FANN is pleased to partner with Florida Wildflower Foundation and the Florida Wildflower Seed Co-op in sponsoring a pollinator workshop for landscape industry professionals at the FNGLA Landscape Show in Orlando, Thursday, September 15, from 1:00-4:00pm. The workshop will focus on how to create healthy pollinator habitat in the landscape, understand the various threats facing pollinators, and how to maintain healthy pollinator-friendly landscapes. Speakers include Dr. Jaret Daniels, University of Florida McGuide Center for Lepidoptera and Biodiversity at the Florida Museum of Natural History; Zak Gezon, Conservation Program Manager, Walt Disney Company and Mark Russell, Director of Horticulture at Seaworld Parks Orlando.

UF/IFAS Extension Miami-Dade county is offering finance classes August 18-19, 2016 in collaboration with University of Florida (UF)/IFAS Extension, USDA- Farm Service Agency (FSA), Farm Credit, UF/IFAS Food and Resource Economics Department (FRED) and Tropical Research and Education Center (TREC).

FREE agribusiness workshop focusing on accessing capital, accessing international markets, business plans and using mobile technology. Presented by the FIU Small Business Development Center (SBDC) in partnership with Pino Global Entrepeneurship Center and UF/IFAS Extension, Miami-Dade County.

Join the 443 growers who have successfully graduated from Greenhouse Training Online courses offered by the University of Florida IFAS Extension (UF). This advanced course is designed for experienced growers or technical managers in the U.S. and other countries. Topics covered will include lime, water quality, plant species, nitrogen form and roof substrate. You'll also learn how to convert fertilizer units and formulate a fertilizer from individual salts, as well as diagnose nutritional problems and take corrective actions.

Oregon Democratic Rep. Kurt Schrader and three fellow congressmen have introduced a bill that, says Schrader, would make the phase-in of new overtime rules more "reasonable."

The Department of Labor had proposed new rules in May that raise the threshold for employees who are exempt from overtime pay from $23,660 to $47,476. The rules take effect Dec. 1.

Over $2.8 million was awarded toward pollinator protection in ornamental horticulture through the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) Specialty Crop Research Initiative (SCRI). The funds will be distributed over a period of two years, with additional funds available over a total five year period, to a collaboration of researchers facilitated by Dr. Cristi Palmer, IR-4 Project.

According to a press release from AmericanHort, the research will further define pollinator attractiveness of landscape plants to help increase the supply of nutritious forage for bees and to identify key plants for targeted integrated pest management approaches to reduce pesticide risk to bees. Pesticide residue analysis will also be included.

See FANN in booth #2307 (new location!) where we’ll be promoting Florida native plants with our native plant partners Florida Wildflower Foundation, Wildflower Seed Co-op and Florida Native Plant Society. The Landscape Show is Florida’s largest professional horticulture event, attracting hundreds of exhibitors and thousands of attendees from the horticulture and landscape industry. FANN will be distributing our new wholesale directory and also participating in FNGLA’s horticulture career fair, promoting the native plant industry as a career path option for middle and high school students engaged in agriculture and horticulture training programs.

2016 Landscape Show moves back to FNGLA’s old location, the WEST building.
9800 International Dr, Orlando, FL 32819.

Televised native landscape makeover! August 20-21 statewide on a variety of stations. See how you can "Flip Your Florida Yard" on the super fun TV program HowtodoFlorida hosted by Chad Crawford. Chad shows you how to thoroughly enjoy living in Real Florida every week, with great outdoor recreation ideas and Fresh from Florida food cooked to perfection with State Chef Justin Timineri. Now HowtodoFlorida is helping viewers learn to transform their landscapes for greater conservation benefit and enjoyment. FANN helped Berni & Brad Volkmann in Bradenton flip their Florida yard to a more satisfying, lower maintenance native landscape. You can do it too! Special episode of HowtodoFlorida sponsored by FANN and the Florida Wildflower Foundation.

Congratulations, new members, renewals, goodbyes and more.

Florida has had to say goodbye to Dr. Daniel Ward, renowned and beloved botany professor, University of Florida, longtime environmentalist, promoter of Florida native plants and author of several articles in the FNPS Palmetto magazine series: Native or not?

A new rare plant endowment fund effort has drawn the interest of three FANN members: Jane Thompson of Indian Trails Native Nursery in Lake Worth, Terry Godts of Green Isle Gardens Nursery in Groveland and Dara Dobson of 7 Pines Native Nursery in Defuniak Springs. FANN thanks Florida Native Plant Society (FNPS) for their invitation to be part of the review team.

This endowment startup project is being spearheaded by the US Fish & Wildlife Service, FNPS and other Florida conservation partners. Such an endowment may be able to raise grant funds for the propagation of rare plant species. FANN thanks Jane Thompson, owner of Indian Trails Native Nursery in Lake Worth, for volunteering to be our official representative in the endowment’s formation and development.

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If you had to name one thing that determines the financial success of every business in our industry, it’s the obvious: how much we sell plants for.

So imagine my shock when I learned how little research has been done on this. Last fall, as I planned the topics I wanted to devote attention to in 2016 and 2017, plant pricing was at the top of my list.

Cities need plants ... millions of them. That’s the gist of what green infrastructure is all about. The positive benefits of plants include features like carbon sequestration, reducing air pollution, providing wildlife habitat, reducing site level and regional temperatures, infiltrating rainwater into the aquifer, and preventing soil erosion, to name just a few ecological services. Add that plants in cities are increasingly making a positive impact on society, as well as feeding people, reducing crime and boosting health outcomes.

Green infrastructure is a term that’s becoming common. For selling plants, right now the largest and fastest growing green infrastructure market is for managing stormwater. Green stormwater infrastructure is booming. It works and it’s showing little sign of slowing down.

Somewhere in time an unknown author penned the phrase, "absence makes the heart grow fonder." And while Thomas Wolfe declared, "you can’t go home again," one green industry road warrior hung up his traveling shoes to get back to his propagation roots so he could spend more time with his family.

Anthony Hoke, owner of Silver Falls Nursery, admits he has been on an amazing journey throughout his green-industry career. He began in the corporate nursery world in 1993 selling to East Coast independent garden centers and rewholesalers with a nursery in McMinnville, Ore. From there he transitioned to a nursery who sold to mass merchants where he says he got a doctorate in "mass merchantology." Next he forged out on his own as a nursery sales contractor, and for almost 15 years focused on sales to big-box stores or vendors that sold to them.

FANN member Native Nurseries shared how important it was to cut the popular tropical milkweed down in the fall to avoid winter breeding and the build-up of a deadly protozoan infection called O.E. Better yet, they said, plant native milkweed that naturally dies back in the winter. Once we returned inside, I noticed the mesh butterfly houses in the center of the playroom table, full of milkweed cuttings covered with monarch caterpillars, on display for her family to watch as they transformed from caterpillar, to chrysalis to butterfly. She shared her videos with me of them emerging, and her passion for monarchs was clear.