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Plants on the move: Freight with uncertainty

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COVID-19 threw nursery shipping for a loop, but things settled and stayed strong Gary “Bert” Bertleson used to have it pretty good in the summer. The head of nursery over-the-road sales for Integrity Logistics, a freight shipping and trucking broker in Wilsonville, Bertleson would regularly take an entire month off in the summer. He was […]

Plants on the move: Making room for safety

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On nursery loading docks, COVID-19 changed everything Uncertainty and panic about the COVID-19 pathogen quickly took hold of shipping companies and nursery loading docks across the United States earlier this year. “It was the third week of March — that Wednesday, Thursday, Friday,” said Matt Frederick, logistic coordinator and operations manager of K&M Distribution Inc. […]

Plants on the move: An oasis for the road

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Nurseries provide hospitality for drivers cut off from usual resources The open road has been lonely for truckers in 2020. That’s according to Matt Frederick, operations manager for of K&M Distribution Inc. (Rogue River, Oregon), which serves the nursery industry. When moving a nursery stock shipment in a refrigerated truck, a driver headed to the […]

Meet the leader: Jesse Nelson

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General ManagerHans Nelson & Sons Nursery Inc. OAN member since: 2002 OAN roles/positions: Board of Directors – Field and Bare Root Tell us about yourself: I grew up doing different little jobs around our family farm in Boring, Oregon, for as long as I can remember. My grandfather started Hans Nelson & Sons Nursery in […]

Strength and wisdom

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An adage says ‘behind every great man is a great woman,’ but it seems archaic to bring up these days with the budding ascension of so many women as national leaders. My two politically-active and college-aged daughters have watched Democratic vice presidential nominee Sen. Kamala Harris of California become a viable national force in real […]

The Advocacy Issue: October 2020

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In this special issue, we explore the ways OAN members speak out on behalf of the nursery industry. We will take you inside the process — including the need for speaking out, the team that works on OAN advocacy, the approach that OAN follows, the issues OAN addresses and the battle to keep down the […]

COVID-19 lessons from plant societies

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In this unprecedented period of a COVID-19 pandemic, several forest fires with lingering air pollution, and a very dry summer that has stressed all our plants, garden centers have also had to make many adjustments to retain their current customer base. On top of that, they also need to attract new customers. Some garden centers […]

Pollinator plant trials

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Researchers test the value of Willamette Valley natives and nativars Interest in native plant gardening is at an all-time high. For example, native plants were ranked as the top landscape garden trend for 2017–2018 by the American Society of Landscape Architects, and for 2018–2019 by Garden Media Group’s Garden Trends Report. The demand is such […]

The Advocacy Issue, Part 5: The cost of doing business

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Rod Park once met a cattleman. The nurseryman and OAN past president was attending a conference years ago, talking to aggies from other sectors. The rancher reported that he had grown from raising 500 head of cattle to 1,000 head, but he was making the same net income. It was, essentially, double the risk, double […]