ROM THE BOARD 



A Horticulture Tour 

 The Netherlands and Germany, August, 1998 



PETER VAN BERKUM 



Should I feel guilty for being 

 here? I'm in a huge, clean, glass 

 greenhouse surrounded by sub- 

 merged beds of healthy water 

 plants. Outside are acres and acres 

 of beautiful gardens and produc- 

 tion fields. In front of me are 

 tables of the most exotic mix of 

 dried fish, cooked fish, sausage, 

 meats, vegetables, fruits, wine, and 

 beer imaginable. I thought I'd 

 come to Germany to grind through 

 long days of box lunches and 

 swollen feet. But no — these people 

 know how to tour nurseries. 



This August I had the opportu- 

 nity to go on a tour of nurseries, 

 gardens, and breeding stations in 

 The Netherlands and Germany. 

 The first three days were in The 

 Netherlands with ten other Ameri- 

 can nursery people. We were 

 guided by a nurseryman from 

 Booskoop, the country's main 

 nursery district. After that, we 

 moved on to a conference of the 

 ISU (Internationale Stauden- 

 Union, the European version of 

 the Perennial Plant Association). 

 Nearly 700 people, representing 13 

 countries, attended. 



The Netherlands is known in 

 the horticulture world for automa- 

 tion and cooperative marketing. 

 Most of the perennial nurseries we 

 visited were not as technically ad- 

 vanced as the cut flower, bulb, or 

 vegetable operations for which 

 Holland is known. What we saw 

 were some wonderfully organized, 

 neat operations that had plants 

 that we think of as unusual in 

 common circulation. Perhaps my 

 favorite place was a retail nursery 

 that grew only perennials. Named 

 De Hessenhof and in the town of 



Ede, this place was both beautiful 

 and efficient, two qualities that are 

 difficult to combine successfully. 

 They propagated and grew a very 

 wide range of perennials, specializ- 

 ing in shade and sun plants, and 

 did it all in the most organized 

 fashion imaginable. They had a 

 good automated potting system 

 and were using capillary irrigation 

 on many of their beds, recirculat- 

 ing the water. They also had some 

 innovative ideas in signage that we 

 will try to incorporate here at our 

 nursery. On top of all this, they 

 were in touch with every renowned 

 plant breeder that I had ever heard 

 of and were growing their plants 

 and experimenting with all kinds 

 of new plants being bred. 



The Netherlands is known for 

 its cooperation among growers in 

 marketing and procuring hard- 

 goods. We saw a good example of 

 this when we visited several nurs- 

 eries that were part of an informal 

 cooperative. They realized that 

 they each had their own specialties 

 and that they couldn't efficiently 

 grow everything themselves. So they 

 had each grower grow his own 

 specialty for all the other nurseries. 

 Then, as the busy season approached, 

 they distributed all the plants 

 around to the different nurseries 

 so each would have a good selec- 

 tion. It was an interesting lesson 

 in trust between businesses and it 

 seemed to be working well. 



From Holland, we took a wild 

 train ride to Hannover, Ger- 

 many, and the ISU Congress. Over 

 the next six days, we visited nurs- 

 eries and trial gardens of all de- 

 scriptions, from fairly simple fam- 



ily-run operations to highly techni- 

 cal ones. One of my favorite stops 

 was the Jelitto Staudensamen (pe- 

 rennial seed) Company, an inter- 

 national supplier of perennial seed. 

 We got to see how they clean 

 seeds with all sorts of machines, 

 how they store large quantities of 

 thousands of varieties, and how 

 they pack and ship. A nice opera- 

 tion. 



We saw large outdoor nurseries 

 using traveling boom irrigation. 

 We saw capillary irrigation beds 

 that we will try out in our own 

 nursery next year. One interesting 

 point is that in both Holland and 

 Germany, the norm is to grow 

 plants in 1 1 -centimeter (about 4.5 

 inches) pots. There was very little 

 being grown in the one- and two- 

 gallon so common here. I think 

 this can be attributed to a more 

 educated gardening public and I 

 don't doubt that this trend will 

 eventually reach us here. 



In Eschede, we visited an amaz- 

 ing aquatic plant nursery called 

 Jorg Petrowsky. Perhaps ten acres 

 were filled with outdoor sunken 

 water beds, glass houses with 

 sunken beds, and poly tunnels also 

 with water beds. The quality and 

 efficiency was amazing. They ship 

 their water plants all over Europe. 

 What I found interesting was that 

 many marginal water plants (i.e., 

 Lobelia cardinalis. Iris pseudacorus, 

 and Caltha palustris) that are 

 grown here as dry plants are 

 grown beautifully in flooded beds. 

 They also had a huge pond with 

 water lilies of every description. It 

 was quite a sight to see all in 

 bloom side-by-side. And what a 

 range of colors. 



DECEMBER 1998 .JANUARY 1999 



