The 25-employee nursery was looking for a better way to handle payroll.
Photos courtesy of Blankenship Farms and Nursery
For years, Beth Blankenship would spend nearly three hours doing payroll every Friday. She’d been manually tabulating hours from paper time sheets and entering them into her Quickbooks payroll software. She’d been looking for a better way that could save the company time and money. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in mid-March, it gave them the push they needed.
Beth owns Blankenship Farms and Nursery with her husband Jerry. The McMinnville, Tennessee, wholesale grower specializes in trees and shrubs, especially native container trees and shrubs for mitigation, conservation and lining stock.
A two-week COVID-mandated shutdown in March would have been very costly for Blankenship. That’s when their business takes the bareroot trees and shrubs out of the barns and plants them. If the planting doesn’t get done then, the whole business model can go off the rails.
Still, there are plenty of reasons to switch to a touch-free system besides COVID concerns. Between the cost and hassle of ordering and receiving new cards each week and the desire to free up Beth’s time for other tasks, the nursery had been looking for other options to handle this part of the business since last fall. Beth says they looked at systems that used a fingerprint sensor, but because of the dust and dirt in the nursery environment, they decided that wouldn’t work. However, the FaceIn biometric time clock system from Lathem seemed like a good fit, especially since it was easy to set up.
“Just take it out of the box and plug it in,” she says.
Blankenship Farms and Nursery grows containerized, B&B and bareroot trees and shrubs.
At Blankenship Farms, the face scanner is set up on the wall next to the door heading out to the fields, in a very high traffic area near both the kitchen and the bathroom. Still, Beth says there hasn’t been any issues with accidental clock-ins or outs.
It takes about two minutes to get each of Blankenship’s 25 employees registered into the system. That process involves the employee standing in front of the screen and moving their face around while the machine scans it from different angles. Once an employee is in the system, it takes about two seconds for them to clock in or out.
Lathem’s PayClock employee time and attendance software that works with the FaceIn time clock integrates easily with Quickbooks Online payroll system. That meant Beth didn’t have to transfer her employee list from Quickbooks to PayClock; everyone was already entered in the new system. As a result, the PayClock solution significantly reduces Blankenship’s payroll processing time — by as much as 83% — freeing her up to check on farm crops or take care of personal matters. She is also able to check on employee attendance from an app on her mobile phone while she’s out running errands, instead of having to be physically present at the clock.
Beth likes how FaceIn creates a healthy workplace at Blankenship Farms by providing touch-free, contactless employee time and attendance tracking.
The nursery implemented a touch-free system that tracks time and attendance.
Employees at Blankenship Farms don't need to touch the clock when recording their hours so there is no potential spreading of germs or viruses. And because the time clock system records punches in seconds, employees don't have to wait in lines close to each other to clock-in and out. It's much appreciated when employees are practicing social distancing at work.
“They're not touching anything to clock in and I'm not touching the timecard at the end of the week that they’ve touched all week,” she says. “So, it's really good for everybody.”
She’s been pleased with the other efficiencies of the system as well.
“There are no cards so cost-wise, I don't have to buy cards anymore,” she says. “And I was spending about two and a half hours on Friday to do payroll. I can get everything done in about 30 to 45 minutes now. So it's about a two hour savings for me. And that's a lot of time on a Friday.”
It also eliminates the possibility of human errors, like transposing numbers when reading them off a timecard and entering them in Quickbooks. Beth jokes that she wears bifocals now, so that type of mistake is a real possibility.
There’s another potential benefit to using the face recognition system for clocking in and out. Standard time card systems are open to the potential of “buddy punching” — a system exploit in which an employee swipes his or her friend’s card for them, allowing their friend to get paid despite not actually being at work. While Beth doesn’t think that their nursery had a buddy punching problem before, it certainly won’t now.
Customer service has been easy to use, as well, with any questions she’s had answered quickly over the phone.
“I can’t think of a drawback, because any time we’ve had an issue they’ve been able to change it,” she says. “Every nursery is different, everybody runs it differently and they are able to customize what you need, the rules to be in the system. Like, what time you take breaks. It'll allow you to do that without you having to enter that in.”
