From the Fields - Janet Kister

By Janet Kister, San Diego County nursery producer 

The brutal hot weather we had this summer played havoc with our plants for fall and winter. These seasonal plants include ornamental kale, cyclamen, Christmas cactus, amaryllis, and rosemary and lavender holiday trees. It was a grower’s nightmare to try and coax them to be ready according to the schedule. Mother Nature will always prevail, so some plants were delayed while others came in early. With a lot of hard work, the holiday plants finished beautifully, and the customers are happy, even if the timing was off somewhat. In the end, a happy customer is what we work towards.

During the pandemic years while everyone was spending more time at home, plants were all the rage and sold frantically. No one could get enough houseplants for their home décor and to add to their plant collections. Since few were travelling, many were doing home improvement projects that included revitalizing their landscape. That was fun while it lasted.

This summer, everyone seemed to be taking those long-delayed vacations. People were returning to their offices. Gas prices and inflation were off the chart, and it was an election year. A perfect storm of events that caused sales to drop off a cliff. That was hard. The only positive note from this is that supply chain issues for our raw materials such as pots, soil and propagating material eased. Fortunately, this fall, sales seem to have stabilized at a normal level, similar to 2019. Now we can use that as our baseline for planning for 2023. All we need is rain throughout the state.