(gentle music) - Tom and I love to visit greenhouses.

Maybe it's because we had a greenhouse for so many years, but more likely because it's so fun to see all the plants, some new varieties and some of our favorite golden oldies.

We were blessed to have great people to work with and that's what we find when we visit local greenhouses.

The people are familiar with the plants and what will do well in our soil and light conditions, so can give great advice.

Let's go visit one of those special hometown greenhouses.

- [Narrator] Funding for "Prairie Yard and Garden" is provided by Heartland Motor Company, providing service to Minnesota and the Dakotas for over 30 years in the heart of truck country.

Heartland Motor Company, we have your best interest at heart.

Farmers Mutual Telephone Company and Federated Telephone Cooperative proud to be powering Acira, pioneers in bringing state-of-the-art technology to our rural communities.

Mark and Margaret Yackel-Juleen in honor of Shalom Hill Farm, a non-profit rural education retreat center in a beautiful prairie setting near Windom, Minnesota.

And by Friends of Prairie Yard and Garden, a community of supporters like you who engage in the long-term growth of the series.

To become a friend of "Prairie Yard and Garden," visit pioneer.org/pyg.

(gentle music) - [Mary] Mike Cihak is the producer of "Prairie Yard and Garden."

He grew up at Barnesville, Minnesota and was telling me about the excellent hometown greenhouse located there.

He said they do a great job, especially with bedding plants and hanging baskets.

Well, my ears perked right up and I called to see if we could come for a visit.

Stephanie Specht is the owner and she said yes.

So we loaded up and headed for Barnesville.

Thanks so much, Stephanie, for letting us come and visit.

- Yeah, we appreciate you coming.

- Tell me how was Thompson Greenery started?

- The original Thompson Greenery was started by the mother of the former owners.

She had started it then the former owners purchased it from her and ran it for the next 40 years and turned it into what you see here today.

We purchased it in 2022 and have just carried on what they have built over those 40 years.

- How and when did you get involved with the business?

- I have worked here for about eight years prior to us taking ownership.

I've always loved gardening and I enjoyed working at the nursery.

And so when they were getting close to retirement, we approached them about purchasing the nursery.

- [Mary] Where is Thompson Greenery located?

- [Stephanie] It's in Barnesville, Minnesota, about 22 miles outside of the Fargo-Moorhead area.

- [Mary] Okay.

So how big is the town of Barnesville?

- [Stephanie] I think the last check is about 2,500 people roughly.

- [Mary] Okay.

So how Big of an area do you serve?

- [Stephanie] We get people from a long distance away.

We get a lot of people from the Kindred, Wahpeton, Lisbon area.

We get a lot of lakes people that come through here on their way to Pelican and Cormorant and all of that area over there.

But we've also had people that have come through and said, "Hey, I'm from Jamestown.

I saw you on Facebook."

So a wide, wide group of people.

- [Mary] Do you do both retail and wholesale?

- [Stephanie] Yes, we do retail and wholesale.

- [Mary] How many wholesale accounts do you have and what does that involve?

- We have approximately 20 wholesale accounts that we serve in North Dakota and in Minnesota, and we start working with them in February when we send out our wholesale purchase lists and then we work with them throughout the spring in helping them determine what their needs are for that year and then we start delivering at the end of April.

- So what is Thompson Greenery known for?

- Thompson Greenery is known for a variety of things.

The previous owners were very knowledgeable in tree and health and how to grow them and care for them, but they also were very well known for their bedding plants and hanging baskets.

Through the years they have become very skillful growers and they have passed that knowledge onto us so that we can continue what you see here today.

- [Mary] Do you start your own plants or do you get them in?

- I would say 99% of the plants that we have here, we get in as plugs, which are just tiny plants and we start planting at the beginning of March with our hanging baskets and we grow those up until the plants that you see today.

We also do order in some finished product that we just don't either have the space or the time to grow.

We do some seeding of our vining crops like pumpkins and squash and cucumbers and melons and things like that.

We start those probably closer to the beginning of May.

- How do you decide what to grow?

