Farwest Show Tours
August 23 - 24 |
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Registration for the Nursery Tours is now closed.
Please contact the OAN office at 503.682.5089 with inquiries.
Find new ways of thinking and meet your industry network face-to-face on VIP tours!
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Inspiration comes in many forms and the Farwest Show offers many tour options for boundless inspiration on Tuesday and Wednesday, August 23-24. If you relish finding new ways of thinking and learning more about the industry and what Oregon has to offer, join us!
Grow your success and competitive advantage. Discover new varieties. Meet new growers and suppliers. Explore new ideas. And meet other wonderful people and leaders in our industry.
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Who should register:
♦ Garden Centers
♦ Growers
♦ Rewholesalers and brokers
♦ Landscape architects, contractors and designers
Choose the experience that is right for you.
Tuesday, August 23
Tour 1 – Cool Stuff
8:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m.
Tour cost: $75 before Aug. 1; $110 after Aug. 1
Recommended for: Garden Centers, Landscapers, Growers
Take advantage of a rare opportunity to see an incredible variety of plant material and display gardens — all in one day. All stops will appeal to garden centers and landscape professionals in particular. Growers may want to linger at the bare root nursery.
View the Tour Description
The "Cool Stuff" Tour (Tour #1) starts the day at the Rogerson Clematis Collection in Lake Oswego. Linda Beutler, author, clematis expert and curator of the garden, will lead the tour. This is an opportunity to see how clematis, which is most frequently used as a vine, can be incorporated into the garden as groundcover and used as companion plants to expand seasonal interest. The collection includes plants that are unique or exceptionally rare. At approximately 500 taxa and just under 900 individual plants, it is one of the largest assemblage of clematis in the Western Hemisphere. Then it's on to a totally different plant palette at Rare Plant Research.
Owner Burl Mostul and his wife hand-built a stone villa and terraced gardens (think Spain) to showcase the new and unusual plants at Rare Plant Research, everything from Adansonia and Agave to Sinningia and Yucca. From this exotic locale where you'll feel transported to a different place and time, guests will arrive at Iseli Nursery where Living Art® is created. From the moment you drive by the helix topiary to when you enter the Jean Iseli Memorial Gardens, you'll understand why Iseli Nursery has earned its reputation as a premier grower of exceptional conifers and Japanese maples. The gardens offer mature specimens of many of the nursery's plants. Knowledgeable representatives will help you identify the plants that thrive in your locale.
Don Marjama Nursery Co. Inc. in Sandy, Ore. is a family-run nursery—two generations are involved in day-to-day activities. You won't be able to see all 267 acres and seven farms, but you will be able to see the result of long-term customer and employee relationships. The nursery evolved from Don and Le'Ann growing a few plants in their backyard as a hobby into a full-time nursery around 1990. They now ship throughout the US and Canada.
The final stop—and it's rumored that ice cream will be served—is bare root grower Surface Nursery. The nursery as has been in operation since 1925, offering its customers exceptional value and plant hardiness. You'll find neat rows of more than 140 varieties of shade and flowering deciduous trees and B&B Japanese maples with Mt. Hood serving as the picturesque backdrop.
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Tour 2 – Innovative Ideas
8:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m.
Tour cost: $75 before Aug. 1; $110 after Aug. 1
Recommended for: Growers
Implementing small and large changes can dramatically impact the success of a business, its bottom line profitability, marketing strategies and customer satisfaction. But innovation has its challenges, too. Test out new ways of thinking about maximizing truck loads, tissue culture, Lean manufacturing principles, VeriFlora certification, turning a family farm into a retail destination, and new field production technology.
View the Tour Description
This year, the Farwest Show offer a tour filled with innovative ideas, especially for growers. The Innovative Ideas Tour (Tour #2) heads first to one of Oregon's largest nurseries: A & R Spada Farms LLC. They ship a lot of plants and help their customers maximize their truck loads to minimize the landed cost of their plants. The way a truck is loaded and axles are "managed" impacts how much plant material can be put on a truck, which in turn, impacts the landed value (plant cost plus shipping) of each plant. In all likelihood, they will also have other innovative ideas to share with you, too.
The initial idea of tissue culture involved a chicken and occurred in 1885. More recently, tissue culture has been used to quickly propagate plants so those great new varieties can be brought to market more quickly. This tour will take you to one of Oregon's premier tissue culture labs where you're likely to discover the secret of why some plants are more amenable to this type of propagation—and others resist.
Bauman Farms & Garden has evolved in a more time-honored fashion. Great grandmother Bauman started farming in 1894 and today three generations are still involved in the business of farming and serving a growing garden center/wholesale hanging basket clientele. See why young and old like to gather at Bauman's for fresh cider donuts and the most luscious hanging petunia baskets ever, and wait with baited breath for the giant pumpkin helicopter drop (it raises funds for charity). You'll be eating your lunch among the flowers.
