In my favorite Westerns, “Howdy, partner” was a common greeting. Having partners and friends was the key to survival in the Wild West. Today, partnerships can be a wonderful way to do business. The collaboration brings out the strengths in each organization, and deficiencies can be offset with shared experience and knowledge. Partnerships require honest, open communication to be most successful. It’s hard to be an expert in every aspect of today’s projects. Knowing what is going on in the marketplace and being prepared has never been more crucial. When you partner with your supplier, your team now has the knowledge and expertise of hundreds of growers, manufacturers and distributors. When your projects come in, share with your partner all your concerns and opportunities so you can work together for better outcomes that build your partnership.

Welcome to 2021 - the most challenging year in your career. The economic shutdown and Covid-19 has nearly destroyed the nursery and horticulture supply chain as we know it. We might as well be building it from scratch. It started with the evergreen shortage, quickly spread into commodities, containers - all the products we use every day and then - not to be left out - our hardscape suppliers have also been doing everything they can to keep up. The industry that took decades to build was brought to it’s knees in a little over a year. The creativity from our buyers and the flexibility of our vendors has been nothing short of amazing.

In addition, the transportation challenge has many aspects. The industry lost many drivers, and the demand in other industries is off the charts. The long and short of it is, transportation costs are through the roof, and our ability to move product has been greatly impacted. Another challenge I know you are familiar with is labor. The saying “Good people are hard to find” has been replaced with “Anyone has been hard to find”. When you can get a signing bonus at McDonald’s, you know the labor market is jazzed up.

We have faced many of these challenges in the past, maybe not all at the same time, but we have survived. But here’s the thing. You have never had so many opportunities to make money. The phones won’t stop ringing, the projects keep getting signed and the demand is not letting up anytime soon! So, buckle up, “Partner”, each week brings a new creative solution to our ever changing season.

This year will continue to test our mettle, but we can come out of this better, more adaptable, and willing to meet any challenge. We are learning and changing to meet the needs of the day. When you partner with Christensen’s Plant and Hardscape Centers rest assured, we are working hard every day to be the best supplier and partner we can be. So, stop in today and say, “Howdy, partner” and let’s meet this challenge together. Partnership, collaboration and our shared experience will lead to our success. Enjoy the summer season and remember we are all in this together.

When I started in the nursery long ago there were maybe five other women I knew, and two female landscapers, in the entire industry. Well, ok not really. I might be exaggerating. But It was a man's occupation for sure. But nowadays we women are absolutely everywhere! Fabulous! 

I would say that more the half of all the contacts I have in the industry are women. Perhaps way more than half. Once it used to be a female landscaper would come in once a week, now it is more like several times a day. I also get forwarded a lot of plant lists from designers and architects and most of them are women. Even Christensen’s is being taken over by women. There are fourteen of us on staff here now.

Back to that long ago time. There were just four girls at the Plant Center. Problem was three of them worked inside the office and the fourth was me! So it was me and the boys at break, me and the boys helping customers, me and the boys unloading trucks, fixing irrigation, pulling poly, going to trade shows (and hanging out with more boys!). Then I got to hire a girl for the perennial department and then another and another. Before you knew it - it was not the perennial department but the "perennial girls". I was so proud!

Now, new hires of either gender feel comfortable joining our team. A recent hire expressed how pleasantly surprised she was at the equality she found here at Christensen’s. Her experience with another green industry company had not been so amiable and she feared that it would be an obstacle she faced no matter where she went in our industry.

Thinking about how I was going to write this I looked at some statistics and it all made perfect sense, from 2012-2019 Michigan women owned business grew 29%. In 2015, 11% of the landscapers nationally were women, in 2021 it was 21%! I hired my first perennial girl in about 2012-2013 and now there are six of them. Move on over boys, the ladies are here to stay!

Inclusivity is always a good idea in any business, but especially in an industry where a majority of the end consumers are women. It is important to have perspectives that reflect all of the customers to know and understand your clientele.

I am happy to have witnessed the ascent of women in this industry. I may be a little impartial being a woman myself but the rise of women in the industry is the truth.

It’s time to welcome you back to Christensen’s! We are happy to be back to normal operations, while still observing the safety protocols we introduced last season. Don't worry, the masks won't prevent you from recognizing your favorite salespeople and we can't wait to greet you in return. We have some new employees as well, and we look forward to even better turnaround times when you visit our Plant and Hardscape Centers.

We do have some improvements to share with you, number one being the redesign of our store, with a fresh layout and new products. You really need to stop by and see what we've done!

Several of our flatbed trailers got new decks put on them to better serve your delivery needs. Our fleet of equipment has been serviced and is ready to roll for you! But there is one thing that we could not prep for...

