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\nBohn\u2019s Farm and Greenhouses Inc. has successfully used sustainable plant production practices throughout its history-first as a vegetable grower and now as a wholesale grower of hardy herbaceous perennials.<\/p>\n
Jason Bramwell \u2014 March 1, 2013<\/p>\n
\nBohn\u2019s Farm and Greenhouses Inc. has successfully used sustainable plant production practices throughout its history-first as a vegetable grower and now as a wholesale grower of hardy herbaceous perennials.<\/p>\n
As a young man working at Maryville, Ill.-based Bohn\u2019s Farm and Greenhouses Inc. in the 1980s, Gary Bohn didn\u2019t understand why his father and then-owner Walter Bohn cared so much about sustainable stormwater reclamation and recycled irrigation water management. Now, as the president of Bohn\u2019s Farm, Gary understands.<\/p>\n
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Gary Bohn, president of Bohn\u2019s Farm and Greenhouses Inc., Maryville, Ill., is joined by (from left to right) his oldest daughter, Sarah, his grandson, Owen, his wife, Renee, and his youngest daughter, Elizabeth, at Citygarden in St. Louis. Bohn\u2019s Farm provided $90,000 worth of custom-grown perennials for the urban park and sculpture garden. \u201cHe\u2019s always been a big promoter of sustainability. He served on the Illinois Soil and Water Conservation District Board for 12 years,\u201d Gary Bohn says about his dad, who is now vice president of the family\u2019s business. \u201cBecause of his vision, we don\u2019t have one drop of water runoff leave our property. One hundred percent of rainfall and irrigation water is captured in a central collection pond.\u201d<\/p>\n From no-tilling corn and soybeans as a vegetable farm in the 1960s to reducing the amount of peat moss in its growing mix as a wholesale perennial grower today, sustainable growing practices have always been a hallmark of Bohn\u2019s Farm.<\/p>\n Those practices also played a role in Bohn\u2019s Farm custom growing more than 50 varieties of hardy herbaceous perennials for the Sustainable Sites Initiative (SITES) pilot project at the global headquarters of Novus International Inc., in St. Charles, Mo. The landscape restoration project was certified by SITES and received the highest rating among the more than 150 pilot projects worldwide. Bohn\u2019s Farm was founded in 1931 by Gary\u2019s grandfather, Anton Bohn, who bought land in Maryville and started a vegetable truck farm, according to Gary Bohn. When Anton died in the late 1950s, his son, Walter, took over the farm.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I got in the business after I graduated from high school in 1976, we were growing 140 acres of fresh vegetables, such as tomatoes, asparagus, sweet potatoes and peppers, and about 900 acres of corn, soybeans and wheat,\u201d Gary Bohn says.<\/p>\n Neighboring Collinsville, Ill., is the self-proclaimed \u201cHorseradish Capital of the World,\u201d and the Bohn family grew and sold the popular perennial plant. \u201cI still raise tissue culture horseradish,\u201d Bohn says. \u201cSouthern Illinois University in Carbondale has been researching and crossing new varieties of horseradish. I take the university\u2019s new varieties and propagate them. We\u2019ll have about 47,000 plugs of horseradish this spring.\u201d<\/p>\n Because his four brothers did not have an interest in the family business, Gary worked long hours alongside his dad. \u201cWe would head out at 5:30 every morning and harvest sweet corn. It would then be bagged up and shipped out by 8:30 a.m. or 9 a.m.,\u201d he says. \u201cThen I would go to the horseradish field or the tomato field. My dad would take a crew and go here, and I would take a crew and go there.\u201d The following are the eight Sustainable Sites Initiative criteria for sustainable plant production and how Bohn\u2019s Farm and Greenhouses Inc., Maryville, Ill., met or exceeded those guidelines.<\/p>\n Use sustainable soil amendments, including peat-free media<\/strong>. Bohn\u2019s Farm reduced the amount of peat moss in its growing media from 30 percent to about 8 percent, and the nursery is currently working with St. Louis Composting to completely eliminate peat moss from its mix.<\/p>\n Reduce runoff from irrigation; capture and recycle all irrigation runoff water on-site<\/strong>. The original layout of Bohn\u2019s Farm\u2019s 15-acre production nursery recognized the benefits of capturing 100 percent of rainfall and irrigation water in a 5.5-acre irrigation pond. This was accomplished by establishing adequate grades and slopes, as well as installing a network of solid and perforated drain pipe, to carry the water to the pond.<\/p>\n Irrigation tests also were completed before and after greenhouses were filled with plant material, which helped establish optimum irrigation time cycles to limit water use and energy to operate the system.<\/p>\n Reduce greenhouse gas emissions; use on-site renewable energy sources to meet 10 percent of electricity demands.<\/strong> Bohn\u2019s Farm\u2019s production practices require only 12,000 square feet of supplemental, heat-equipped covered greenhouse space among a total covered greenhouse space of 211,500 square feet. The remainder of its production space is outdoors and noncovered.<\/p>\n Only during extreme cold temperature periods is supplemental heat \u2013 using natural gas \u2013 provided for winter-tender crops, which are located in limited portions of nonheated covered greenhouse space.