Auto-SummaryThe author works at a greenhouse with a 16-acre perennial nursery and expresses frustration with the management and growing practices. The head grower has no formal horticulture background, and the other assistants lack proper training. The facility uses an outdated spray schedule with limited chemicals, and they water from a ditch with a simple mesh filter. The staff is unaware of the numerous viruses and pests present in the nursery, and they refuse to treat or destroy infected peonies, leading to the spread of diseases like tobacco rattle virus. The author has invested significant time and effort into horticulture but feels they cannot continue working at the greenhouse due to the poor practices and lack of concern for plant health.
Yea they definitely 2 spot. Them and bulb mites are the only two mites we found this year.
And BRO, I am pullin my hair out on the daily working at this greenhouse. I could bitch all day about shit they do that makes no fucking sense whatsoever that absolutely undeniably causes more harm and trouble than it prevents.
It’s a gorgeous facility and they treat the employees outstanding but I had no idea what I was getting into..
The growing team for 16 acres of perrenials is head grower a, assistant grower a, assistant grower b, and assistant grower me.
Head grower A has no formal horticulture background whatsoever. He was in sales and did gardening at home so when the last head grower quit they just promoted him from sales to head grower, he’s a super nice guy and can do the paper side of things well but honestly he’s mediocre at best when it comes to growing.
Ass A is a pompous ass who also has no legitimate schoolin or training. His mom got him a job at the gardens she worked at and somehow he was able to use that experience to get this growing job. He’s only just slightly better than average at growing but understands nothing about plant/pest/disease biology and is poor at ID. Also has no idea how to manipulate and use plant nutrition.
Assistant B is an amazing person who I have nothing bad at all to say about she’s hella organized and even more hella efficient at anything she does. She has no schooling or training either and has never grown as a job before, she came from financial coaching services whatever that is and she is an average grower but she is ambitious to learn and very smart and she’s one of those people who actually can achieve whatever she decides to go after.
Then there’s me and I’m not going to brag but I do have 4 years of horticulture school which got me 2 diplomas, I did 2 co-op placements at a plant research lab, I’ve been growing as a passion and hobby since I was 15, and since my injury literally 95% of my time is spent reading about horticulture.
Ugh, I know I’m new into this industry technically and in the big picture i have so much more i can learn still; but i literally just got the most updated hort education available in my area and it’s blatanty obvious this greenhouse has no idea what they are doing and they don’t care about it either.
I can basically sum up their approach to plant care and growing in a few sentences:
They have a pre made 52 week spray schedule that uses the same 3 fungicides and 2 pesticides, in rotation, but that rotation doesn’t mean shit all anymore cuz they’ve used that exact schedule for the last 2 years this was the third and they refuse to let me order new chemicals. They are aware that a plethora of viruses are ever present on the entire nursery including hosta x, tobacco mosaic, alfalfa mosaic, impatiens necrotic spot, and peony ringspot just to name a small number of whats confirmed present. They water with garbage that’s pulled out of a ditch which is runoff from local vineyards and the only filter is a mesh screen for debris. Aaaand this one is the kicker, this’ll hurt your head, when presented with a plant found on the nursery being attacked by a fungus they’d not seen before and a lab test request was submitted, they responded saying they won’t send it to a lab in case it’s something bad that CFIA would quarantine the crop over which would restrict them from selling it, so we didn’t ID the fungus and sold the crop.
It hurts my head working there. Especially the poor poor peonies they are the most disease and virus riddled crops of peonies I’ve ever seen and they’re suffering and thats one of if not my one favourite plant, it has extreme sentimental and nostalgic value to me. I’ve been watching slowly bulb mites, fungus gnat larva, stalk borers, pythium, phytopthera, thielaviopsos, and half a dozen viruses just spread like wildfire and it’s all slowly killing every single peony including the intersectional itoh peonies but they refuse to treat them for anything stating tuberous crops don’t need treatments (what lol?) and they refuse to destroy the plants with hella blatant viruses like any respectful greenhouse would do. Tobacco rattle virus is fucking EVERYWHERE. But the visual symptoms typically only emerge in the fall when they cut them back and then you don’t see much sign of the virus in spring when peonies sell so we ship thousands of plagued peonies to excited and passionate peony growers who ultimately, im sure, have the pathogens we sold move through their gardens at home. I know this must be happening because before i realized what was present at that place I brought home some peonies and even from their stupid pot they introduced a mosaic virus to several of my own plants I’ve been growing for years and then all the larva for all the fucked up pests they have came out of the soil and started devastating my own plants. Me and my roomy has to release nearly 100,000 bios of various kinds over this summer at home to try and eliminate what I unknowingly brought home from work. And we had to sacrifice our own plants that were showing virus symptoms for the good of what wasn’t.
I’ve been growing a lot of my plants for 5+ years with very little pest/disease pressure and zero virus pressure. Then less than a fucking year after starting here and bringing home their product I’ve lost or had to toss almost 30% of me and my roomys plants collectively. And it’s not over I’m just waiting everyday for another plant to reveal it has a virus. I’m going to be slowly throwing away plants I’ve worked on and loved for god knows how long because of this dam tobacco rattle virus.
It’s fucked up and I’m pissed and I can NOT fucking wait to quit this shithole.
/end the way longer rant than planned
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