Welcome, November! ‘Tis the season for feasting, football and food comas, Pilgrim. ‘Tis also the official month to wrap up your last-minute Christmas shopping, that jolly process that all loyal American consumers started around, if not before, Labor Day.
Why, before you know it, it’ll be November 5
th
, time for the time-honored tradition of forgetting to turn your clocks back an hour so you can wonder briefly why you’re the first person at the office on Monday the 6
th
.
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We extend our sincere thanks to all of you who took time to offer condolences for the loss of Wyona Babikow, ECG co-founder, who passed away in late October. She was a very special lady, a mentor in every way, and she is greatly missed by all.
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■ Reminder: Our MidAtlantic area customers can save serious money by picking up orders FOB here in Lancaster. No freight charge! No packing charge! And your plants arrive fresh as a daisy on our climate-controlled trucks. We’re looking forward to just two (2) more transfers from Florida, 11/13 and 12/04. That’s probably it, finis, done, all she wrote, for 2017. Get yours on board!
■ Keep your over-ripe tomatoes handy: Yours Truly will be on the podium at Landscape Alberta’s Green Industry & Show in Calgary on 11/16, spouting off on ornamental grasses. Hope to see you there, eh?
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RANDOM USELESS FACTS DEPARTMENT
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■ November is, among many other things, Historic Bridge Awareness Month. Is it just us, or does it seem a bit excessive to devote 30 entire days to pondering George Washington’s apocryphal wooden dentures? Chew on that a while.
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■ As its name implies, November was once the ninth month. But a couple of egomaniacal Roman emperors eponymized wholesale chunks of time in their own honor, bumping it to #11. It’s good to be king, eh?
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What’s hot, you ask?
Heuchera
. Which one? All of them! How hot? Smokin’. No matter how many we grow, they go. Right now, they’re gone – all of them! We offer 26 varieties, and each and every one is showing a fat zero (0) on current Availability.
Despair not! Our fall production has your winter and spring production covered. Fresh availability starts in January, which is just (gulp!) nine (9) short weeks away. And more and more will be hot on the heels of that first wave. So rest assured, but don’t rest too easy for too long. Crunch your numbers, place your orders, and
then
relax.
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HORTISCOPE: Zodiac on wry
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According to an ancient Greek legend that came to us in a dream,
Scorpio
&
Sagittarius
spent a bit too much quality time together and begat
Scorpitarius
, the archer scorpion who can sling his toxic stinger across the entire night sky, almost always resulting in a first down. Look for the Marvel Comics blockbuster movie starring Bob Saget, directed by Martin Scorsese, coming soon to a theater near you as a sign that Hollywood has finally run completely out of ideas.
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In most of America, November is a fine time to pot up three popular genera.
Helleborus
,
Hemerocallis
and
Hosta
will be perfectly happy to overwinter in your cool houses, calmly colonizing their containers with the roots that will nourish a flourish of foliage come milder temps and longer days.
Hemerocallis
: If you’re having only one of the myriad options in this mega-popular genus, that one had better be
‘Stella de Oro’
. It’s number 1 among the very few perennials that even casual gardeners everywhere know by name.
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Here’s hoping you have lots to be thankful for in this month of Thanksgiving; for instance, that you were among the fortunate majority not in the crosshairs of some disaster, natural or manmade. Give a thought, and more, to your less-lucky peers and colleagues as you slice the turkey and sink into the recliner for your well-earned football fix. Next time, it could as easily be you. Or me.
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John Friel
Marketing Manager
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