<\/p>\n Reduce energy consumption; demonstrate that energy use during the three most recent years is at least 25 percent less than the average energy use over the previous 10 years.<\/strong> Natural gas use by Bohn\u2019s Farm\u2019s heat-equipped greenhouses has decreased in recent years, partly due to heat being used when absolutely necessary.<\/p>\n For example, in the 2009-10 fiscal year, the nursery used 8,490 therms, down from the 14,875 therms it used in the 2000-01 fiscal year. The nursery\u2019s 10- year average was 13,145 therms. Bohn\u2019s Farm also reduced electricity use, from 104,896 kilowatt hours (kWh) in the 2000-01 fiscal year to 77,470 kWh in the 2009-10 fiscal year. The 10-year average was 94,828 kWh.<\/p>\n Use integrated pest management (IPM).<\/strong> IPM practices maintain the quality of the recycled irrigation water at Bohn\u2019s Farm. Vegetation-control methods, such as manual removal and controlled glyphosate application, are used to reduce vector activity within and along the perimeter of the nursery. Insect and disease pest management is managed on a case-by-case basis, and no broad spectrum or routine pesticide applications are used.<\/p>\n Reduce use of potable water; use nonpotable water for 70 percent of irrigation volume.<\/strong> All greenhouses and outdoor production areas at Bohn\u2019s Farm are irrigated with nonpotable water from its site collection pond. Bohn\u2019s Farm\u2019s nonpotable water source receives stormwater runoff from 44 rural\/suburban acreage, including all 15 acres of the nursery\u2019s production facility.<\/p>\n Reduce waste; conduct a waste audit to identify the weight or volume of ongoing consumables and reuse, recycle or compost 50 percent of the ongoing consumable waste stream<\/strong>. Local and regional material recycling vendors are regularly used by Bohn\u2019s Farm to recycle all cardboard, odd-lots and damaged horticultural plastic containers (three truck loads ranging between 5,000 and 8,000 pounds per load), scrap steel and aluminum, and tires.<\/p>\n Bohn\u2019s Farm also has an inventory of used plastic pots that are reused for production of grown crops for landscape contractors. For example, in 2010, the nursery reused more than 8,000 1-quart pots, 52,000 No. 1 pots and more than 12,000 No. 2 pots for contract-grown perennials.<\/p>\n Recycle organic matter; compost and\/or recycle 100 percent of vegetation trimmings on-site for use in nursery operations or for sale to the public.<\/strong> All organic waste generated by Bohn\u2019s Farm\u2019s production operations, including vegetation trimmings and growing media contents of nonsaleable production, is composted on-site. The resulting compost material is then distributed with a manure spreader and incorporated with the soil at the nursery\u2019s adjacent agronomic cropland.<\/p>\n One of Bohn\u2019s earliest memories is of his dad using sustainable practices for growing pumpkins. \u201cHe was planting pumpkin plants in the freshly harvested wheat fields. That way the pumpkins could sit on the straw and not be muddy, and the weeds would not be an issue because the straw was there to buffer the ground from the moisture,\u201d he says. \u201cIn the 1960s, he was no-tilling corn and soybeans. He was always big on soil and water conservation.\u201d<\/p>\n As more subdivisions and commercial businesses sprang up around the St. Louis area in the 1980s, and as wholesale market demand for locally produced vegetables declined, the Bohn family decided to explore production of ornamental horticulture crops.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think my dad and mom really wanted to go that route, but we really had no other choice to keep the farm running,\u201d Bohn says. \u201cThe 80 acres of farmland where we grew all of our horseradish and sweet corn is hotels, a convention center and restaurants now. We only have 42 acres left on the family farm.\u201d<\/p>\n In 1985, Walter and Gary built their first greenhouse to grow vegetable plants and flowering annuals for local garden centers and produce retailers. \u201cWe also grew bedding plants for a couple park districts in the area, and we always had pick-your-own strawberries,\u201d Bohn says. \u201cI also grew some perennials for my wife\u2019s brother, who owned a small landscaping company.\u201d<\/p>\n One day in the early 1990s, Gary was visited by Bill Ruppert, a sales representative for Zeeland, Mich.-based Walters Gardens Inc. Ruppert also manages the St. Louis office of National Nursery Products, a horticultural sales, marketing and consulting company that represents regional and national wholesale growers of ornamental and environmental landscape plants.<\/p>\n \u201cGary was a Walters customer, and I asked him, \u2018Did you ever think about growing perennials on a wholesale level?’\u201d Ruppert recalls. \u201cGary said he had thought about it, and I told him there weren\u2019t many wholesale sources for finished perennials in the St. Louis area.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cRuppert suggested I start raising plants, and he would sell them,\u201d Bohn adds. \u201cIt didn\u2019t take us long to get out of the vegetable business and get into the greenhouse business.