Beth was concerned about pushback from her employees. But it turned out that they were less apprehensive about privacy issues than she was.
The touchless timeclock eliminates “buddy punching” and reduces COVID risk.
Photo courtesy of Lathem
That’s because the device uses two cameras to perform a 3D analysis of the 60 facial points that are unique to each employee. These are all mapped at the time of that first scan. The facial data is recorded and stored in the time clock and cannot be reproduced as a photographic image.
“The logarithm of the face, the ‘math’ of the face, is what causes it to be ID’d,” she says. “And when I talked to the guys about it, they were kind of excited about the technology and doing something new.”
In times of chaos, saying thank you can be easily forgotten — but right now is when employees need to hear it most.
Like you, your employees are struggling. They may be working long hours. They may worry that their health is at risk. Maybe they’re coping with a home life that’s been disrupted in some way. You may not be able to change their day-to-day reality, but you can change the way they experience their work life.
Saying thank you positively impacts everything from employee well-being to job satisfaction to motivation to productivity. It’s a powerhouse tool for building engagement. Infusing gratitude into the workplace may even be a pathway to building a more empathetic and emotionally intelligent workplace.
Here are some simple and creative tips for thanking your employees.
1) Recognize and celebrate your team members’ accomplishments.
For employees working on site, you might hold a socially distanced pizza party, for instance. And don’t forget remote employees. For example, on a Friday, request that everyone finish up half an hour early and host a Zoom happy hour. While everyone is enjoying their snacks, sodas, or beverages of choice, take a few minutes to say thank you to each employee.
Get specific about how their hard work has helped the company and share a few things you have noticed that they do especially well. Then open it up for employees to thank and compliment one another. It’s a great way to create a sense of unity and camaraderie while people are physically separated.
2) Put your “thank-you” on paper.
The uniqueness of a handwritten note — especially in this age of emails, Facebook posts and tweets — will not go unnoticed. Pick up some beautiful cards and write a heartfelt letter of thanks to your employees. There doesn’t have to be an occasion. Simple words of gratitude and encouragement are always uplifting. Of course, if you want to call out someone’s exceptional performance on a recent project, it will be greatly appreciated.
As Paul Spiegelman, cofounder of the Small Giants Community, shared, “That note you can get from someone…that says, ‘thank you, you’ve changed my life’…is much more powerful, much more valuable, than any amount of money I could have in the bank.”
3) Extend the gratitude to family members as well.
The simple act of sending a special thank-you note to an employee’s spouse, parent, or child can have an exponential impact. (After months of Zoom meetings, you may already be on a first name basis with them as well.) This thank-you can help strengthen the high performer’s personal life, especially when their partner or another family member may have felt they, too, had sacrificed — from family time lost — as a result of the dedicated effort extended by this hardworking relation.
4) Name an “employee of the week.”
Each week find someone who is giving their all and name that person employee of the week. You might even drop off a fun certificate to their home along with a crisp $20 bill or a gift card. In difficult times, even a modest gesture means a lot.
5) Get original with your “thank-yous.”
For example, if you know a team member will be stopping into the office to pick up some more supplies, leave a box of their favorite cookies on their desk for them to see. Mail everyone a $15 gift certificate to a local restaurant to treat all to lunch (and help out a small business in the process). Send everyone some company merchandise like pens, T-shirts or hats.
6) Be generous with flex time.
When everyone is stressed and overworked, giving people some freedom with their work schedule helps them stay sane. If someone’s life can be made easier by working a half-day in the morning and finishing their work in the evening, be as accommodating as possible. Also try to make yourself available to them on their schedule if you can. This is a big way to let them know you care.
7) Encourage time off.
Say thank you by encouraging people to take mental health days from time to time, as well as their regular vacation days. Also, periodically, dismiss your team early or tell them to come in late the following day. During periods of remote work, employees need reminders that they can make time to recharge and take breaks.
During a time when everyone needs a boost of positivity, don’t underestimate the power of thank-you. It can do amazing things for morale and make your team unstoppable, even in a pandemic. And saying thank you feels good. It rewards the giver as much as it rewards the recipient.