- Well, we go on what has been trending for the last year.

We always have the staples.

Geraniums are always by far the most popular, but you go to trade shows and growing shows and they'll tell you what is the latest that's coming up.

And so you always try to have some of those items as well.

But you find that people kind of have what they like and what they are comfortable with growing and so you need to make sure that you have those every year as well.

- How do your wholesale customers let you know what they wanna order?

- Well, we send out a list at the beginning of February with what we are going to offer.

And so it isn't until the end of that growing season that then they can say, "Hey, I really needed more of this product or of that product."

And so then we can adjust our ordering for the following growing season.

- [Mary] So when you add new varieties that you see at the trade shows or anything, do you eliminate sometimes some of the less popular things too?

- [Stephanie] We do, we only have so much space and so we always have to get rid of a few varieties that we saw didn't sell as well the year before.

But if people continue to ask for them or see that they're missing, then we try and get those back in the rotation the next year.

- [Mary] How many houses do you have here in your complex?

- [Stephanie] Well, we have the main house here and then we have five more grow houses along back this way, plus a small house there and then one more grow house over here.

- [Mary] Oh my gosh.

So do you carry trees and shrubs and perennials too?

- [Stephanie] Yes, we carry all of those of a wide variety of trees and shrubs and then our perennials, we start from plugs as well and grow.

- [Mary] Where do you put everything?

- [Stephanie] In all of these houses (laughing) and then our trees and shrubs, we do have a tree and shrub area outside that we house all of that.

- Stephanie, how many hanging baskets or planters do you do each year?

- Hanging baskets alone, we do over 5,000.

And then beyond that we do another probably seven or 800 geranium planters and then another variety of probably two or 300 mixed planters.

- [Mary] Could you please show us how you do those baskets?

- [Stephanie] Sure.

I'd love to show you how we do.

(gentle music) - I can't believe that you grow 5,000 baskets.

Is that all for retail?

- No, we wholesale quite a few of them to our wholesale customers, but we also do plantings for some cities like the city of Barnesville, we plant all of their city baskets that are hung uptown as well as their planters on the corners.

And then we plant for MSU, Castleton, Glyndon, Clay County, just a variety of cities in the area.

- [Mary] And do they specify what colors they wanna use or what plants they wanna use?

- [Stephanie] Only one town likes to choose their recipe every year and they've come up with some really great ones this year.

They have a variety of blue petunias.

It's really pretty, but most people... MSU wants their school colors.

But then everybody else seems to want the biggest seller, which is the Bubblegum-Silverberry Fuchsia mix, which gets you the biggest petunia basket that you can get.

- [Mary] Do you start those organization baskets at the same time that you do all of these for the greenhouse too?

- [Stephanie] Yes, they're started in March.

- [Mary] Okay, can you demonstrate how you start your baskets?

- Sure, this is a little different than how we start our baskets 'cause we start our baskets with plugs, really small plants, but all of our plants have grown up.

So we're gonna go ahead and use full-size plants.

The first thing that we do is that we use a slow-release fertilizer.

This provides nutrition throughout the summer, but that doesn't mean that you can then not do any fertilizing.

This is just kind of a base fertilizer.

So we put about a tablespoon on the top, you're gonna sprinkle it on the very top of the dirt.

- And what kind of potting soil do you use?

- This is Berger soil that we purchase, but any potting soil that you have at home Miracle Grow, Happy Frog, those also work just fine.

But then you're gonna mix in, you want that mixed in the first couple inches of the top layer of soil, okay?

Then you can go ahead and choose your plants.

It's nice to have one tall one that you can put in the back or the center, depending on where you're gonna set your pot.

You can kind of roughen up the roots a little bit.

- [Mary] And why do you do that?

- [Stephanie] So that they don't continue to grow in a circle and they'll start to grow throughout the pot.

- Okay.

- Okay.

This is a Salvia and we're gonna put this in the back.

I'm gonna have this be in the back of the pot.

Okay.

- And why?

- This one is because it's gonna be the tallest and I'm gonna plant this as though you're going to put it up against like your doorstop or something like that.

