Planting Edmonds is a monthly column written by and for local gardeners.
This beautiful, lush Cryptomeria came home with me in my little Toyota Corolla from a plant sale five years ago. As I left the sale, the woman running it, Linda Nash, said offhand, “I started that tree from a cutting. In fact, many of the plants you buy at the local nurseries are ones I started.” 288 Cell Seed Starting Trays
Linda and I became friends over the years, and indeed nearly all the plants in my yard now are ones she started. This week, Chris Walton and I took a trip up to Arlington to see the nursery.
What we saw boggled our minds. Hundreds of thousands of plants started individually by hand from cuttings. A total of 150,000 Kinnickinnicks alone. Thousands more heath and heathers, rhododendrons, azaleas, boxwoods, all kinds of conifers, Pieris, Nandina and Hellebores – multiple varietals. The Sarcococcas perfume the whole nursery in January.
This is Lovejoy Nursery, a 114-acre farm that sells wholesale to our local nurseries and landscapers. Bob and Kathy Lovejoy started the nursery in 1979 on three acres along the Stillaguamish River. Little by little, the Lovejoys acquired more land, and the original staff of three has grown to 35-40 full-time employees.
Linda has worked with Bob Lovejoy for 33 years and was our tour guide.
There are five heated propagation houses. My giant Cryptomeria started as a fluffy, little, 2-inch plug in a tray with a hundred others.
Unlike the dwarf boxwoods and the tiny Cryptomeria, western red cedar grows longer roots. Rita and the other propagators cut each branch individually down to 8-inch lengths. They stick them into deep-well planting trays filled with a special mix of soil and perlite, where they sit on heated beds and get misted regularly until they root.
During the dry summers, the misters go on for 10 seconds every two minutes. The baby plants have no roots yet and can only absorb water and fertilizer through their leaves.
Water “Water management is the most important and hardest job in the nursery,” says Linda. “The plants are laid out in the greenhouses according to their water needs.” Lovejoy has more than 100 greenhouses – not climate-controlled – and the growers walk each house every day to check the soil, watch for pests and inspect the watering system.
When the weather is moderate, workers manually roll up the sides of the greenhouses for airflow, which helps prevent fungal disease. When the weather is cold, they lower the sides and close the doors.
Earlier in December, the Stillaguamish River rose above 19 feet, flooding the entire farm. The water rose 3 feet up the sides of the houses, lifting the plants with it and setting them right back down as it receded. The workers had to hose the plants down to wash off the slime and silt.
If the workers hadn’t closed the sides and doors of the greenhouses, the plants would have washed all the way down to Interstate 5.
Soil The workers at Lovejoy make all their own soil. Did you know soil doesn’t have any “dirt” in it? It’s made of decomposed bark – fine bark for propagation, coarser bark for bigger pots and field plants – with other materials added: peat moss, pumice for aeration, slow-release fertilizer, lime to change the pH and micronutrients. Lovejoy has its own soil recipes for different plants. These huge piles of bark will get used up by the end of February.
The giant mounds of bark become soil and end up in pots, hundreds of thousands of pots. Most pots get reused but for certain plants like rhododendrons, the nursery uses new pots to prevent disease.
Transplanting Once the plants develop good root systems in their 1-inch or 4-inch pots, they get transplanted by hand into gallon pots. Some are sold in gallon pots and others progress to 2- or 5-gallon pots. The nursery has a pot-filler for the heavier plants. The workers “crack” the plants, meaning they take them out of their pots.
They send the plants on a conveyor into a machine that dumps soil into a bigger pot. Then a worker places each plant in the new pot by hand, and a very strong person lifts them off the conveyor onto a flatbed for transporting. This machine runs continuously, filling up to 13,000 pots a day.
Some pots go into a greenhouse for several more months; others go into the fields to further develop the roots. The beauty of plants grown at Lovejoy is that they are acclimated to our local environment. Unlike plants you buy at the big box stores, which may come from out of state, those locally grown have the best chance of thriving in our climate.
Some of the larger plants are dug directly into the fields instead of into larger pots. When they are ready to sell, two diggers — Jose and Elias — will dig them up by hand and wrap the root ball in burlap.
Selling the plants When the plants are ready to sell, they get trucked all over the Puget Sound region, from Bellingham down to Tacoma and Puyallup. Of those, 50% go to retail nurseries and the other 50% to landscapers. You’ll see Lovejoy’s plants in retail stores, commercial landscapes, schools, along light rail, around public buildings and in Department of Transportation projects.
One government job recently used 17,000 kinnikinnick plants and 10,000 salal in 4-inch pots from Lovejoy.
Many if not most of the plants we buy at retail nurseries such as Sky, Sunnyside, Christianson’s and Swanson’s come from Lovejoy and other local growers. The plants have to look perfect for the retail nurseries, so Lovejoy will send out a list each Friday letting the nurseries know what’s available. Jose Luis (below) is pruning the Sarcococca ruscifolia so the plants will be trimmed up and ready for sale to the public.
The people Glen Miller (below) is one of the original employees. It’s a tribute to owner Bob Lovejoy that at least a third of the employees have stayed with him for more than 20 years.
Linda originally came to the job with a degree in history from UW. It was supposed to be temporary before she started law school. When he interviewed her, Bob said, “I see you’re smart. Do you have any common sense? Can you work hard?” She started out pruning the tough branches of lilacs and loading plants in the field. Now, 33 years later she is the master of propagation.
“People think growing nursery plants is communing with flowers in heated greenhouses,” Linda says, “but this is real farming. It’s rain gear, muddy boots and hard work.”
We asked how this nursery was affected when so many retail nurseries (e.g., Wight’s, My Garden, Emery’s and Molbak’s) have closed. Some nurseries close when younger generations choose not to carry on the business. Box stores compete by selling plants more cheaply. Linda said the retail business is tough, but other buyers still need plants, especially landscapers.
My introduction to Linda and Lovejoy was trying to cram that Cryptomeria into my little Corolla. It turns out that’s exactly how Bob Lovejoy started his business – by potting up cuttings in his spare time and shopping them around to retail nurseries in his Toyota Corolla. Big plants in small cars are a time-honored tradition, or as we gardeners say, there’s always room for more plants.
Photos by Floretum Garden Club member Chris Walton who, in addition to being the club’s photographer, is past treasurer of the Friends of the Edmonds Library and volunteers helping to restore the Edmonds Marsh.
Text by Marty Ronish, curator and editor of “Planting Edmonds.” Marty is an amateur gardener. She is the former editor of NPR’s Performance Today and producer of the national broadcasts of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
Such an enjoyable article. I appreciate all the effort our local farmers and nurseries put into their work to make our lives more healthy, beautiful and enjoyable.
Thank you for sharing and telling our story. A beautiful surprise. Excellent article. You got everything right!
Great article about an amazing business. Thank you!
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