Trucking in the country right now is going crazy, and so are the freight rates. Beyond the trucking regulations in place on drivers for hours of service, the lack of available labor is also affecting the trucking industry. There are currently trucks sitting without drivers for them. Lots of empty trucks. The next issue that came up this late winter/early spring was the situation in Texas. When the winter snowstorm hit Texas, FEMA stepped in and sent aid to Texas. Unfortunately, there is now a backlog of material those trucks would have hauled in other industries coupled with trucks that are still stuck in Texas either due to weather or inability to get unloaded. At least our product was not grounded in the Suez canal.

Due to these issues, freight rates have spiked by up to 30% over what they were at the end of 2020. Or another way to put this into perspective, freight is up almost 50% over spring of 2020. Rest assured, Christensen’s has your back. We have worked tirelessly to make sure to keep our prices competitive, and that we will have supply in our yard to make sure that you have a successful year.

From the trees to the brick to the sod, Christensen’s Plant and Hardscape Center has what you need to complete your landscape projects. So here is to another successful year!!

Oh, did I forget to mention? It is our 90^th Anniversary year!!!! We are looking forward to taking care of you for another 90 years.

As those close to me know, I love all seasons. I cannot say that I enjoy one over the other, because I really don’t. It drives my wife a little nuts, as she loathes snow. But I really love the little things that every season brings to us.

But this year is a little different. As 2020 has been for its entire existence. This year I am looking forward to the break that the winter provides to those of us in the nursery industry. A time to re-coup and re-group. And I for one am looking forward to having the time to gather myself back up.

As we re-group, we must look forward and start planning for the future. And as I look forward, I have to bring up the storm warning that I wrote about a couple of months ago. The material forecast for the spring is incredibly tight. Plant material grew very well this year, but our industry consumed a great deal of it. To give an example, many of our green goods suppliers have told us this fall that they can fill our orders, but we will be pulling from the spring 2021 crop. So, we can have it now, or next year, but not both. Hardscape suppliers are still reeling from shutdown this spring. Many intend to continue production for most of the winter to try to prevent the same thing happening in the spring of 2021.

So, as you re-group and plan this winter, I implore you. Plan out your jobs. Order your material. Do not wait until the snow is melting to arrange material for your spring projects. As the snow is flying, that is the time to be looking forward to spring.

“A personal shopper is someone who shops for others for a living. Personal shoppers can shop for everything, from groceries to furniture, but most personal shoppers buy clothing and accessories for their clients. Some personal shoppers work directly for clients or their personal stylists; others work for boutiques or department stores that offer personal shopping services.”

Did you know Christensen’s offers professional shopping? I never thought of it that way. A professional shopper to me, goes to the mall and buys all the stuff they love and then, tells someone else how fab it is!

Well ok, maybe, I have been known to tell someone how “Fab” something is. I guess I don’t think of myself as a professional shopper because I am usually slopping in the mud to find just the correct plants for you, in the right color, size, height, etc. Oh and different from everyone else, she hates pink, she wants only white, Oh wait...

Being a “professional shopper” here at Christensen’s make me also a professional dispatch. We actually book most of our own trucks just to make sure material is here in a timely manner as well as in the best shape. We also pay extra just to have material racked (we get to pay for the racks, as well as, fewer plants on the truck). But the difference in the way plants travel on racks vs stacked on top of one another in a truck is worth it. Some day when you have a couple hours allow me to share some trucker’s stories – it will be worth it!

I just can’t call myself a professional shopper. I want to be called “Plant Hunter”. Robert Fortune step aside, I am a Plant Hunter! Doesn’t that sound more regal? I think so, and there is not a day at Christensen’s that I am not hunting down plants!

On the window sill in my office there is an ever growing collection of rocks. Most of them I've found around the grounds of Christensen's, some more exotic ones arrived in tree balls or were given to me by customers. Rocks have interested me since I was a kid. I had 'em stashed everywhere - dirty rocks in my sock drawer, jars and buckets full of rocks all over the yard, and a couple cool polished specimens were displayed on my dresser.

As I got older I wanted to know the stories behind the rocks, what they are made of, and how they came to be where I found them.

Michigan is a fantastic place for a rock-lover to reside due to an amalgamation of geological events.

400 million years ago this area was a briny tropical sea just north of the equator. As the landmass drifted northward jungles full of displaced plants and animals left behind rich soils and minerals, whilst retreating seas precipitated vast deposits of salt and sand. The ancient sea life produced fossils like Petoskey Stones and Crinoids in abundance that we find on our beaches today.

