Well, the summer is off to an interesting start here at the nursery. We can’t remember a time where we have had so much continual rain. The summer solstice rolled in after several weeks of rain – over 10 inches just in June so far. The day after summer solstice, our county was hit hard by a tornado & dumped several inches more of rain.  As we prepare this email in the last days of June, it is still raining…

We feel very lucky to have missed the tornado. Our nursery was in the direct path.  In fact it skipped over the nursery & touched down just 1 mile east taking out a neighbors roof.  Then it touched down next in the town of Coal City just a few miles more to the east.  It caused devastating damage to the community. 

We had so many customers & nursery friends calling us the next day to see how we were & we really appreciate the out pouring of support from our friends. That’s what makes this a great industry to work in!

The photo on the top shows the flooding we found the next morning after the storm. Becky’s Dad flew over in his gyrocopter to take a look for us because we couldn’t get to the back of the nursery by truck or on foot. The video below shows how much the water went down just the next day. Our field is very well drained & in times like this we really value drainage. We did not sustain any lasting damage to anything & for that we are very thankful. We were not able to do any loading all week & we also appreciate the patience of our customers as we begin drying out. 

Click here to view our VIDEO AFTER STORMS

Other than all of that excitement, we are working on pruning & staking in the field. The rain all month has got us behind on weed control but we have been able to keep up on our insect spraying. We ware looking forward to some drier days ahead & maybe even a little sunshine!

We welcome you to stop by the nursery for a visit. It’s a great time of year to see the trees we have growing for the future.