A History of Minnesota Floriculture

In 1990, the population of St. Paul was 272,235, and that of Minneapolis was 368,383. Population of the seven county Twin Cities metropolitan area was about 2.6 million, about 60 percent of Minnesota's state population of about 4.4 million. By 1992, the St. Paul park system totaled 4,200 acres. The Minneapolis park system covered 6,400 acres.

St. Cloud, with a population of about 50,000, had become one of the state's fastest developing areas outside of the Twin Cities and its immediate suburbs. It had 17 retail florists listed in its area directories in 1993.

Bedding plants accounted for 55.8 percent of Minnesota's floricultural crop wholesale sales in 1990. Even the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport approach and Twin City major highway roadsides were made more attractive with flower beds. Wild flower seeds were dispersed on state highway roadsides by the Minnesota Department of Transportation.

Imports of cut flowers continued to increase. Better cut-flower preservatives were aiding foreign growers, though vase life of the imports from distant locations was often slightly shorter than with locally grown product, particularly in the case of roses.

In 1990, Greg and Sandy Ennenga built a 4,000 square foot greenhouse range near Grand Marais to produce bedding plants. Their children provide seasonal help.

In 1991, Debbie Schwarze, a University of Minnesota ornamental horticulture graduate, was hired as an assistant scientist to work in extension with John Erwin. Among other duties, she served as the telephone contact for professional flower growers. The Minnesota Commercial Flower Growers organization supported this activity by funding a portion of her salary.

An annual Widmer Florists' Golf Tournament was started in 1991 to raise money for the J.R. Johnson Floriculture Research Fund. George Lucht started the Tournament with the collaboration of Rick Johnson and Don Rosacker.

Harold Wilkins received the SAF Alex Laurie Award for Research and Education in Floriculture in 1991.

Industry progress in the decade

Orchid Zone greenhouses, owned by Dr. Wharton Sinkler, erected a 10,000 square foot, state-of-the-art, greenhouse range in Maple Plain in 1991. The range included double-layer, box-rib, rigid plastic glazing; a triple shading system (photoperiod, light intensity and thermal curtains); ebb and flow irrigation; mobile benches; bench bottom hot water heat tubes and sodium vapor lamps. Its plants were obtained from an out-of-state affiliate. Sales were primarily wholesale potted orchid plants and cut flowers, and a few Cattleya's. In January 1994, the firm was renamed Castle Rock Orchids, Inc., and dropped its affiliation with the out-of-state firm. Sinkler left medicine and now breeds orchids at his range.

In 1991, Marv Saline retired from the Hans Rosacker Company. Don Rosaker became the sole owner, while Saline and his son Rod acquired sole ownership of the Engwall greenhouse firm in Duluth. Don's daughter Debbie worked at Rosackers for 10 years. Another daughter Kim and son-in-law, Todd Hix, were also employed by the firm. Crops included a wide array of pot plants, cut roses (until 1994), incidental cut flowers and bedding plants for retail and wholesale sale. Don was active in SAF, United Minnesota Horticulture (president in the 1980s), and the North Central Florists' Allied organization, and was on the board of the J.R. Johnson Floriculture Research Fund. Don sold the firm to his son, Hans Donald II, in October 1994.

Holm and Olson operated five retail floral stores in the St. Paul area. Dave Hertog, who formerly worked at the Hertog Floral and J.R. Johnson Supply greenhouses, operated the Holm and Olson greenhouses in a joint agreement with the firm from 1991 to 1994, when he left and Holm and Olson resumed direct operation of the greenhouses.

George Lucht significantly expanded Malmborg's Rogers range, beginning in 1976. He also updated the Brooklyn Center operation's large garden center. Lucht was active in local and national industry affairs. He was a member of the board of the national Professional Plant Growers Association for ten years, and president from 1990 to 1992. He directed every Widmer Florists' Golf Tournament fundraiser. His children, Kim, Kerry and Troy, have continued to work in the firm.

