Weekend's farm trip

On saturday,we had a whole-day trip to three farms.The Eagle Lake Nurseries LTD is our first station.

About 8:30,we arrived at the Eagle Lake Nurseries LTD,this is a quite big nursery.running over 1000 acres field. it was established in 1970 by Heuver's family,now Anita Heuver runs this company.Her lovely cat welcomed us before she met us.

This nursery pruduces 500 varieties of trees,shrubs and evergreens,as well as 600 kinds of perennials.their market is 85% wholesale and 15% retail,calgary is their main wholesale market.This is the retailing area. a big area,many kinds of perenials and shrubs are showed here,customers definetely can get abundant options to choose what they want.



From the picture above ,we can see part of their irrigation system,water spraying .you also can notice under plants pots,they cover some plastic on ground.so the redundant water can flow along their manmade channel to a certain container where water can be reuse.a smart way to save water ,so they can save cost on irrigation.
Another special system utilized in this place is pot-in -pot system.this system is mainly for their trees and evergreens.here is picture about this system.


They also apply drip irrigation system along with their pot -in -pot system.pipes deliver water here and through tiny green needle tubings to drip water into soil.a very efficient method to reach plant roots.
Here is their drip irrigation system:


After this ,Anita took us to her field where are growing many young trees.Anita told us that normally they grow plants for customers for 1~2 seasons.customers need to order plants one or two years in advance.so young trees here we are looking are for the next year.


If trees grow too big for customers ,this nursery 's solution is to burn down their trees,which is quite a ruthless way in my opinion.
So what is their biggest problem for their business.Anita said it was the weather and disease. sometimes frost,hail or unexpected disaster got their plants devastated.since the boomy season in 2008 ,their business road has been not easy.