Digger magazine

Written to make you a nursery industry expert.

Farwest Show Retail Tour highlights brand building at four premier garden centers

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The 2018 Farwest Show, August 22-24, in Portland, Oregon, will focus one of its three annual tours on garden retail on Tuesday, August 21, 7:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sponsored by The Peters Company, the tour, “Building Your Independent Garden Center’s Brand Within Your Community”, will be fun and informative visiting four of the Portland […]

Meet the Leader: Patrick Newton

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Meet the Leader is a section of Digger Magazine that highlights the voices of Oregon’s nursery industry. Who is Patrick? I’m kind of a city kid who found his way into the nursery industry. I had owned a couple of small businesses that focused on yard maintenance and hardscapes. My father-in-law presented me with a […]

A perennial favorite

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Traditional and new Agastache varieties offer beauty, fragrance and other endearing qualities If not for agastache’s manifold attractive qualities, growers and landscapers may have given up on this sun-loving flowering perennial long ago for its finicky and sometimes sprawling growth habit. Agastache has endured as a garden favorite with growers and landscapers because it checks […]

Excellence on display

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Is it worth the trouble of creating a display or trial garden at your nursery? We spoke to several growers about the challenges and benefits Many wholesale and even retail nurseries establish a display garden on their premises. These gardens can impress, instruct and inspire customers, while showing them what the plants look like in […]

Five business books worth reading

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I love reading in just about any genre, but I don’t love reading books about business. The writing is often dry, the information sometimes unhelpful, and the tone often a little too boastful for my taste. That said, the right book can make a significant impact on work habits, creativity, and overall outlook. Here are five […]

Don’t sleep on the WPS

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During the administration of Barack Obama, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) expanded the rules for agricultural operations to protect workers from pesticide exposure. These rules make up the Worker Protection Standard (WPS). With a new administration, the same rules apply. While not passed by Congress, these rules are very real and the nursery and greenhouse […]

Move forward on immigration

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I’d be willing to bet most folks in our industry don’t have an elaborate tie collection. I myself own three. They rarely come out except for the occasional wedding or funeral, but this past May, I packed all of them up and headed to our nation’s capital to do some politicking on behalf of our […]

Farwest 2018 Keynote Speaker immigration advocate Ali Noorani offers new approaches to the Immigration Debate

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At the 2018 Farwest Show, August 22-24, in Portland, Oregon, Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum, will deliver the keynote address on one of the most explosive issues for agriculture and the country — immigration. Noorani’s speech, “Leading the Way: A New Approach to American Immigration,” opens the show on Wednesday, August […]

Oregon nursery acquires Netherlands blueberry producers

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Fall Creek Farm & Nursery in Lowell, Oregon, announced June 14 that it has purchased Driesvenplant B.V. of The Netherlands, officially adding the region of northern Europe to the operation’s international portfolio of blueberry breeding, research and development centers. Fall Creek already breeds and produces blueberries in the United States, Mexico, Peru, and Spain. In […]