So in lieu of another Sudoku Puzzle, I write:
As many of you know, the last few years in the life of Louisiana Growers, a Webfarms Company, have been a lot of fun. The overall demand for nursery stock and especially for the native and wetland species we grow has been strong. But most importantly the enjoyment has been enhanced by having Susan Webb full time in our operation.
One of the many things we have worked on this past year was “getting some help in here.” Susan made it a goal and it has happened.
Divine Intervention:
I first met April Divine when she and other members of the crew of a New Orleans design-build firm toured our nursery. She was impressive in her leadership from the start.
And earlier this year she contacted us with the intent “to check out the wholesale side” of the nursery business (her words) and wondered if we would need help.
“Uhhhh …. YES!”
So in early February she came to work at Louisiana Growers bringing her degreed Environmental Science background, ecology mindset, her Master Naturalist training and her work ethic to a native nursery.
One of the previous experiences April has is working with a fruit tree grafter. This just gelled perfectly with another cycle that has been coming on my side.
I have had to disappoint many people who want a female native Persimmon in their habitat with seedlings that are BY FAR mostly males. I tell them the truth and they don’t buy them. So I started talking up finding a good female and trying my grafting skills.
Enter another party, James Aloysius Foret, Jr., otherwise Jim (or Possum) Foret. At LNPS this past year he brought a bag of scion wood sticks of a selected native persimmon that he had (more on that history later) and in to the refrigerator they went to wait for spring.
April and I topworked some seedling volunteer trees in our woods and about 25 one year seedlings in three gallon containers in the nursery with that scion wood. Now we wait.
Dr. Courtney Forbes, DVM:
And just as cool, Susan had remembered that last fall we were contacted by a woman (also a Master Naturalist) who had finished her career as a veterinarian and was now dedicated to the saving of our environment through human service, volunteerism, self-training and faith. Thus when we were gearing up this Winter, Susan messaged Courtney to see if she still wanted to work in our native nursery part-time and she agreed. Courtney brings her love of native restoration plants, her experiences mucking Pickerel-weed into Texas bogs and her rubber boots into our nursery to help us get our inventory up and in good shape. Schlepping and weeding, even fertilizing with that “INORGANIC ” fertilizer is nothing to this gal when she is helping to get a regionally significant native into our landscape.
We have been blessed with these two in our physical plant and have been proud to ask them to go with us to industry events as well. This has been great timing for Susan and me as we needed a lot of potting, weeding and fertilizing done. The last two years we have literally been too busy selling to keep up production and maintenance. With Courtney and April’s assistance and background, we have gotten to almost all of that backlog.
These two wanting to help, the demand for our products, Jim’s persimmon wood, Susan’s persistence…..
“And thus events conspire to create marvels of synchronicity”: quote from a Stephen R. Donaldson book.
Thanks,
RW
Diversity Rules!