Current Malmborg specialty crops still include quality geraniums in all stages, and bedding plants including perennials. The company has also supported its sales with educational activities, including a special 1994 Geranium Day for current and potential wholesale customers. It included talks by specialists, a large display of geranium cultivars grown outdoors in wine kegs cut in half, and ivy geranium hanging baskets. Participants were asked to evaluate the cultivars on printed report forms.

Len Busch retired in 1991, and production manager Mark Wittman became president of the firm. Len's son Pat and his son-in-law, George Ross, were also employed in the business. The firm became Minnesota's largest cut flower producer with seven acres of roses, plus another three acres in pot plants and less common cut flowers, all sold at wholesale. Because of range expansion, heat furnished by the automatically supplied wood burning boiler and sodium vapor lamps had to be supplemented on extremely cold days with heat from a natural gas fueled boiler.

The efficiencies of year-round growing technologies also created some problems for growers such as Busch. With the roses illuminated at night with high-intensity sodium vapor lamps to counter short-day photoperiods, area residents were unhappy with the year-round 'long days' so created. Thus, in 1992, at a cost of $100,000, automatic light containment curtains were installed above the lamps and kept closed at night. The curtains provided a side benefit of improved night-time heat retention in the greenhouses. All of the range was glazed with double layer, box rib, rigid plastic panels.

In the fall of 1994, a 7,000 square foot tulip forcing house was built onto the Busch facility. Also in 1994, George Ross became president of the firm, and Pat Busch production manager. Wittman, after relinquishing the company presidency, moved with his family to Australia early in 1995. His wife Rosemary was from Australia. Dave Hertog is now in charge of pot plant production and Randy Reed is in charge of cut-flower production.

In 1992, the John R. Johnson firm added to their Everton Growers range in Hugo. In 1993, Rick Johnson, son of John, became president of the firm. He also served on the SAF Board of Directors. Rick's sister Lynn and her husband, Alan John, headed the Florida branch in Sun City.

Johnson's Belden Plastics division is one of three plastic pot manufacturers in the state. It operates on three shifts, as it has almost from its start. The other Minnesota manufacturers are T.O. Plastics of Minneapolis and National Polymers of Lakeville. All three firms ship their products throughout the country, competing with each other and with Canadian manufacturers.

Department 56 and Bachman's

A view in Bachman's new (1994-1995) Dutch-type greenhouse range of ebb-and-flow benches. "C" shaped holders on a moving belt (at top of photo) are for holding hanging baskets. The facility has gathered automated shade cloth (dark area) and a vast unpartitioned expanse for large scale crop production. Houses are covered with tempered glass. (Photo by author)

The wholesale business of Bachman's gift subsidiary unit, Department 56, continued to grow rapidly. In 1992, Todd Bachman stepped down as president of the entire Bachman's firm to be president of Department 56 after it was sold in January of that year to the Forstman-Little partnership of New York for $270 million. Dale Bachman took over as Bachman's president. Active fourth generation Bachman firm members Dale, Paul, Lee and Alan took over the responsibility for running Bachman's floral and nursery units, which had annual sales of $50 million. This represented one of the biggest such units in the country. Alan left the firm in 1993.

In recent years, Bachman's Woodend greenhouse range, plus the oldest part of the Lyndale Avenue headquarters range, originally used as vegetable production houses, were demolished. The least profitable European Flower Markets were closed. The 11 most profitable locations, in the upscale Byerly's Supermarkets plus a few other locations, were renamed Flowers by Bachman and kept in operation.

Bachman's has most recently placed its corporate investment emphasis on developing large Minnesota floral, gift and garden center retail units containing appreciable greenhouse sales areas. There are currently six of these units in operation. They are located at the Lyndale Avenue headquarters in Minneapolis and in Maplewood, Plymouth, Apple Valley, Eden Prairie and Rochester. The seven full-service Bachman's floral stores bring the company's total number of retail outlets to 24. It also continues to operate eight acres of greenhouses, including the decorative plant unit, and the 513-acre nursery at Farmington.

Todd Bachman left Department 56 in 1994 and returned to Bachman's as chairman and CEO.

