Washington Area Meeting - June 22, 2005

Our meeting took place on June 22, 2005, in the Seattle area. It was a day of nursery tours, beginning at the Center for Urban Hort., University of Washington. Although marked by constant rain, most people seemed to enjoy the tour stops, and the bus rides provided a great spot to ‘seek and share’ (and dry out).

We started out the day at The University of Washington’s new Merrill Hall, which is a LEED (“Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design”) certified building. The building was made with sustainable features that give it better water efficiency and energy savings than the norm. During construction, sustainability was kept in mind by recycling construction waste and using renewable building materials, among other methods. They also designed a storm water collection system. Excess run-off is sent through a bio-swale.

Merrill Hall is the home to the newly built Elisabeth C. Miller Library, which we also toured. This library is an excellent resource for home gardeners, students/staff of the Univ., students from grade school and on, professional horticulturalists, designers, landscapers, and arborists. They are able to use the library’s reference service, collections, and web site. They also offer a Plant Answer Line for general gardening questions over the phone or via email. Overall, it was an interesting stop.

T&L Nursery in Redmond
Our next stop was T&L Nursery in Redmond, WA. T&L grows a wide selection of heathers, vines, groundcovers, ornamental grasses, and perennials. They are dedicated to “producing quality plants that will stand the test of time.” Their production facility covers over 20 acres of growing space, and they have been incorporated since 1985. We enjoyed our tour of both greenhouse and field crops, before sitting down to a great lunch provided by T&L.

Klem’s Greenhouse, Inc.
After breaking up the great discussions going on around the lunch tables, we drove to Klem’s Greenhouse, Inc., also located in Redmond, WA. Begonias are the niche for Klem‘s. They sell rieger begonia liners nationwide, as well as a high quality finished line locally. Klem’s was started in 1985 by Mark Klemmedson. Although expansion at the current site is limited by the county building department, Klem’s has tried to increase production by improving the efficiency of the existing space and crop growing schedules.

Henry’s Plant Farm
The last tour stop of the day was Henry’s Plant Farm, in Snohomish, WA. Henry’s started out in 1975 propagating and selling ferns form spore. The current owner, Jim Nash took over in 1985. Henry’s has grown to 130,000 sf and two acres of outside production. In 2004, an additional 160,000 sf were added. Henry’s produces both liners and a finished line sold locally. Their crops include, Storytella garden and tropical ferns from spore, asparagus, cineraria, dracaena indivisa, primula, tuberous begonias, vegetative structure plants, and general bedding plants.

There were about 22 people who attended our meeting. All seemed happy to have an opportunity to meet in our area. Almost all attendees were current members. The next challenge is to put together a meeting that would draw the non-members who were invited, but did not respond.