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mid-February, they keep busy 

 making rustic bird feeders, arbors, 

 and trellises — three or four thou- 

 sand of them — that are sold to re- 

 tail garden centers throughout 

 New England. 



But in spring, there are 10-12 

 people working there (In summer, 

 the number's down again — to 

 8-10.). Potting begins in mid- Feb- 

 ruary. 80- 100,000 bare- root shrubs 

 (John orders from 45 different 

 firms — mostly northern — Iowa, 

 Minnesota; "I just feel that a 

 northern-grown pi an t will do better 

 in New Hampshire") are potted. 

 There are two shifts — the first be- 

 gins at 6:30 in the morning; the 

 second ends around 11 at night. 

 Six people work on each shift (a 

 crew of three at each of two potting 

 benches — with the potting mix 

 coming down a central conveyor 

 belt). The potted shrubs are kept 

 in covered hoop houses 

 until mid-April; then 

 they are moved out- 

 side. 



Mr. Millican used loam 

 scraped from his land. 

 Bryant no longer does. 

 Not wanting to expose 

 his employees to the 

 Vapam (he tries to 

 limit his use of chemi- 

 cals — he uses no re- 

 stricted ones) used in 

 sten'lization, he's ex- 

 perimenting with soil- 

 less mixes. He's cur- 

 rently usingMetro-Mix 

 5-10. His biggest prob- 

 lem with artificial 

 mixes is that they're 

 too light — the pots 

 blow over. But he uses enough 

 Metro-Mix that the manufacturer 

 was willing to make for him a spe- 

 cial blend incorporating additional 

 "washed granite sand." With this 

 addition, the weight of a bale is in- 

 creased from 45 to 66 pounds and 

 the texture is coarse enough to help 

 with the drainage. 



He is also experimenting with 

 Superhumus Soil Mix (basically 

 made up of wastes generated by 

 logging and paper manufacture), 



T^, 



he idea of 

 broadening the lines 

 of merchadise sold is 

 not new. But the idea 



of "life style" -- 



the awareness of its 



importance and of the 



importance of one's 

 own action in keeping 

 its quality high-is. 

 The quiet changes- 

 fewer pesticides, 

 recycled mixes, 

 simple... machines- 

 may be the real 

 innovations. 

 



It's a large piece of land — 96 

 acres — but long and narrow — only 

 600 feet wide, it goes back for a 

 mile. 80% of it is woods, but in 

 the cleared area before the trees 

 begin, rows of young lilacs have 

 been planted. In 1987, fifteen hun- 

 dred — James McFarlanes, Miss 

 Kims, dwarf Koreans — were plant- 

 ed; today two-thirds are gone. An- 

 other 800 were planted in 1989 and 

 another 2200 this year.The field- 

 grown lilacs have sold well. 



Syringa is one of the Millican 

 Nurseries specialties. The current 

 catalog lists twenty-seven shrub 

 lilacs and several in tree form. For 

 the first time, they are offering va- 

 rieties introduced by Fr. John L. 

 Fiala, founding director of the In- 

 ternational Lilac Society. John 

 began growing these lilacs in the 

 summer of 1989 from tissue culture 

 liners. They grow fast — some 

 plants grew three 

 feet in one year. 

 They are big-leafed 

 and mildew-free; 

 there's a wide 

 range of height 

 and color: 'Blanche 

 Sweet' is 10' tall 

 with flowers de- 

 scribed as "whitish 

 blue tinged pink;" 

 'George Eastman' 

 is 5' tall and its 

 fiower is "deep 

 pinkish-cherry." 

 Limited quantities 

 (five per customer 

 of each of seven 

 cultivars) of Fiala's 

 introductions will 

 be available in the 

 1991-92 season. 



made by Resource Conservation 

 Systems, Inc., in Yarmouth, Maine. 

 Bryant has concerns about the 

 consistency (whether one load will 

 be exactly like another), but he 

 likes the savings and believes in 

 the concept of recycling. Using it 

 straight made too heavy a mix, but 

 O'Donal's, in Gorham, Maine, uses 

 a mix of half Pro-mix and half 

 Superhumus. Apparently every- 

 thing does fine, so this year Bryant 

 expects to try some sort of combi- 

 nation. 



The field-grown stock uses a lot of 

 manual labor — mostly in control- 

 ling the weeds. Round-up helps. 

 Bryant uses a "sort of dog house on 

 wheels" invented by Mr. Millican 

 that applies a band of the herbicide 

 safely. He's thinking about other 

 methods of weed control — of buying 

 a weed badger and of applying a 

 pre-emergence herbicide to the pots 

 during potting. (His crew went 

 through the entire inventory twice 

 continues on next page 



December/January 19 