Bachman's erected 100,000 square feet of Dutch-style greenhouses in 1995 at the Farmington location to replace the recently demolished houses in Minneapolis. The new structures were glazed with tempered glass and included a movable tray bench system, ebb and flow watering with a nutrient solution, motorized overhead cables for 7,000 hanging baskets, automated heat saving curtains, photoperiod curtains and hot water heat. The ebb and flow system was selected to prevent run-off and ground contamination. After the nutrient solution leaves the benches, it flows through three filters, then passes through a computerized system which adds water and some nutrients as needed before returning to the holding tanks. The cost of the range construction was about $20 per square foot.

Floriculture Research Fund Changes

Many growers in states bordering Minnesota contributed to the J.R. Johnson Research Fund, leading the fund's directors to broaden its objectives in the early 1990s. The fund's new directions included awarding grants to institutions in other states as well as Minnesota.

The Widmer Research Fund was created at about the same time in an unsuccessful attempt to induce other vendors to contribute funds for horticultural research. Funding did come from the annual Widmer Golf Tournament, the long dormant North Central Flower Show Fund (created more than 70 years earlier), and annual University Grower Short Course raffles. A transfer of some J.R. Johnson Research Fund money was also being considered to enable the governing board to start an endowment fund.

Widmer Research Fund endowment interest, plus such additional income as might be derived from other sources, would be awarded for floriculture research and related purposes selected by the fund's governing board. J.R. Johnson Research Fund money would be handled in a similar manner, continuing to fund research across a greater geographic area.

The research funds retained combined balances totalling about $145,000 in January 1995. Since the founding of the funds, about $25,000 had been awarded for research and associated activities approved by the governing boards.

More Industry Development

Bob Eisele cut back on his work schedule at South Cedar Greenhouses and opened The Plant Shed on Cedar Avenue in Farmington in 1992. He and his wife grow perennials and bedding plants for retail sale.

Hermes Floral bought a 20,000 square foot building next to its St. Paul business in 1992. It was rented it to tenants until 1994 when the building was remodeled to house the firm's own administrative offices and to enable it to expand the wholesale business.

Hermes Floral's Hudson, Wisconsin, range was expanded in 1993 with cut roses and a wide range of pot plants as the major crops. It used a Dutch hot water heating system. In the winter of 1993-1994, warm water from the NSP electric generation plants at Becker was not available for greenhouse heating for several months because both generating units were closed for emergency repairs. Unfortunately, warm waste water from the third and newest generating unit was not connected to the greenhouse supply line, making it necessary to use emergency propane gas heating units at a significantly higher cost.

Don Hermes has served both as head of the firm and manager for the St. Paul operation. Brothers Tom and Jim have been managing the Becker and Hudson units respectively. Bill Hermes, a cousin, retired as State Fair horticulturist in 1994.

Earl Holasek is no longer active at the Earl Holasek Greenhouses. His children, Earl Jr. and Carol Thuening, and Earl Jr.'s wife Sharon now operate the business. They erected an additional half-acre of greenhouses in 1994 and now have a six-acre range.

Green Valley Greenhouses near Anoka replaced one acre of old greenhouses with an expanded range that now covers 51/2 acres. Wayne Davis produces 40,000 pans of poinsettias annually, plus numerous potted flowering, foliage and bedding plants and hanging baskets at that facility.

NK Lawn and Garden Company is a spinoff from Sandoz owned Northrup King, having left the larger firm in March 1993. The new independently-owned unit sells flower and vegetable seeds to home gardeners, as well as lawn seed, garden products and gardening books for children and adults. It rents office space from Northrup King in Golden Valley and employs about 50 people in Minnesota and about 150 others outside the state. The firm still purchases some seed from its former parent and benefits from Sandoz's research programs. Seed packets and lawn and garden products are produced and sold at wholesale through plants in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Tangent, Oregon. It was reportedly the country's largest supplier of seed for the home gardening market in 1993, with a business in excess of $20 million per year.