Just down the road is F & B Farms & Nursery. They've been involved in the Climate Friendly Nurseries Project, an OAN-sponsored sustainability initiative, and will share some of their insights that led them to reduce energy and resource consumption, greenhouse gas emissions and operational costs. This is a greenhouse operation that isn't afraid of change. They also signed onto the OAN Lean Program to find the least waste way to deliver better value to their customers.
The final stop on the tour is to the North Willamette Research and Extension Center for agricultural research. Extension agents are creating a nursery setting to showcase terrestrial and aerial approaches to inventory management, intelligent spray systems to increase pesticide application efficiency, moisture monitoring, alternative substrates, plant breeding and evaluations and more. At the very least, the day should inspire new ways of thinking.
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Wednesday, August 24
Tour 3 – "Knock Your Socks Off" Conifers
8:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m.
Tour cost: $75 before Aug. 1; $110 after Aug. 1
Recommended for: Garden Centers, Growers, Landscapers
Meet highly respected conifer growers and see one of the most extensive conifer collections in the country. Oregon is known for its grafted conifers and with hundreds of varieties it can be hard to know which ones to select for landscape projects, garden center sales or to grow. Frequently underutilized, conifers add structure and year round interest to any garden setting. Attendees will leave this incredible tour with a clear idea on what varieties they want to add to their inventory. The tour will appeal to all aspects of the green industry.
View the Tour Description
The Farwest Show declared this the Year of the Conifer believing that conifers—species and grafted—are underutilized in the landscape, yet they offer infinite opportunity for year round visual and textural interest in the landscape and in containers. In honor of the conifer, the Farwest Show designed a special tour—the "Knock Your Socks Off" Conifer Tour (Tour #3)—where visitors will see unique conifer liners to well-grown specimens to expand the mind and the palette for these amazing plants. (Guests will also see other plants, most notably Japanese maples; but the focus is definitely on the conifer.)
Starting at the spotless 30-acre, 25-year old Meadowcroft Farm Inc., you'll enjoy walking the fields of grafted and dwarf conifers. Their product line runs from one gallon through field-grown specimens, including boxed conifers and maples. And we'll be sure to allow time for relaxing in the shelter of their arboretum-like yard. (They are very proud of their Japanese maples in three and six gallon containers of which they offer over a hundred varieties.)
Russell's Nursery was established 28 years ago and has grown to 220 acres. In addition to hard work and years of experience, they attribute much of their success to an unparalleled growing environment: rich, deep, sandy loam topsoil, and outstanding climatic conditions, with abundant rainfall and sunshine. They also are very proud of their outstanding assortment of rare and unique dwarf conifers and Japanese maple selection.
Rare Tree Nursery was started by an east coast landscape designer that couldn't find the plant material he wanted for his designs so he decided to grow them himself. The nursery specializes in dwarf conifers—unusual varieties of fir, spruce and pine for the landscape—and Japanese maple cultivars. They grow all sizes from liners to specimen material and have meticulously selected the best varieties for USDA zones 5-7, consciously avoiding tender, obsolete, or unreliable varieties.
Owner Dave Grotz loves his conifers. You'll see his passion as he introduces you to his diverse selection of rare and unusual conifers and ornamentals at his Silverton farm. His collection includes dwarf, prostrate, variegated and pendulous varieties. The broad selection includes candidates for an assortment of environmental conditions and design challenges.
The day ends at The Oregon Garden and its extensive conifer collection, one of the most extensive in the US (or stroll other areas of the garden).
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Tour 4 – Merchandising Secrets on the Go
9
:30 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.
Tour cost: $50 before Aug. 1; $75 after Aug. 1
Recommended for: Garden Centers
Retailers shouldn't miss this easy walking tour of high-end retailers with renowned merchandising expert Linda Cahan, who will provide commentary on what makes good and bad displays. Prepare to look at your garden center with a fresh set of eyes when you return with great practical ideas that will help you sell more merchandise and plants all year round. Tour will take place at Bridgeport Village, an upscale shopping destination in a suburb of Portland.
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Tour Logistics
All tours leave the Oregon Convention Center promptly at 8am and return by 6pm except as noted. Register by July 31 for the early bird discounts. Last day to register for a tour is August 15. Space is limited to 50 per tour, so register early.
Early bird price is $75 per person for Tours 1, 2 and 3. Beginning August 1, these tours are $110 per person. Tour price includes lunch, snacks and beverages.
For the half-day "Merchandising Secrets on the Go" tour (Tour #4), the bus leaves the Oregon Convention Center promptly at 9:30 a.m. and returns by 1pm; lunch is on your own. Early bird price is $50 by July 31 and $75 beginning August 1.
Register online or by calling the OAN office at 503.682.5081 or 800.342.6401.
Cancellation policy: Registrations cancelled on or before July 31, 2011 will be assessed a $5 handling fee. No refunds will be given after July 31, 2011.
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