Nursery grows 'weeds' for a living

Pinelands Nursery grows more than 150 species of native trees, shrubs, grasses, sedges, wildflowers and ferns. While I prefer to think of these as wonderful plants that are vital for the health of our environment, some traditional nurserymen would consider most of them to be weeds.

I can understand their point of view as most of the species we grow are typically not found in the trade. After all, most nurseries would never consider growing things like blackjack oak, staghorn sumac and a host of herbaceous species normally found growing in drainage ditches in front of their farms. We’ve even been asked to grow poison ivy and skunk cabbage.

Backyard beginnings

Pinelands Nursery was started in 1983 as a part-time venture in my parents’ backyard in Piscataway, N.J. At that time, I was working full time as an adjunct professor at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J. Initially, we grew containerized small fruit plants such as blueberries, raspberries and grapes. My efforts to market our plants consisted of direct mail and personal sales calls on local garden centers. The latter was very successful. My clients were excited to have an alternative to the bagged, bare-root plants that were prevalent at that time.

The business really took off and before long we were selling to chain stores like Flower Time and Acadian Gardens. When Frank’s took over Flower Time, we suddenly were providing plants for 73 stores in eight Northeastern states. It soon became obvious that my part-time backyard venture needed a full-time manager and a home of its own.

In 1986 my wife, Suzanne, and I purchased 16 acres of farmland in the small South Jersey town of Columbus. We were fortunate to find the property when we did because development pressure soon elevated the land values to levels too high for an entry-level nursery operation to be successful. Within a year, I had left my job at Rutgers to become a full-time nurseryman.

Long days on the road

The early years in Columbus were extremely demanding. Suzanne worked a full-time job during the week and worked weekends at the nursery. Her salary was our sole source of income as the meager profits from selling plants was reinvested in the business. My responsibilities included being the propagator, production manager, sales manager, bill collector -- you get the idea. On top of that, I was also our one and only deliveryman.

My typical day would start at about 4 a.m. behind the wheel of a rented Ryder truck heading up the New Jersey Turnpike to a series of Frank’s stores on Long Island. If the traffic was light I could hit six or seven stores and try to beat the evening rush-hour traffic through New York City. If I really hustled and everything worked perfectly, I could make it back to the nursery by early evening. With the help of a few local teenagers, we would load up the truck again and I was ready to head up the Turnpike at 4 a.m. the following morning.

Fortunately, I was young and strong at the time. That schedule would kill me now.

Diversification is key

Aside from my health, I was also concerned about having so much of our business tied up with just a few chain stores. The persistent talk of a Frank’s bankruptcy made me realize I had to diversify. In hindsight, that was a very good decision.

Coming up with a new direction for Pinelands Nursery was easy. A few years earlier, the federal government and the state of New Jersey had established the 1-million-acre Pinelands National Preserve. This beautiful area, comprising about a quarter of the southern part of the state, was threatened by an explosion of development. Retirement communities were springing up all over the landscape and there were even plans for an international airport and the desire to use the huge aquifer of pure water for the city of Philadelphia.

The Pinelands were now protected with a new set of strict regulations. To protect the integrity of the region’s flora, landscaping in the Pinelands was restricted to primarily native species. We were already growing one native, highbush blueberry, and decided to expand our plant list to include other Pinelands natives like pitch pine, scrub oak, Atlantic white cedar, summersweet, lowbush blueberry, bearberry, inkberry holly, sweetbay magnolia and swamp azalea.

Riding the wave of regulations

In 1987, at the same time we were ramping up production of Pinelands natives, U.S. EPA enacted the Water Quality Act. Among other things, this legislation led to widespread protection of wetlands. Although most wetlands were now off-limits for development, certain projects were permitted for the general good of the public. This led to the concept of mitigation, where upland areas were converted into marshes and palustrine forests to compensate for the loss of wetlands removed for highways, hospitals and even a Wal-Mart or two.

Pinelands Nursery was now riding the wave of regulations as we expanded our plant list to include lots of obscure wetland species that at the time were primarily only known by botanists. Frankly, learning these new species was a pleasure, and I found myself spending hour after hour in the field trying to identify the various species.

Within a few years, I had become fairly proficient at identifying wetland vegetation. This was critical to our success because there were no commercial sources of seed for most of these species. Finding adequate seed sources for many species often required driving great distances to find natural stands where I had permission to collect.

Propagation challenges

Once I had the seed, the next challenge was learning how to propagate them.

