Road trip to Hortmark

It was a glorious blue-sky day. The colors on the trees were fabulous. We took a ride up Rochester Rd. to the tiny town in the thumb called Dryden and hung a right, shot across the brown soybean fields and corn to the farming community of Capac, Michigan. As promised, we visited Hortmark, my greenhouse supplier and purchased - gulp!- 900 one gallon pots to size up the plants left in the nursery for overwintering.

Stacks of pots at Hortmark

Greenhouse storage at Hortmark

900 pots in the van

Hortmark has been around for years, I used to buy from them 20 years ago when I had my farm in Riley Center, Michigan, and is run by two characters, Ken Day and Dave Ludwig. They were there cutting up and having a good time as Pam and I took on our load of 900 pots. I decided not to get soil but did stop by their place called, originally, The Store, which carries lots of garden stuff and critter feeding supplies. Great selection of birdhouses there. Bought birdseed and kitty food for Jo-Jo and we were on our way to find Louie's Family Restaurant and had a couple of great and very reasonable omelets.

As you can see Hortmark wouldn't win a beauty contest but it has most of the stuff I need to grow things, and is run by two very nice guys with whom I've been doing business for a number of years. The prices are quite competitive too.

Got back to the nursery and started in on the potting. Pam said she felt like all she was doing was filling up the soil bin time and time again. We got all the bare root material that Janet Macunovich had dropped off for us. Did Hosta Aureo-maculata, black mondo grass and some nice Japanese banner grass. Wound up with a load of about 50+ pots to take to Vicki's. We dropped off the load to the growing ranks of pots in her backyard. We then took a trip to Home Depot for composted manure for the new greenhouse bed.

Dropped Pam off in Rochester and came back to the nursery and then to the greenhouse. Loaded 240 lbs. of soil and compost onto the garden bed, worked it in and waterered, watered and watered. The greenhouse is dormant through the summer months and so it gets closed up and temperatures reach as high as 140F. The soil is just dusty dry and baked. Vicki and I plan on planting seeds tonight so I was trying to get the seedbed moist enough for that. It will take several more deep waterings to get all that peaty compost wet again.

So it was a big day for both Pam and I. Looking forward to a day off(?) - where I will clean the house and do some more canning and probably make a few more flower wreaths. I guess that's a day off!