All of these are full sun and they all have similar water requirements, which is also very important.

You don't wanna put plants that don't like being watered with plants that need a lot of water, otherwise one or the other is going to die.

So this is Superbells.

This is a Calibrachoa or they call 'em Superbells or Millionbells are some of the trade names that they're also known by.

So I'm gonna put that one in the front right here because this one kind of mounds, but it will also trail off to the side, okay?

So get that one in right there.

Scooch him over.

Okay.

And then this is a Jazzberry, this one is a Supertunia Vista.

So this, when you see the name vista, that means very big.

So if you're looking for those super big petunias, vista is in the name.

So look for that.

So this petunia will get quite big.

So I'm gonna put this off to the side on this side so that it has room to trail over to the other side.

Okay.

Take some of this out.

All right, we got that one.

All right, so we got our two flowers, then we have sweet potato vine.

I like this because this will trail off the front and add a nice transition between the flowers and the pot.

Okay.

And I do like the contrast.

These dark color ones go really well with fuchsia-colored flowers.

- Well, it's a beautiful color and it really does pick up all of these different shades.

- Yeah.

- It's great.

- [Stephanie] Alright, so we're gonna slip that in the front right there.

- And this would be for full sun?

- This is a full sun planter.

So once you're done with that, you got it all in there, shaken off the stuff.

- And then do you have the soil right up level with the side of the pot, or do you push it down a little bit?

- You wanna push it down a little bit.

You wanna leave about this much watering space on the top so that when you water, it doesn't all flow over the top, but you don't want it too deep because if you get it like this deep below, you know the dirt before the dirt starts, well then there's no air flow and then there's gonna be fungus that will start in here because there's not enough air getting in and around the plant.

So you want 'em just right below the lip enough for some water to sit in there, but not too much that it gets damp.

- Okay.

- Okay, so that's this one.

- Good deal.

- This one is for sun.

Okay.

And then we'll do one for shade.

We'll do the same thing.

We've got our Osmocote again, same amount, (bottle rattling) and we'll mix that in.

- [Mary] And the amount you use varies with the size of the container you're putting it into?

- Yes, and all the directions are on the bottle that will show you exactly how much.

So on this one I'm gonna to use a Dracaena Spike.

This is gonna be my thriller and we're gonna put that in the back.

- [Mary] If you were going to see it from every direction, could you just put it in the middle then too?

- Yeah, you can just put it in the center and then have your plants go around in a 360 and that works.

So begonias, a tip with begonias is when you're planting them, plant them so that their leaves are going out, they're not pointing.

So if you look at this begonia, you'll see that the leaves are growing this way.

So we wanna plant it going out.

Don't plant it this way with the leaves going in.

Otherwise everything will grow inward and you want them to grow outward over the end of the pot.

So I'm gonna put this one here.

Leaves going out at the front of the pot and then we have a second one and we're gonna do the same thing.

- What kind of begonias are these?

Because I know there's different kinds.

- There are, this one, this white one is called a Nonstop begonia.

Very easy to care for.

And then this one here is the Nonstop rose.

Nonstops are very easy to care for.

Another really easy variety to care for is the Solenia begonia that blooms all summer.

So I'm gonna do the same thing.

Leaves are headed away, going outside the pot so that they are growing away.

All right, I'm gonna scoot that one over a little bit because I want to use some filler here.

So this is Lobelia and I like using cell packs as fillers because when you use cell packs as fillers, you can disperse them around the pot instead of having a big chunk, big chunk, big chunk.

Now I can have three big chunks and then a bunch of little ones in between.

And when all this grows together then this blue will fill in between all of these plants and provide nice transition between each one of them and it'll look fuller faster because that's what we want, fuller faster.

Okay, so we've got all those in there.

So right now this is ready to go out on your porch.

- So when people take them home, what do you recommend for their care in their yards?

- So this one...

I bring this back.

This one is full sun.

So you're gonna wanna have it in at least six hours of sun because it has petunias and this Calibrachoa in it, you're gonna have to fertilize it more regularly.