Bergen's Greenhouses in Detroit Lakes was one of the first to grow plugs in the 1970s. It grew a wide range of floricultural crops. Though the company owned several retail outlets in Minnesota and North Dakota, sales were largely via truck routes until the mid-1980s. Bob, a third generation Bergen, has been running the business and is dedicated to producing high quality plants as efficiently as possible. Automation has included plug seeding, booms for irrigation and fertilizing, machine transplanting, bar coding, etc. The Bergens worked with a transplanting machine for bedding plants in 1994 and will work with an improved machine in 1995.

Bergen's new emphasis is selling in volume to major chains such as K-Mart, Wal-Mart, Pamida and Shop-Ko, in Iowa, Minnesota, Montana, Wisconsin, North Dakota, South Dakota, and the Canadian province of Manitoba. It now sells 75 percent of its volume to the chain stores as holiday, bedding and foliage plants. Bergen's sold its retail shops, except for the one in North Dakota which included a greenhouse range of 11/2 acres. That facility sells both retail and to small growers in the Dakotas. Its eight acres of greenhouses produce and ship 100,000 flats of bedding plants and 40,000 hanging baskets per year. Bob's son Chris has also been working in the business.

Sandy Murphy purchased Robert Stern Florists Inc. in North Minneapolis in 1992. She operates a full service retail shop and greenhouses under the new name of Crystal Lake Floral Design and Orchids by Murphy. Only orchids are grown in the two greenhouses, and she specializes in Phalaenopsis species. Sandy hybridizes orchids and sells the cut flowers and plants primarily at retail.

Roses Inc., an international organization of professional rose growers, held its annual meeting in Bloomington in October 1994. It currently has fewer members, but the membership comprised primarily the larger growers, many of whom have expanded their production areas.

Grower Research

Wagner's constant improvements created a modern, highly efficient establishment 41/2 acres large. It added assorted potted plants to the bedding plants grown for its large retail business. Flowering geraniums for wholesaling were discontinued as the company built a large wholesale business in plugs, with 90 percent in bedding plants. Wagner's has also sold more than a million cyclamen liners annually throughout the country. Its production facilities have included 12 computer-controlled plug germination chambers, drum seeders, computerized greenhouse environment controls, high-pressure sodium lamps, mobile bench top trays, irrigation booms and automated light intensity control curtains.

For the last three years, Wagner's has conducted large cyclamen trials to select improved cultivars and to improve production methods. All plants in these growing trials have been staged in one greenhouse, fully labeled and made available for viewing by industry representatives from throughout the country.

University Research

Funding provided to the University of Minnesota by state and federal sources was quite limited through the first half of the decade. John Erwin and Mark Strefeler raised funds from outside sources to maintain an active research program. In response to industry trends, they emphasized bedding plants in their research studies.

Erwin traveled to England, Norway and Hawaii to speak on plant responses to low-day, higher night temperatures, often referred to as DIF or thermomorphogenesis. Frank Pfleger of Plant Pathology continued to collaborate, while Mark Ascerno's available time decreased when he became head of the Department of Entomology.

Despite the budgetary constrictions, University of Minnesota plant breeding programs continued. The 73rd new garden chrysanthemum cultivar introduction from the University breeding program was released in 1994 (see Appendix B). A program to develop New Guinea Impatiens with improved heat tolerance, lower water requirements, improved insect and disease resistance and other desirable features was making progress.

Temperature effects on geraniums have also continued under study, along with investigations of interactions between cutting position and leaf removal. Rooting of clematis cuttings was found to peak at a medium pH of 8.0.

Removing greenhouse rose flowers with very little stem was found to double the return cut-flower crop. This practice has permitted significantly increased yields for times of the year such as St. Valentine's Day, when demand for this flower is at a peak.

Basic vernalization studies were under way to obtain information that could be applied to Easter lily production. The radish was found to be a good short-term crop indicator plant.

The University's northwest greenhouse range (formerly Gibbs-Nelson) was re-covered with two air-separated layers of plastic film. In addition, the main horticultural range had the glass replaced with acrylic, box-rib, double layer, rigid plastic panels. These changes were designed to lower fuel and maintenance requirements. Computerized environmental controls were installed in the floriculture greenhouse units.

