~ January 20, 2025

The New Year is a time of fresh beginnings and renewed aspirations, filled with opportunities and possibilities. This year, the SGN Family rang in the New Year on the coast of Oregon overlooking the beautiful and wild Pacific ocean before heading inland to one of our favorite cities: Portland! We took time to retreat as a family, enjoy the beautiful Oregon landscapes, visit with friends and learn from tree experts at our supplier nurseries, reflect on the past year, and set our sights on the goals and dreams that lie ahead. With a renewed sense of inspiration we are ready for 2025, to embrace change, nurture growth, and step boldly into the future aligning with our vision to grow healthy trees, deep roots, and strong communities. 

This winter Joey is interning at our good friends and liner supplier Robinson Nursery learning all about young tree production. We like to visit our supplier farms every few years, so this was the perfect opportunity to pack up and head west. The last time Maggie visited liner nurseries was when she was in junior high so a lot has changed since then, and this was Zach and the kiddos first time out to Oregon. Oregon is truly a special place. We love how diverse the landscape is – the dunes in the east, stunning Columbia River Gorge, sprawling Willamette Valley, powerful Pacific Ocean, green cityscape of Portland, to snowy Mt. Hood jutting up out of seemingly nowhere! The agricultural diversity compared to the Midwest was something that stood out to us, as well. On a 20 minute drive you could see vast hazelnut and chestnut farms, vineyards, breweries growing hops, fruit orchards, Christmas tree farms, and nurseries as far as the eye can see. It seemed like everyone’s yards were turned into homesteads with farm and fruit stands. We were inspired to keep diversifying our Midwestern landscape with trees and tree crops! 

Nursery Visits

Up first was a visit to Robinson Nursery, where Joey has gotten the lay of the land for the last month working in different areas of production. Josh Robinson gave us the best behind the scenes tour where we explored their beautiful farm and got to watch our spring crop of trees getting sorted, bundled, and prepped for shipping to us in a few short months. We each got to learn more about how the other’s nurseries came to be and the driving forces behind what motivates each of our families to do the work that we do. We are inspired by the Robinson family’s commitment to quality and innovation and their passion for “Growing people and plants to change the world.” This is evident by their positive and goal-oriented company culture and their involvement in global mission work with the organizations Plant with Purpose and Compassion International. We are grateful for our partnership with such a great business and an even better group of people behind the business. It’s pretty special to say that you got to see your trees from start to finish and have the opportunity to work on them every step of the way. Joey has been graciously welcomed there as part of their team and family, and they showed us that same hospitality during our visit. Thank you to the Robinson family for hosting us!

The next stops on our West Coast Nursery Tour we visited Heritage Seedlings and Kuenzi Turf & Nursery outside of Salem, Oregon. Each nursery offered an inside look at tree production from the very beginning stages. We saw seedlings, grafting, potting, and millions of baby trees! Heritage was, “started by Mark and Jolly Krautmann on 5 rented acres. Over the course of 40+ years, Heritage has evolved from a startup to a complex propagation nursery employing 40 and growing more than 520 kinds of rare and unusual woody plants.” Eric Hammond, who gave us a tour of the nursery, recently came back to work at Heritage after taking a leave to research and go seed collecting in China. Most of the plants Heritage grows are sold wholesale to nurseries and garden centers on the West Coast and Canada, though they do ship across the greater U.S. Many of their varieties are specialty or rare plants. We loved getting to see the seedling side of the industry and are fascinated by seed collecting! 

Over at Kuenzi Nursery, Tyler Kuenzi showed us around their beautiful farm. From seeing trees starting at seed, to propagation and grafting, growing in air pots, and field growing liners we got the whole backstage experience. Started in 1990, Kuenzi Turf & Nursery “specializes in sod production, specimen shade, flowering and conifer trees, Japanese maple trees, and bare root liners.” Their focus on building relationships, fostering collaboration, and bettering the environment are the icing on the cake to growing great trees. Many of the Oak trees that we line out in our field are from Kuenzi, and we find that they take really well to our field and grow with success in our Midwestern climate. The care that goes into every tree at Kuenzi is evident! While our visit was rainy, Fern had a blast jumping in the puddles around the farm. Both Fern & Benji loved exploring the nurseries – it was a perfect stop for a family vacation. Thank you to Eric and Tyler for sharing part of your day with us at your beautiful nurseries! 

Our final nursery tour stop was to J. Frank Schmidt & Son Co. in (not so) Boring, Oregon. With Mt. Hood looming in the distance, JFS Nursery is a powerhouse in the industry with over 1 million trees harvested each year on 3,000 acres of production across 6 farms. We were treated to a fantastic tour by New Plant Development Manager Guy Meacham. We saw trees in every stage of production and were able to watch bare root harvest, grading, and bundling in action. We learned from Guy that in his area of new plant development that it takes between 17-30 years to bring a new cultivar or hybrid to market. Persistence and patience rule in the tree world! Thank you to the team at J. Frank Schmidt for your commitment & dedication to growing trees and sharing your passion with our SGN family & the world! 

Sightseeing

Our SGN Trees Family made the most out of our time together sightseeing in between nursery visits. We enjoyed exploring Newport on the coast, the Tillamook Creamery, exploring Eugene, Portland’s Japanese Gardens, Multnomah Falls, the Columbia River Gorge, and Mt. Hood. The sea lions and fresh seafood in Newport were a hit with the kids and the Tillamook Creamery was a delight with the cheese and ice cream we got to enjoy! Maggie, Zach, & Joey had to of course catch some Illini Basketball who were conveniently in Eugene playing the Ducks. It was an amazing Illini win, too! And we can’t say enough about the Portland area – such a beautiful city with stunning parks located just outside of the Columbia River Gorge scenic highway and near the base of Mt. Hood. We really got to experience the best of what Oregon had to offer on this trip. We loved our time together in the trees!

Wrap Up

It is remarkable to see firsthand the dedication and hard work that goes into growing trees. When we visit our Oregon nursery partners, we get a glimpse into the 5 year process a tree takes from seed or cutting to get to the size it is when we receive and plant it into our field. Hard work, dedication, patience, and faith all play huge roles in the growing of trees – or anything, for that matter. We continue to be amazed by the great people in the Green Industry and are humbled to be able to do the work that we do growing SGN Trees for our communities! When you plant an SGN Tree, you are planting not just something grown and cared for in our field, but a tree that has been grown and cared for by many hands over many years to bring forth the best possible tree to grow for generations to come. We take great pride in our trees and even more pride in our relationships; that’s really what it’s all about! 

After Maggie, Zach, and the kiddos flew back to Illinois and Joey returned to work at Robinson, Becky and Jamie continued on to the Redwoods. You can read more about their amazing trek through the trees here!

We hope you enjoy these pics of our New Years nursery adventures – Cheers to Trees!

~ Maggie Thomas Harper