So water it, for sure, every day, especially as the summer goes on, because as the summer goes on, these are going to grow roots and take up the majority of this pot with their roots.

So you're going to have to be watering it more frequently as the summer goes on.

Fertilize at least once a week because of the petunia and Calibrachoa, they enjoy lots of fertilizer.

We recommend, or we do Jack's petunia feed.

It's a higher iron petunia feed that will prevent chlorosis in both of these plants.

Okay, now this one is gonna be different because begonias don't like to be wet.

They don't like to be watered in the evening.

So early morning watering, don't get water on the leaves or you'll get sunburn and then you can fertilize maybe once every other week.

They don't need as much fertilizer as what you would see with a petunia.

- Do you have to prune off or trim off spent flowers?

- [Stephanie] In your begonias, in order for them to keep blooming, you don't have to.

They look nicer if you do take off the dead blossoms instead of waiting for them to drop.

These, on the other hand, their dead flowers will shrivel up and the new growth will just cover whatever has died off.

And so you don't need to do any deadheading for the petunia or the Calibrachoa.

- These are just gorgeous and I can't wait to see like the Barnesville baskets later on this summer after they filled out, but you do more things too besides just the spring bedding plant crop, right?

- Yeah, we have many events that go on over the summer and then into the fall.

- Well, can I find Out about those too?

- Yeah, I'd be happy to share that.

(gentle music) - I have a question.

I would like to plant a shade tree in my yard, but I do not want to plant an ash.

What would you recommend?

- So if you're looking for a tree to plant in your yard, but you don't wanna plant an ash tree, because we've all heard about emerald ash borer and how it's killing ash trees all over Minnesota.

You don't wanna plant an ash, but you want a nice, big shade tree that's gonna cut your electric bills and your house by 25%.

It's gonna be a nice place to hang out for barbecues in your backyard.

You're looking for something that has a nice, wide canopy with a lot of dense leaves to provide dense shade over your lawn, right?

All right, so what you want is some sort of deciduous tree and I'm gonna recommend trees that are gonna be drought-resistant.

You want something that's not gonna be susceptible to a lot of disease so that you can just plant it, water it for a couple years and then see how it does.

One that I'm gonna recommend is think about a hickory.

Yes, it has nuts, but guess what?

If you have squirrels and deer around, they're gonna probably take care of those and there's probably not gonna be too many leftover that you have to pick up as long as you have a little bit of wildlife nearby.

This tree that I'm standing in front of is actually a shagbark hickory.

I love shagbark hickories.

One reason is look at the bark!

How fun.

So shagbark hickories are gonna be a nice, tall canopy about 60 feet to a hundred feet tall and 40 to 50 feet wide.

So think about planting this in a place in your yard where you want a lot of shade, maybe on the southwest corner of your house.

So it takes care of that afternoon heat.

So another one that I really like is the basswood.

The DNR predicts that the basswood is gonna be another one that's a climate-resilient tree.

It can deal with some drought, it can deal with some flooding.

It has a really wide, dense canopy.

So if you sit under that, you're gonna be able to be about, you know, 10, 20 degrees cooler than it is outside on a really, really hot day.

So think about that basswood, Japanese beetles like 'em, but once your tree gets nice and big, those Japanese beetles aren't gonna be able to make enough of a difference to kill your tree at all.

So a third one that I really like and I just planted it in my own yard at home is a hackberry.

I planted this in a place in my yard that has a lot of sandy soil because hackberries are very resilient in drought conditions.

They don't mind being in poor soil.

Hackberries are also gonna have a dense shade, but maybe like a medium-density shade.

So you might even be able to grow some plants underneath it too.

So those are three trees that I would recommend replacing your ash trees with.

- [Narrator] "Ask the Arboretum Experts" has been brought to you by the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum in Chaska dedicated to welcoming, informing and inspiring all through outstanding displays, protected natural areas, horticultural research and education.

- Stephanie, what are some of the classes and special events that you sponsor?

- In the springtime, we offer some educational classes to our customers on watering, container design and about different types of plants like petunias.

