A look into our growing division and a contest!

How does our garden grow?

The Rekker corporation is much more than just our garden centre. Those of you who have been on the poinsettia open house tours know that the store is just the tip of the iceberg and that the biggest part of our business is the growing division. There are approximately 20 acres of growing houses both here in Bowmanville and in our new location north of Newcastle.

From its humble beginnings as a farm stand in the 1960s, Rekker Gardens Inc. has grown into a large operation. We grow huge crops of annuals, chrysanthemums and poinsettias and supply several large retail chains, meaning our plants get shipped all across Ontario. Last year alone, we grew over 380,000 hanging baskets, over 100,000 planters and more than 100,000 trays of annual & vegetable plants for our spring season!

The growing houses are already filling up with green, and production on this year’s crops of awesome annuals is well underway. Here’s a few fun facts:

…Many of our annuals are grown from cuttings. We hand stick over 2.5 million cuttings! This starts in December and we stick an average of 150,000 cuttings per week, continuing into April.

…Our cuttings are sourced from many places, including Nicaragua, Kenya, Guatemala, Mexico, Israel, Tanzania, Columbia & Brazil! They are taken from the mother plant and shipped to our door within 48 hours and we have to move fast to get them stuck.

…Most cuttings begin to root within two weeks and are ready for transplant into pots, planters and hanging baskets after 5 weeks. It takes several more weeks to get them mature enough to sell. Some take even longer - our famous Boston ferns are planted in the previous July!

…In addition to cuttings, we typically seed over 6 million seeds of annuals and vegetables (of course not all of those become plants…we have a 60-90% germination rate).

…We grow over 400 varieties of plants for the spring season.

How well do you know your sprouts?

Here are some photos of the lovely young cuttings and seedlings currently growing in our production greenhouses. Can you name them all? You could win a $10 gift card! Email your answers to robin@rekkers.com and we will randomly draw one name from all the correct responses to be the winner.

• Either latin or common names are acceptable.

• Entries must be received by February 28th.

• Contest open to newsletter subscribers only.

• Please include your full name and contact information.

• Draw will be made on March 1st; winner will be notified by email.