Michigan has something else going for it when it comes to cool rocks. Volcanos!! During the mid-continental rift fiery lava gurgled up great amounts of minerals from the molten belly of our planet. When liquid magma solidifies underground it becomes igneous rocks like granite and obsidian. Granite countertops are made of magma that has slowly cooled under pressure, allowing time for crystallization. A lot of the granite you'll find in Michigan has red in it. The red color comes from the iron oxide that’s mixed in with the feldspar and quartz. When lava cools above ground it hardens into extrusive types of igneous rocks like basalt and pumice. One of my favorite rocks is called pudding stone. It's a colorful conglomerate of red jasper, quartz, and other pebbles that have been metamorphosed into quartzite.

North America was once home to towering ice sheets over a mile thick. The Earth's crust was actually deformed under the weight of these ice age giants. As they slowly scraped their way down the continent countless tons of material were picked up along way (including my pudding stones). The massive ice sheets eventually settled in our Great Lakes Basin and melted, releasing rocks and debris that span both geography and time.

The combination of glacial transportation, continental drift, and volcanic upheaval have led to perhaps the most splendid mixes of rocks of anywhere in the world.

In all bad things, there is good.

COVID-19 has caused havoc in many industries. It has closed many businesses, some never to reopen. Covid has sickened people and some have died from the illness. This is the bad.

Here is the good for the Green Industry:

• People were forced to stay home so they improved their homes
• Money issues were mitigated by a $1200 stimulus payment
• Businesses utilized the Payroll Protection Plan to keep their employees working
• The unemployed received $600 weekly from the federal government
• State unemployment checks continued to be paid
• Many people planted a vegetable garden for the first time or the first time in years
• Less travel meant fewer expenses for fuel, auto insurance
• Vacations were postponed or cancelled so with time and money available home living conditions were improved
• Landscaping and gardening are not impacted by crowds or social distancing
• Landscapers are remarkably busy because of limited staffs, no immigrant workers
• There is pent up demand within the green industry to hire additional staff

So what does the future hold for the Green Industry?

Here’s my view thru a slightly cracked crystal ball:

• Working from home will stay with us into the future
• Zoom meetings will replace much business travel
• Education will transition from the classroom to ??????
• Plants will occupy more of people's time and attention
• Embrace the change - it is happening!

As the shrub and perennial investor at Christensen's I rarely get to go outside to meet and greet. Now while we are socially distancing for COVID-19 it is even worse. When I do get outside, I can’t tell the difference between employees and customers. It was bad enough with hats and sunglasses, now there are masks! And just before the shutdown happened I was about to get new glasses... So currently six feet is a little far away for me. Pardon me if I don't recognize you!

I decided to try and use this column to get some feedback. Do I get it right? (Did I get it right in this mess?) Please! This is a Roast Me – did I get it wrong? Go ahead - I can take it!

What plants am I missing in the nursery? We NEVER want you to be caught short on plants that you need, so please let us know what you want and when you want it.

You are welcome to yell at me – however it is best to yell at your salesman. Then they can get it ordered for you. (It would be much better for me if you yelled at them. They are scared of me and usually bring me gifts like cookies and such with your orders! Isn’t that sweet of them!?!?)

Contact information for all our sales staff can be found in our app and on our website. And, you can send me your feedback here: rothk (at) christensensplantcenter (dot) com.

I know that as a woman of my age, grace, natural beauty and talents that it is next to impossible for me to get it wrong. But that age thing sometimes makes me forget things.

P. S. You cannot roast me on that last paragraph!

Here, at the close of the season, I have the privilege of writing the last Sticks and Stones post of 2019.

It is a privilege for two reasons. The first is because we have made it to the end of the season! We persevered through the trials and tribulations of 2019, and now it is time to enjoy the fruits of our labors.

I look forward to this time of year because winter is when I get to hang out with my kids. I hope that you get to enjoy the same opportunity to spend time with family and friends, enjoying the stepping stones in life.

This year’s stepping stone is driver’s education for my daughter. Now I do not know about the rest of you, but when I turned 16 I drove my parents crazy wanting to go the Secretary of State to get my license. This is my second child to go through driver’s ed. My older son wanted to take driver’s ed (mostly because his friends were in the class) but had absolutely zero interest in getting his license. In fact, he turned 16 in September and my wife and I finally forced him to take his road test in February! Now we are on to my daughter who was eligible to take driver’s ed in April, but was in no hurry to even take the class. Really?? Don’t these kids know that I don’t want to be a chauffeur any more?

The second reason is even more simple. In this last post of 2019, I want to say “thank you”. Thank you for allowing us to serve you for another year – our 88th year as Christensen’s Plant Center. Over the past 88 years many things have changed, but as our staff has has ebbed and flowed, as our customers have started a business that has grown and matured, and have maybe retired, one thing has remained constant. There is a certain quality that makes people choose to enter the Green Industry, and even as our customers become ever more diversified, there is a familiarity that I appreciate. Thank you for being a part of the Christensen's family.

Wishing you all a safe conclusion to your landscaping season, and the happiest of holidays.