But we also offer fun classes where you can complete a project like make a Christmas tree or make a pine pot or make a planter out of some of the hanging baskets that we have.

- So do you teach all the classes or do you have staff that helps?

- I teach all the educational classes, but then we ask two other people to come in and they teach like stained glass or resin making, things like that.

- Okay.

So then spring kind of starts to wind down.

How about the summer and the fall?

- In the summer and fall, we have some events that are open to the public.

We have a couple of vendor shows.

One is called Maker's Market at the end of August where we have probably 30 or 35 vendors that come in.

Everything is either handmade or repurposed by that artisan.

We also have some food trucks and then we have sales and things like that going on as well.

They're all held right here in the main greenhouse.

- So you can have them whether the weather is bad or... - Right.

If it's raining, we still have a great turnout because everything is inside.

- So like what are some of the vendors that you have at your Maker's Market?

- We have everything from baking to jewelry, to crystals to t-shirts to quilting, pretty much anything that you can think of.

- Then do you do a lot of fall events too?

- We do a couple of fall events.

We're gonna hold a couple of evenings where customers can come in and maybe we'll do a fun activity, like a make-and-take, canvas art, or planter, something like that.

And then we'll have some sales, we'll have a food truck, things like that.

Then we also have, at the end of September, beginning of October, we have festival and that is another vendor show where we invite vendors in for a day.

And oftentimes we get some different people at that time, different vendors because we're looking more towards things that are for sale for Christmas.

And then we continue to have pumpkins and mums, we'll have food and end-of-the-year sales.

- [Mary] Are you open year round?

- [Stephanie] We're not.

We actually close to the public at the beginning of October, but then we continue to have classes in November, like pine pot classes, Christmas decor classes that we do a few weekends in November.

- What is a pine pot class?

- So that is when you make those winter containers with all the evergreens.

And then we also have for sale, extra cute little berries and snowman and snowflakes and things that you can add to your pot.

- [Mary] You have a lot of garden decor here.

Do you use those in some of your classes too?

- [Stephanie] Sometimes we will do planter classes and then they can also choose, you know, a little pot sticker.

We have some magnetic butterflies that you can stick to metal pots, things like that that we can add to it.

- This is the busy time of the year for you, but when was the last time you had a day off at the greenhouse?

- Probably the middle of February.

- [Mary] So you've been pretty much been working straight through for four months?

- Yes, yes.

- Wow.

What are the main reasons that people come and shop here at Thompson Greenery?

- [Stephanie] I would say the two biggest reasons are we have really healthy plants and we have a knowledgeable staff that is gonna take the time to help you and if you have questions they will help you and they know what they're doing.

They're all gardeners themselves.

They have a lot of knowledge from gardening for many years and they love helping people find and put together arrangements and help them be successful in gardening as well.

- [Mary] So do you have any plans for the future or changes for the future?

- [Stephanie] Currently we're looking more to add more classes and such as the season goes on, but other than that, we're happy with the way things are right now and the model that was set up that we purchased has been very successful.

- [Mary] Thanks so much for letting us come to visit even in this rain, especially now during your busy season.

Thanks for giving us the time and showing us your beautiful place.

- [Stephanie] Yeah, not a problem.

We appreciate you coming.

At least we're able to talk.

If it was raining any harder, we wouldn't hear each other.

- [Narrator] Funding for "Prairie Yard and Garden" is provided by Heartland Motor Company, providing service to Minnesota and the Dakotas for over 30 years in the heart of truck country.

Heartland Motor Company, we have your best interest at heart.

Farmers Mutual Telephone Company and Federated Telephone Cooperative.

Proud to be powering Acira, pioneers in bringing state-of-the-art technology to our rural communities.

Mark and Margaret Yackel-Juleen in honor of Shalom Hill Farm, a nonprofit rural education retreat center in a beautiful prairie setting near Windom, Minnesota.

And by Friends of Prairie Yard and Garden, a community of supporters like you who engage in the long-term growth of the series.

To become a friend of "Prairie Yard and Garden," visit pioneer.org/pyg.

(gentle music)