Planting a legacy

Legacy, what is a legacy? Planting seeds in a garden you never get to see. I always loved that line from Lin-Manuel Miranda’s musical adaptation of the life of Alexander Hamilton. Of course, it’s a nod to the classic proverb, “A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.”

The nurseryman on our cover this month has certainly planted many trees in his life. Jerry Faulring has enjoyed a successful second act with Waverly Farm, the Maryland nursery he founded in 1996. You may know Jerry from his columns in Free State News, the Maryland Nursery, Landscape and Greenhouse Association publication, in which he shares the hard-won knowledge he’s earned through years of field growing. You may not know that Waverly Farm was the second business Jerry founded. He was in the landscaping business first, before becoming a field grower. In fact, he was on the cover of Lawn & Landscape magazine nearly 40 years ago.

In 2009, Lawn’s former publisher Pat Jones caught up with Jerry. Of course, he asked him about the transition from landscaping to the nursery business, but this particular nugget caught me as a nice encapsulation of the feelings many growers have shared.

“It’s been a wonderful experience – you feel like you’ve been ‘chosen’ to be a part of the green industry. We’ve been a part of the green revolution in this country long before it even had a name, and we should be proud of that. We haven’t been perfect, but we’ve adapted well. In the end, I’d like to believe some day, someone new will take this place over, look around and say, ‘He was a pretty damn good farmer.’”

Read much more about Jerry’s journey on page 14.

Have you noticed disease problems with your redbuds? You’re not alone. Nurseries from multiple states have sent samples to diagnostic labs to figure out what’s going on. Researchers from several institutes are collaborating on a project to determine the cause of what the pathologists are calling vascular streak dieback on redbuds. Read about their work and what you can do in the meantime on pg. 22.

Each year, the American Rose Trials for Sustainability regionally tests a new group of roses under low input conditions to see which cultivars resisted pests and diseases while still looking great. See what roses scored well on pg. 28.

Good luck making it through spring, and I’ll catch you at the summer shows.