Deb Boelkes is the author of “The WOW Factor Workplace: How to Create a Best Place to Work Culture” and “Heartfelt Leadership: How to Capture the Top Spot and Keep on Soaring.” www.businessworldrising.com
Arctostaphylos sp.
Departments - Green Guide
Manzanitas are beautiful, evergreen plants that provide food and habitat for wildlife.
Arctostaphylos ‘Greensphere’ is a compact, shapely cultivar that makes a great drought-tolerant hedge.
All photos by Mark Leichty
This has been a horrendous September where I live in Oregon’s beautiful Willamette Valley. Our lush valley has been inundated with smoke from nearby fires in the Cascade Range. Over 1 million acres are ablaze right now as I write this article. The American West is facing an ecological catastrophe fueled by climate change. We have a very long and challenging road ahead of us, and we must find the collective will to actually deal with this problem. These Green Guides that I’ve written for the past three years have been all about recommending plants for our industry that I feel have particular merit and should be grown more widely. This month, I’ve chosen to write about the genus Arctostaphylos, the manzanitas. Many species are both beautiful in the landscape and are adapted to survive fire.
I don’t really know any plants that just won’t burn, though manzanitas are somewhat fire resistant. They don’t burn easily, but their greatest evolutionary advantage lies in the fact they are fire “adapted.” Many species of Arctostaphylos native to the Western United States need fire for their seeds to germinate. About two-thirds of all manzanita species reproduce though obligate seeding, whereby plants do not resprout after a fire and rely only on seeding to regenerate their population. Imagine every adult in a species being wiped out in a catastrophic fire. The species would become extinct if not for the fact that its seeds were left behind by the fire. In fact, the intense heat of the fire cracked open the seed and allowed germination, and thus survival of the species. Obligate seeding allows for a genetically diverse population that is able to adapt and evolve much faster than species that reproduce by resprouting.
The biggest reason we should be growing more manzanitas is that they are beautiful landscape plants. The genus contains groundcover plants, as in the species uva-ursi and its cultivars. It also contains a plethora of beautiful shrub and small tree species. Arctostaphylos species are covered with bell-shaped flowers arranged in clusters in late winter and early spring and provide a good nectar source for early hummingbirds and bees. Many species have attractive reddish bark, adding to their alure as a landscape plant. Among my favorite cultivars is ‘Greensphere’, which has somewhat dense spherical shape and stays under 3 feet tall. I also love the pale, almost white foliage and pink stems of A. silvicola ‘Ghostly’, which grows into a small tree, reaching 8 feet in just five years. There are many other beautiful and garden-worthy varieties to consider. Most West Coast natives are hardy to USDA Zone 7, with a couple even to Zone 6. Colorado natives are Hardy to USDA Zone 4, as in Arctostaphylos x coloradoensis ‘Panchito’.
Why grow Manzanitas?
They are beautiful evergreen shrubs or small trees.
They are drought and fire adapted.
They have few pests that bother them.
They provide early nectar for hummingbirds and bees.
They are deer resistant.
Mark Leichty is the Director of Business Development at Little Prince of Oregon Nursery near Portland. He is a certified plant geek who enjoys visiting beautiful gardens and garden centers searching for rare and unique plants to satisfy his plant lust. mark@littleprinceoforegon.com
1 trillion trees
Departments - View Point
White House joins global tree-planting effort, creates a council charged with ‘advancing the initiative.’
In January 2020, President Trump announced the United States would join World Economic Forum's One Trillion Trees Initiative, an ambitious global effort to grow and conserve one trillion trees worldwide by 2030. He made good on that announcement in October and established the One Trillion Trees Interagency Council, which will be responsible for coordinating the federal government’s support of the global One Trillion Trees Initiative. You can read the Executive Order (EO) here: http://bit.ly/executive-order-trees.
In it, Trump named the U.S. Secretary of the Interior David L. Bernhardt as co-chair of the council, along with U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue.
The EO directs the Council to develop, coordinate and promote the Federal government’s interactions with the One Trillion Trees Initiative to promote tree growing, conservation, restoration and coordination with key stakeholders. In addition to the two co-chairs, the EO designates 21 other members of the Council to develop and implement a strategy to facilitate growth, restoration and conservation of trees.