Status of Industry-wide Research

While he was a graduate student at Michigan State University, John Erwin participated in developmental studies of cool-day, warm- night programming aimed at limiting plant stretch. He brought this work with him to Minnesota and successfully encouraged its use on crops like poinsettias and Easter lilies. Other recent advancements occurred with tissue culture propagation, which has seen increasing use in providing disease-free stock for numerous species of flowering and foliage plant propagation.

Genetic engineering focusing on altering key genes to provide disease-, insect- and drought-resistant plants has arrived on the international scene. Disease-free geraniums, hostas and foliage plants are being developed in this manner. Studies on chrysanthemums, roses, African violets and petunias are in progress at a variety of locations around the world. One Dutch firm's recent introduction, for example, is a chrysanthemum cultivar which has a genetically engineered flower color change. In Minnesota, Mark Strefeler is working with such techniques, though no major breakthroughs are anticipated in the near term.

Insect and disease control continues to be a problem as new and resistant races develop. Biological control use is advancing slowly and some of those methods are becoming available to home gardeners as well as commercial growers.

University Developments

No count of the number of graduates of the floriculture undergraduate program at the University of Minnesota has been maintained, but it is conservatively estimated at about 300 persons. This number may seem small, but it counts only those majoring in floriculture. It does not include larger numbers of students of other branches of ornamental horticulture who would have been taking all or some of the floricultural course offerings, nor does it include students who did not pursue the full degree program.

Universities across the country, as well as in Minnesota, have restructured the curricula in agriculture. In 1994, Minnesota's horticultural science department had 80 undergraduate students with 25 percent majoring in floriculture. Students interested in ornamental aspects of horticulture at the University of Minnesota now major in Animal and Plant Systems with an emphasis on Ornamental Horticulture, Floriculture, Landscaping, Turf or Nursery Culture. Less than half of the specific courses in floriculture previously offered were taught in 1994 and the program was still undergoing revision, especially in response to the University's planned schedule change from quarters to semesters over the next few years.

There were 40 graduate students in horticulture with six of them in floriculture in 1994. This was a reduction from the numbers enrolled in 1990. The shortage of jobs for doctoral graduates since the latter part of the 1980s, funding cutbacks, and a federal government requirement that research projects now pay for costly fringe benefits as well as graduate assistantship stipends, all combined to reduce the number of applicants for graduate study accepted by researchers across the country. Fortunately, the job market for graduates with advanced degrees in horticulture improved by 1994. Some of the advanced degree graduates were working in postdoctoral positions, or as technical specialists, for large floricultural firms rather than in faculty positions at colleges and universities.

Individuals earning master of science and doctoral degrees at the University of Minnesota increase the size and effectiveness of its floricultural research program. They usually advance to positions of responsibility at other universities, conservatories, or in industry. Graduates of the University of Minnesota floricultural program now fill positions in many states and Canadian provinces, including British Columbia, California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas, Virginia and Wisconsin.

Como Conservatory Rehabilitation

A portion of the rehabilitated Como Conservatory at night. Photo was taken in 1995. (Photo courtesy the Conservatory and Roberta Slack)

In 1993, Roberta Slack, a University of Wisconsin floriculture graduate, replaced the retired Les Day as Supervisor of Como Conservatory. Day had done an excellent job of working with the public, parties associated with the rehabilitation of the ancient complex and his working crew. The main conservatory was completely rebuilt and most of the old growing houses were replaced with efficient greenhouses. A total of $12 million was invested in the renovation. With a new Resource Center still to come, about 500,000 persons tour the restored 47,000 square foot glass houses annually. About 55,000 people visit the Japanese garden, including numerous wedding parties. There were 340 marriage ceremonies performed in either the Conservatory or the Japanese garden in 1995. There are about 200 public flower beds in St. Paul which are planted and maintained by the conservatory's staff of 18.

Produced by Communication and Educational Technology Services, University of Minnesota Extension.

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