’s Nursery in Groveport, Ohio. “We do not know yet if this is earlier ordering or sales growth, but it is probably both.”

Mark Krautmann, co-owner of Heritage Seedlings in Salem, Oregon, also experienced a record-breaking year in 2020 with sales up about 25%.

“Last spring, we didn’t know if we would have any sales at all. And it turned out to be the best ever,” Krautmann says.

Most growers expect continued higher demand in 2021.

“Right now, the bookings for ’21 are strong, and I think the demand we saw in ’20 will carry over into 2021,” says Alec Charais, marketing and communications manager at Bailey Nurseries in St. Paul, Minnesota. “There’s such an increased demand for plants right now across the board — whether they’re indoor plants or for the exterior, whether they’re shrubs and trees or perennials and annuals. Because people have stayed home, they’re focusing on beautification. The home environment has become the central hub.”

More growers were “buying on the fly” in 2020, something that’s not typical, says Rich Bailey, sales manager at J. Frank Schmidt & Son Co. in Boring, Oregon.

“People are having really good sell-through at their stores, so they're buying inventory more frequently than they would typically. Demand on their end has increased their trends and increased buying with us, which is all positive,” Bailey says.

Vans Pines Nursery in West Olive, Michigan, received dramatic sales increases from online garden retailers.

“A lot of them are telling us, ‘Turn on the faucet and keep it flowing to us’ because they can’t hang onto anything,” says Evan Van Slooten, Vans Pines president. “A lot of them are anticipating demand to continue into 2021.”

The 2020 sales gains caused growers to dip into their 2021 inventory, which is causing shortages in the market.

“Shrub liners are in high demand. A lot of growers were doing extra potting to make up for that demand,” says Ron Amos, president of Evergreen Nursery Co. in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin. “They potted more, and they went into their next year’s stock to sell. They’ll need to replenish with liners to build their numbers back up again. The strong demand really put a push on more liners, both in evergreens and deciduous crops. A lot of growers have had to push some things out the door and needed to replenish. It’s good for everybody.”

At J. Frank Schmidt & Son, their fastigiate oaks and specialty varieties are short, which is not necessarily uncommon. At Vans Pines the exotic firs such as Nordmann, Trojan, Canaan, Turkish and Korean are limited or even sold out, Van Slooten says. He’s also already sold out of Canadian hemlock for 2022 orders.

“That has impacted our sowing schedule the most,” he says. “We continuously bump up our numbers for that crop, and every year we sell out very early. Combine that with the fact that we haven’t been able to find seed, so I think [Canadian hemlock] is going to be the No. 1 short item in the industry as a whole.”

Besides increased demand, Van Slooten says climate change has impacted the availability of seed and the way seed orchards function. He thinks seed availability is “going to be the biggest driver of what is actually available in the marketplace.”

Production flexibility will help some growers through the shortages, Charais says.

“We’re seeing all that sell-through happening at high levels, so growers may need to produce their products differently,” he says.

Using bareroot material or upshifting plants may be options that could help ensure growers have product going into spring, he adds.

“I think it's a huge learning opportunity and I think it could lead to some positive outcomes in terms of growers being successful from a production standpoint,” Charais says.

When shortages are looming, it’s critical to order early.

“I think by the time we get into mid-January the industry will be short on so many things to the point where we have to take people’s wish lists and confirm half of what’s on it,” Krautmann says. “If growers and retailers wait [too long to order], I think they’re going to be very disappointed. In August or so, we started encouraging our customers to simply go to what we call a standing order or a contract, because that helps them assure supply and helps us … so we’re not speculating beyond the comfort zone of sales.”

Vans Pines Nursery is already taking orders for 2022 sales.

“Next year, my gut tells me we’ll still have very high demand for our product,” Van Slooten says. “Then the following year it will taper off.

Bailey at J. Frank Schmidt warns to not cut back on liner orders and keep building up supply for your customers to make sure they’ll have trees to sell in the future.

With limited supply and high demand, expect to pay (and subsequently charge) some higher prices in 2021.

“Since costs are not stagnant and supply is limited, some price increases are likely,” Decker says.

Amos is expecting prices to increase.

“We’ve been fortunate that we’ve been able to see some price increases over the last few years, and I hope that continues,” he says. “There have been a lot of years where we’ve had to hold prices.”

Other consumer products are going up in price, and plants will likely be no different, Charais says.

“Pricing is going to be a bit higher for liners, but with that increased demand, I think we can command a higher price at the retail level,” he says.

In 2020, the entire supply chain reacted and adapted quickly.

“We started the spring ready to buy cots for managers to sleep at work as a step to survive,” Decker recalls. “We ended the year with record profitability and we’re spending money on American-made equipment and products for expansion.”

People’s buying habits changed in 2020 and the green industry, including J. Frank Schmidt & Son, were able to evolve.

“It’s been an extremely challenging year for our industry,” Bailey says. “I think all of us pivoted really well Businesses have learned to do thing differently, and I think many of those things will stick.”

Charais doesn’t expect the industry to revert to all of its pre-pandemic ways.

“How we serve the customer — whether it's on a B2B level or the consumers themselves — the ways that we serve the customer are going to completely evolve” because of tools that were put in place in 2020, including online sales, curbside service and increased education, he says.

Will the new customers of 2020 continue to make plants a priority in 2021? It’s the proverbial million-dollar question.

“We need to see if the new generation of stay-at-home gardeners embrace their new hobby as the pandemic wanes. This is the consumer spike we have been hoping for. Let’s see if it sticks,” Decker says.

Krautmann doesn’t anticipate the market slowing down.

“I don't see a slowdown. I just don't. I guess what we can all hope for is some rational policymaking at the federal and state levels. It can be a bit of a more calming hand in the scheme of things,” he says. “2021 is an opportunity, right? Opportunities are everywhere.”

Editor’s note: Matt McClellan, Sierra Allen, and Julianne Mobilian contributed to this report.