“When I was growing up on my family farm, my father always taught me to appreciate that ‘when it comes to the land, we want to leave it better than we found it.’ The President’s Executive Order will do just that — leave it better than we found it and help bolster the 193 million acres of National Forest System lands to promote recreation, enjoyment, and sustainable economic prosperity across broad sectors of the rural economy,” Perdue said in a statement released by the U.S. Department of the Interior.
The council is independent of the broader One Trillion Trees Initiative, according to Craig Regelbrugge, senior VP of public policy and government relations at AmericanHort.
The global initiative (www.1t.org) and the U.S. chapter (us.1t.org) has the same goal: to promote a nature-based solution to climate change and “to connect, empower and mobilize a global reforestation community to conserve, restore and grow one trillion trees globally by 2030.”
There are 19 governmental agencies named in the EO that will be part of the council, so my hope is that this initiative doesn’t get bogged down in red tape or swept aside by partisan politics. But this statement helps ease my skepticism:
“Colleagues from both sides of the aisle are lending their support to the Trillion Trees Act, demonstrating its tremendous potential to combat our changing climate, conserve our natural resources, and facilitate growth in environments nationwide,” says U.S. Rep. Steve Stivers (R-Ohio). “In Ohio’s 15th District alone, the President’s executive order will make a difference for the Wayne National Forest, and a number of state parks including the Lake Alma State Park, Hocking Hills and Old Man’s Cave. These forests and woodlands produce recreational opportunities for every family and putting these resources to work in the effort to remove carbon from our atmosphere will deliver positive economic and social benefits for generations to come.”
This initiative already has some nursery industry support, and I’ll bring you those details in an upcoming issue.
Ironweeds inhabit a broad swath of the United States, from the Mid-Atlantic to the Midwest and from Minnesota south to Texas. While many are tall, even towering in height, all ironweeds offer an abundance of purple-hued flowers in late summer and early fall. Their value as a food source for pollinators is irrefutable — scores of bees, butterflies and numerous other insects feverishly work the flowers throughout the late bloom season. Ironweeds are extraordinary ecological plants, due to their indigenousness and importance as powerhouse pollinator plants, but they are great garden plants, too. At a glance, some ironweeds may seem too tall for many gardens, but recent breeding has resulted in a number of compact hybrid selections. The shorter ironweeds may have given up some size but have lost none of their ornamental appeal or draw for pollinators. Vernonia spp. are in the aster or daisy family (Asteraceae), but lack the showier petal-like ray florets common to the composite inflorescences of coneflowers (Echinacea spp.), asters (Symphyotrichum spp.) and sunflowers (Helianthus spp.). For several weeks beginning in mid- to late summer, purple to magenta capitula bloom in many-flowered inflorescences measuring up to a foot or more across. Leaves are typically dark green and tend toward lance-shaped but can be willow-like to filiform. Conversely, silver ironweed sports bright silvery white linear leaves. Leaf size enhances the robustness of some ironweeds; for example, giant ironweed (V. gigantea) reaches 8 feet tall, but the 10-inch long leaves make it seem even larger. On the other hand, at 3 inches long and barely wider than a sliver, the linear leaves of narrowleaf ironweed (V. lettermannii) look more like Arkansas blue star (Amsonia hubrichtii) than any of its kin.
Most of the commonly cultivated species have woody, fibrous root crowns and stiff stems ranging from several feet to 10 or more feet in height. Ironweeds are generally easy to grow in full sun and moist, well-drained soils but are often adaptable to light shade and drier soils, and some species are drought-tolerant once established. Silver ironweed, for example, is best grown in lean, gravelly soil or decomposed granite, in full or half-day sun. Ironweeds tend to grow taller in moist conditions.
Many ironweeds are hardy to at least USDA Zone 5 or colder, while others are native to warmer places in the Southeast and westward to Texas. Ironweeds are typically long-lived, growing into large clumps over time, but rarely need division. Deadheading reduces unwanted seedlings, which can be prolifically produced, especially in moist areas; however, deadheading removes a food source for late-season songbirds. Powdery mildew and rust can infect foliage in late summer or fall — some species are more susceptible than others. Disease levels can be severe, thus deleteriously affecting plant health. The bitter-tasting leaves are usually not palatable to most grazing mammals including deer. Ironweeds are both a boon and a challenge to gardeners — their size can be daunting for average gardens, but their late-blooming purple flowers attract a host of pollinators. Ironweeds put on an impressive show in native and naturalistic landscapes, meadows and formal gardens.