Many of the plants we were interested in had never been grown before in the nursery industry. As such, we had to learn by trial and error to propagate them. We experimented with various techniques such as stratifying seeds in water.

Over the years, we learned from our mistakes and developed procedures for growing almost all of our plants from seed. This is very important because we feel that restoration plant material should have as much genetic diversity as possible. While cultivars may be perfectly fine in an ornamental setting, they really don’t have a place in restoration. Frankly, if we ever did decide to use cultivars or selections, we would lose all credibility with the ecologists and environmental consultants who regularly list us as a source for plants in their specifications.

While we always try to grow plants from seed, the use of local provenances is a cornerstone of what we do at Pinelands Nursery. It is generally accepted by scientists that plants of local seed sources are better adapted to local conditions on restoration sites. After all, plants of local genotypes are a reflection that numerous generations of that species have been able to adapt to those specific conditions.

Unfortunately, this concept is often overlooked. All too often we see restoration sites planted with material that comes from seed sources hundreds of, if not a thousand, miles away. The red maple grown from seed collected in a swamp in Mississippi is not appropriate for a restoration in New York. Obviously, there may be differences in cold hardiness, but there are also a host of other differences that may interfere with the overall success of the project. These days, just installing the correct species is not enough.

Pinelands Nursery addressed the issue of genetic integrity by establishing three nurseries in the region where we market our plants. By collecting and propagating seed from natural stands at or near our nurseries in Virginia, New Jersey and New York, we are able to provide customers with regionally adapted plants. Frequently, we even custom-collect seed near project areas to provide the closest provenance possible. We could never considerer using a cultivar or selection with a very narrow genetic base.

More demand for natives

Over the years, local, state and federal regulations have been enacted that have helped to drum up more demand for native plants. Most notable was the implementation of Phase II of the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES), which addressed the problem of pollutants in storm water. Until recently, storm water was considered a waste product, something to be piped off the site as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, this approach leads to problems of flooding, polluted streams, erosion and groundwater depletion.

NPDES has directed the states to consider storm water a resource. Rather than getting rid of it quickly, storm water is to be directed to vegetated areas that filter out sediments and other pollutants. Ultimately, the cleaner water percolates back into the soil and recharges the aquifers.

This change in mind-set will likely be a boon for the nursery and landscape industry as the huge retention basins we are all familiar with give way to best-management practices such as bio-filtration basins, infiltration trenches, vegetated filter strips and rain gardens. All of these techniques require lots of plants (primarily, but not exclusively natives) and must be installed by competent contractors who have a good understanding of ecology, soils and hydrology.

Erosion control is an important component of storm water management. Often, the goal of vegetating ponds, streams and tidal shorelines can only be accomplished by designing something that will stabilize the site until plants get established. Various products such as coir (coconut) logs, coir mats and erosion-control blankets are used to hold the soil in place until plants develop a strong root system. Bioengineering materials such as willow wattles, fascines and brush mattresses are also used for this purpose.

Many years ago, we realized that these products go hand in hand with the native plants we were selling. As a result, we decided to distribute and even manufacture ourselves various erosion-control products. Sales of these materials now make up about 20 percent or our gross income at the nursery and we are well-known as one of the largest suppliers of these products in the eastern United States.

The future looks bright

Despite significant reductions in federal spending on restoration projects and the recent slowdown in home construction, the demand for native plants has held steady. Offsetting the decline, in what had been our strongest markets, is the strong trend for corporations, municipalities and individuals to “go green.”

Over the next decade, we anticipate a big increase in the use of native plants for storm water treatment, carbon sequestration, wildlife habitat and general environmental improvement.

We are proud to be a part of this movement and to be able to make a living selling “weeds.”

For more: Pinelands Nursery and Supply, (800) 667-2729; www.pinelandsnursery.com.

Pinelands Nursery and Supply

Founded: 1983 by Don and Suzanne Knezick.

Locations: Columbus, N.J., Toano, Va., and Gloversville, N.Y.

Products: Container-grown native trees, shrubs, ferns, vines, sedges, rushes and grasses.

Acreage: Approximately 30 acres in production.

Employees: 30 full time and 10 part time. Peak-season employment is about 60.

Customer base: Landscape contractors, municipalities and rewholesalers.

Key employees: Paul Montrey, facilities manager; Susan Noval, production manager; Glenn Rogers, propagator; Fran Chismar, sales manager; Theresa Morawa, office manager; and Robin Longfellow, shipping coordinator.

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- Don Knezick

Don Knezick is president of Pinelands Nursery and Supply.