Mid-November is sleepy time at Loma Vista Nursery – but that does not at all mean our work is slowing down. In fact, it’s only just beginning as we prepare for Spring 2025.
At Loma Vista Nursery, we overwinter our plants in 550 poly houses located throughout the site.
During late fall – and for about 15 days under ideal weather conditions – we race with Mother Nature to put processes and procedures in place that will protect our plants as they enter winter dormancy. This includes thousands of perennials and shrubs taking up residence in our 550 polyethylene-covered, PVC-constructed houses of various sizes – all designed for overwintering various varieties of plants.
To ensure safe overwintering, some of our poly houses are heated to maintain consistent optimal temperatures.
Some of the poly houses are heated. Several of our plant varieties require extra blankets. We will see them all safely through the approaching season, ensuring, to the best of our ability, that they will wake up healthy, happy and strong come spring.
Duane Huss, Loma Vista Nursery’s operations manager, has seen us through eight winter seasons since he began his career here in 2016. We asked Duane to share his insights and experience in preparing for this all-important fourth season.
Poly houses of various sizes dot our landscape during winter. Smaller structures will overwinter our plant liners.
When do we typically start the over-wintering process, Duane?
We start in late September. Our PVC houses are usually among the first we put up around the nursery. Weather dictates when we start the process. The layout of our nursery and how we organize plants on-site then makes it easier to start moving everything into our poly houses around mid-fall.
Organizing plant material by variety and grouping them tightly together helps us efficiently pull customer orders during the later seasons.
Each year we perform an inventory of the nursery’s plants that we are overwintering. How does this help us prepare for the spring rush?
We jam plant material together in the winter to not only save space, but to maintain crop groupings. This makes it easier to find them in the poly houses. It also ensures they are easy to find for cycle counting, which is how we track plants in their various growth stages, and also for pulling customer orders during winter and early spring.
‘Grey Owl’ juniper (Juniperus virginiana ‘Grey Owl’) drink up the last of the fall sun before the hoops will be covered with polyethylene sheeting.
The last thing we want to do is over-promise and under-deliver. Accuracy is key. Making sure we have what we say we have to sell and ship is important. We monitor crops throughout the winter for rodent and weather damage so we can give our customers as much notice as possible if there will be any changes to their spring order.
Loma Vista Nursery uses a few different types of physical structures for overwintering plants. How does the type of structure affect how we prepare them?
We use several different covering methods inside the polyhouses and each has distinct advantages. We cover perennials, grasses, roses and other less hardy plant material with a 4-ounce frost blanket. That protection goes on when nighttime temps in the houses get under 25 degrees, which in our area in Kansas is usually in mid-to-late December.
Soon, the door will be closing on the poly houses as they sit under the Nursery’s big blue sky. We’ll monitor plants through the winter – until spring rush begins.
How do we protect newly propagated material in the winter?
Poly houses designated for overwintering newly propagated plants have heaters inside that are set at 30 degrees. The structures are covered with two layers of insulated polyethylene sheets. During extreme cold, plant blankets are great for the added protection I mentioned – and also in the event a heater malfunctions.
What are the last plants that we cover?
Junipers are the last plants we cover. That’s because they are typically much hardier plants. We cover them in plastic sheeting, so they cannot stay covered too long over the winter. Junipers are evergreens and that means they aspirate while in winter dormancy. Too much condensation on the plastic for too long creates a microclimate that will rot the needles. Also, if the tops are too warm for too long the plants may start to grow too early. Without proper root activity, the tops of the plants will dry out. So, we uncover plants in the spring that were covered very last in the fall.
Sustainability is one of our core values at Loma Vista Nursery.
How much plastic sheeting does Loma Vista Nursery reuse year-to-year?
We reuse 30% of our plastic sheeting in various ways throughout the nursery. During the growing season, Loma Vista Nursery’s larger poly houses protect tender plants and young plant liners from wind, heavy rain and hot sun. In mid-fall – usually sometime in September – we cut up the material and re-use it to cover our smaller propagation houses through the winter.
What is a “mini house?”
These are mobile units. They are easy to put up in late fall and easy to take down in spring. And we’ll be doing the latter soon enough because winter at Loma Vista Nursery flies by!
Learn More About Loma Vista Nursery’s Landscape Plants
Loma Vista Nursery grows a variety of trees, shrubs and perennial plants for Midwest independent garden centers, landscape contractors and wholesale distributors. Our staff members – all experts in the field – love helping people learn about plants and the healthy varieties we grow.
Spring ordering is underway! Review our plant catalog for information and visit our website to learn about our values and best practices as a Midwest plant grower. For help with orders and plant-related questions, send an email to sales@lomavistanursery.com or call (785) 229-7200.
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