In early summer, the dark green foliage provides a handsome backdrop for a variety of earlier -blooming perennials; whereas, late-season bloomers such as sunflowers (Helianthus spp.), goldenrods (Solidago spp.), and big bluestems (Andropogon gerardii cultivars) make stellar floral companions. A shorter stature and feathery foliage sets narrowleaf ironweed (V. lettermannii) apart from other species, and provides a pleasing textural contrast with bolder plants. Despite the large number of species — upward of 1,000 herbaceous and woody plants from the Americas, Asia, Africa, and Australia — ironweeds are not widely cultivated and still are uncommon in home gardens.
The evaluation study
The Chicago Botanic Garden (USDA Hardiness Zone 5b, AHS Plant Heat-Zone 5) undertook a comparative trial of Vernonia species and cultivars from 2012 through 2018. The goal of the trial was to determine the garden-worthiness of a variety of cold-hardy ironweeds. The trial group consisted of 17 taxa in all—representing ten species with eight associated subspecies, cultivars, or hybrid selections. Plants were acquired commercially or were grown from wild-collected seeds; seed-grown species exhibited variable traits within a taxon and included V. arkansana, V. baldwinii, V. fasciculata, V. gigantea, V. gigantea ssp. gigantea, V. glauca, V. missurica and V. noveboracensis. The ironweed trial was originally initiated in 2009 but was interrupted in 2010 by a renovation project in the evaluation garden. Due to significant changes in bed design, all plants were transplanted to pots and moved to the production nursery in June 2010. The original 11 taxa were replanted in the trial garden in September 2011; the official restart of the trial began with data collection the following spring. Several new taxa were added to the trial between 2012 and 2015 including V. angustifolia ‘Plum Peachy’, V. gigantea ssp. gigantea ‘Jonesboro Giant’, V. noveboracensis ‘White Lightning’, V. ‘Southern Cross’, V. ‘Summer’s Surrender’ and V. ‘Summer’s Swan Song’.
Five plants of each taxon were grown in side-by-side plots for easy comparison of ornamental traits and landscape performance. The evaluation garden was openly exposed to wind in all directions and potentially received up to 10 hours of full sun daily during the growing season, which averaged 175 days per year for the 2012-2018 trial period. The clay-loam soil had a pH of 7.4 during this period, and although typically well-drained, the site occasionally retained excess moisture for short periods in all seasons. Maintenance practices were kept to a minimum, thereby allowing the plants to thrive or fail under natural conditions. Trial beds were irrigated via overhead sprinklers as needed, mulched with composted leaves once each summer, and regularly weeded. Moreover, plants were not deadheaded, fertilized, winter mulched, or chemically treated for insects or diseases. Plants were cut back to near the base in late winter before new growth began.
In the trial, the ironweeds were regularly observed for their cultural adaptability to the soil and environmental conditions of the full sun evaluation garden; diseases and pests; winter hardiness and survivability; and ornamental qualities associated with foliage, floral display, and plant habits. All taxa were evaluated for a minimum of four years, except for ‘Plum Peachy’, which died during the second winter in two different trials, and ‘White Lightning’, which had been in the garden for only three years when the trial was terminated in autumn 2018.
Vernonia ‘Southern Cross’
Top-rated ironweeds
Four ironweeds received five-star excellent ratings, including V. gigantea ssp. gigantea ‘Jonesboro Giant’, V. lettermannii ‘Iron Butterfly’, V. ‘Summer’s Surrender’ and V. ‘Summer’s Swan Song’. These top-rated ironweeds featured superior ornamental traits such as strong vigorous habits, handsome foliage, heavy flower production, winter hardiness, and disease resistance.
