Meet Theresa Specht of Acorn Farms

Photo courtesy of Acorn Farms

Theresa Specht went to The Ohio State University to study horticulture, but her passion for plants started much earlier. In this Q&A, Specht talks about her early start in caring for and monitoring plant growth and how she tackles production challenges as perennial grower at Acorn Farms in Galena, Ohio.

Katie McDaniel: How did you get started in horticulture?

Theresa Specht: I’ve been interested in plants since I was a kid. I wasn’t raised on a farm or anything, but my parents always had a garden. You would usually find me outside, shoeless in the dirt, playing around and looking for bugs. My mom tells a great story about me as a kid where I would go out every day and weigh the little melons she had growing on the vines, just to see how much they’d grown in a day, and I would keep track of it.

As I got older, I started volunteering at a local greenhouse (Mulberry Creek Herb Farm), and I worked there all four years of high school. The owners, Mark and Karen Langan, basically treated me like one of their kids, and I was able to learn a lot through that experience with them.

KM: What do you do as perennial grower at Acorn Farms?

TS: Depending on the day, it could be anything from going out walking and putting together work orders for pruning, spacing and moving for my crews, to then planning during potting season, and as liners come in, checking that everything is looking good as it comes in, as well as putting together a plan for what order we’re going to pot things, where they’re going to get set down out at the nursery and just trying to do the planning on the front side of things.

I make sure our invoices match up with the packing slips and get those turned in. I receive our liners and check them into our inventory system and follow up with credits and communicate with my liner suppliers. I also do scouting for insects or diseases and take that information to our IPM specialist and go over the plans of action to solve those things.

KM: What are some of the challenges you face growing perennials?

TS: We got a new potting machine in 2022, and it changed how quickly we can pot things. That was the start of the change of our production cycle because we needed the space to set (plants) down faster. It can go almost three times as fast as our old potting line and machine. To use the machine to its fullest extent, as well as grow our perennial production, I had to sit down and analyze the amount of work that goes into the prep to be able to put all of our (Proven Winners) pot plants together, so we’re not having to switch out pots on the potting machine, as well as setting down and trying to sort high-water plants and low-water plants or sun versus shade.

KM: What sets Acorn Farms apart?

TS: The amount of detail that goes on our signage is unique — to be able to make it not only useful for us on the production side but also for sales and for our pull crews in our shipping department. It’s a universal sign that helps everyone who would possibly be touching the plant or looking for the plant navigate our nursery.

We have white signs that get stickers with our plant ID code, plant name and a scan code. I put the company that we received the liners from on it and the quantity per crop. Each crop gets two (signs) that stay with them, and each individual pot gets a pot tag. We add another sign to mark crops as salable material.

This interview has been edited for style, length and clarity.

Katie McDaniel is associate editor at Nursery Management, a GIE Media Horticulture Group publication. Contact her at kmcdaniel@gie.net.