Eastern North Carolina Green Industry Suffers Heavy Losses

While retail nurseries in the Hendersonville, N.C. area weathered the weekend freeze by carrying pots indoors, the news was not so good for wholesale growers and landscape suppliers.

A season of growth is lost, translating into a huge monetary loss.

Last year, the green industry, consisting of nurserymen, greenhouse growers, sod producers and landscapers, produced an income of $125.5 million in Henderson County, about six times the total for apples.

The green industry is the No. 1 agriculture commodity in the county, far surpassing the income from apples, vegetables and other agriculture.

Despite all efforts to save this year's crop, much was lost, nurserymen say.

"We had nearly a half-million dollars of Japanese maples in stock," said Jeremy Montgomery, sales and nursery manager for Breezy Acres, a wholesale commercial nursery in Horse Shoe owned by Larry and Jerry Merrill.

Seven to eight people worked 14 hours at the end of last week moving the trees into equipment sheds, after moving the equipment out.

"We couldn't get all the product into the sheds," Montgomery said.

They tried covering the remaining trees and shrubs with fabric and tarps, to no avail.

"Anything not inside a heated area got zapped," he said, including a newly arrived crop of Japanese snowbell trees. "They're all toast. It burnt all the flowers off."

Now workers must take the dead foliage off the plants and do light-tip pruning to encourage new growth. Then they wait to see if the the plant will revive.

"We're losing a sales season," Montgomery said. "Every nurseryman in the county is in the same boat."

The plant is still alive, the old wood is alive. But the new season growth is dead. A 30- to 36-inch tree, with six to eight inches of new growth, will need that new growth removed. This makes the tree now 24- to 30-inches tall. Cutting off six to eight inches means a loss in income on that tree of $50, Montgomery said.

"The last four days have been a nightmare," he said. "The nursery industry has taken a huge hit. Every tree in the ground is defoliated. Every leaf will fall off and not be saleable this season."

Most trees and shrubs sell when in bloom, Montgomery said.

"We sell less when they aren't blooming," he said. "There will be no cherries bloooming, which means a significant loss in sales. There will be no blooming azaleas on Mother's Day."

Nurserymen Fritz McCall of Dana is worried about long-term damage to some trees, such as Japanese maples.

"The bark could split wide open," he said. "I lost the foliage on everything outside. It may be another year before I know if the tree will survive. There's no way of telling yet."

Landscapers also took a big hit, McCall said.

"Some guarantee a tree for a year," he said. "It could be a year before they know if the tree survived."