‘Jonesboro Giant’ was the largest ironweed in the trial, reaching 144 inches tall and 60 inches wide. ‘Jonesboro Giant’ differed from the subspecies in being significantly taller and narrower in habit, and flowering seven to 10 days earlier. The rigid stems were upright at all times, although the plants relaxed a bit in October during peak bloom. The fine-textured inflorescences and upper stems were dark burgundy. Flower production was consistently heavy, with smallish, ¾-inch-wide purple flower heads; the inflorescences were commonly more than 12 inches wide. The large, dark green leaves were generally healthy, with only minor powdery mildew observed. The late bloom period of ‘Jonesboro Giant’ — late September to early November — was occasionally truncated by early frosts in October; the historical frost date at the Chicago Botanic Garden is October 15. In addition, the large leaves were sometimes tattered by strong winds, especially on the upper half of the stems.
The soft, needle-shaped leaves of ‘Iron Butterfly’ had a similar feathery appearance to another Arkansas native — spring-blooming blue star (Amsonia hubrichtii) — rather than to any of the other ironweeds. ‘Iron Butterfly’ originated in the University of Georgia’s trial garden, and was selected for its vigorous growth, compact habit, and floriferous nature. At 33 inches tall, ‘Iron Butterfly’ was 10 inches shorter than the species and had a tighter habit. Otherwise, the purple flowers were the same color and size as the species, and both taxa were equally floriferous. ‘Iron Butterfly’ was less prone to opening up in the center in heavy rainfall but was not untouched by this issue; damage was always more significant on the species, which was also less likely to rebound than ‘Iron Butterfly’. Powdery mildew and rust were never observed on ‘Iron Butterfly’ or the species. These taxa were the latest of the ironweeds to emerge in the spring. ‘Summer’s Surrender’ is a hybrid cross of V. lettermannii and V. arkansana made by Jim Ault at the Chicago Botanic Garden in 2010. It inherited the bushy habit of V. lettermannii and the larger plant size and capitula of V. arkansana; the olive-green linear leaves — 5 inches long and ½ inch wide — were intermediate between the two species. ‘Summer’s Surrender’ was 48 inches tall and 74 inches wide with a densely broad habit after five years, and it had a passing resemblance to ‘Southern Cross’. From early September to early October, dark purple florets, packed into 1-inch-wide flower heads, were generously produced in airy inflorescences. ‘Summer’s Surrender’ was resistant to powdery mildew and rust.
‘Summer’s Swan Song’ is a hybrid created by Dr. Ault’s crossing of V. lettermannii and V. angustifolia ‘Plum Peachy’. Similar in bushiness and fine texture to ‘Iron Butterfly’, ‘Summer’s Swan Song’ is a slightly larger plant that resists lodging because of its elongated floral branches; the interlocking of the floral branches is a unique trait that helps hold stems upright on rainy days. Deep purple florets in 1-inch -wide heads were plentiful from early September to mid-October. The feathery foliage was moderate to dark olive-green with red petioles, up to 5 inches long and less than a quarter inch wide, and disease-free. After five years in the trial, ‘Summer’s Swan Song’ measured 36 inches tall and 40 inches wide. ‘Summer’s Swan Song’ is hardy in Zone 4, despite the marginal cold-hardiness of ‘Plum Peachy’.
The comparative trial at CBG is in USDA Hardiness Zone 5b.
Worthy of more consideration
Ironweeds may be uncommon garden plants but are obvious choices for ecological and naturalistic landscapes, especially for pollinator gardens. The sheer number and variety of insects drawn to their profuse display of late-season purple flowers is astonishing. The only plant group with greater insect visitation in the Chicago Botanic Garden’s trials were mountain mints (Pycnanthemum spp.), and in particular, silvery-leaved P. muticum.
Ironweeds are often overlooked as garden plants due in part to their large size, and perhaps, being native plants, they are not readily available in average garden centers. Furthermore, the dearth of innovation in breeding and selecting new cultivars has until recently exacerbated the matter. Fortunately, the introduction of new compact hybrid cultivars, such as ‘Southern Cross’, ‘Summer’s Surrender’, and ‘Summer’s Swan Song’, has created excitement in the gardening world. Beyond the strong ornamental attributes, easy culture and adaptability to a variety of cultural conditions are merits of ironweeds.
Matt McClellan
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