\u201d<\/p>\n Of the 15 acres it uses for the wholesale nursery, Bohn\u2019s Farm has 5.2 acres of covered greenhouses and 3.5 acres of outside growing areas. All irrigation water is captured in a central irrigation pond, which was expanded from 3 acres to 5.5 acres in 2008. A network of solid and perforated drainpipes was installed in the 1980s to carry the water to the pond.<\/p>\n \u201cOur irrigation system uses a 40-horsepower, 6-inch pump that pumps 600 gallons of water a minute. On a normal day, we usually run two to two-and-a-half hours of water in the complex. All that water runs back to our lake source,\u201d Bohn says.<\/p>\n Today, Gary, his wife, Renee, and their oldest daughter, Sarah Kolesa, oversee the nursery\u2019s day-to-day operations. Bohn\u2019s Farm has 15 full-time employees, who have worked at the nursery for almost 16 years. Gary adds between six and eight part-time workers in April and May to help ship plants.<\/p>\n National Nursery Products provides sales support for Bohn\u2019s Farm and has offices in Indiana, Kansas and Missouri. \u201cWe have a pretty ideal team,\u201d says Ruppert, who heads up the St. Louis office. \u201cGary is all about production, and I\u2019m all about selling production. We don\u2019t get in each other\u2019s way, and we all have our roles.\u201d<\/p>\n Bohn\u2019s Farm grows approximately 1,100 different varieties of hardy herbaceous perennials in quart, gallon, 2-gallon and 3-gallon containers, according to Bohn. He adds that the nursery\u2019s customer base has changed drastically in the past 20 years.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen we started growing perennials, 95 percent to 98 percent of our plants were sold to independent garden centers,\u201d Bohn says. \u201cNow, we\u2019re 50 percent retail garden centers and 50 percent landscape contractors. I\u2019m glad we began supplying to landscape professionals. I don\u2019t know if we\u2019d be around today if we were strictly relying on retail garden centers because their sales have dropped.\u201d<\/p>\n While Proven Winners varieties from Walters Gardens and its own line of Tread and Trail groundcovers for pathways and borders have historically sold well, Bohn\u2019s Farm has become one of the St. Louis area\u2019s top growers of native plants for landscape contractors.<\/p>\n \u201cWe got into the native business eight or nine years ago. Back then, we grew 15 to 20 varieties of natives. This spring, we\u2019ll have 142 varieties,\u201d Bohn says. \u201cOur best-selling natives include Andropogon gerardii (big bluestem), Echinacea purpurea (purple coneflower), Rudbeckia fulgida (black-eyed Susan), Sporobolus heterolepis (prairie dropseed) and Schizachyrium scoparium (little bluestem).\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Launched in 2005 as a partnership between the American Society of Landscape Architects, Lady Bird Johnson Wildlife Center and the U.S. Botanical Garden, SITES has established voluntary national guidelines and performance benchmarks for sustainable landscapes of all kinds \u2013 with or without buildings.<\/p>\n Modeled after the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System of the U.S. Green Building Council, SITES\u2019s four-star rating system gives participating organizations credits for the sustainable use of water, the conservation of soils, wise choice of vegetation and minerals, and design that supports human health and well-being in their landscapes. Based on achieving all 15 of the program\u2019s prerequisites and at least 100 credit points, the sustainable landscaping project becomes certified.<\/p>\n To put this rating system to the test, SITES launched a two-year international pilot program in 2010 that included more than 150 projects in 34 states, as well as in Canada, Iceland and Spain. The program included a diverse cross-section of project types, sizes and geographic locations in various stages of development, from design to construction and maintenance.<\/p>\n Feedback from the pilot program is being used to revise the final rating system and create a reference guide that will provide suggestions on how projects achieved the sustainability goals of specific credits. The guide is scheduled to be released later this year.<\/p>\n One of the participants in the pilot project was the global headquarters of Novus International, a leader in animal health and nutrition. SITES selected Novus because of its extensive environmentally friendly practices. In 2009, the U.S. Green Building Council awarded Novus with Platinum LEED certification, the highest designation available to buildings that demonstrate energy efficiency and sustainability.<\/p>\n Bohn\u2019s Farm and Greenhouses Inc., Maryville, Ill., provided the following custom-grown herbaceous perennials for the Sustainable Sites Initiative pilot project at the global headquarters of Novus International Inc., St. Charles, Mo.<\/p>\n Novus selected SWT Design, a landscape architecture company in St. Louis that specializes in designing environmentally sensitive landscapes, to lead the project, and Landesign LLC, Wentzville, Mo., was chosen as the landscape contractor. SWT Design was looking for a wholesale nursery that could provide herbaceous perennials for the Novus project. Hunter Beckham, ASLA, SWT Design principal and Novus pilot project manager, contacted Ruppert, whom he had worked with previously on other landscaping projects.<\/p>\n \u201cHunter told me what they were doing, and it was the first time I had heard of SITES,\u201d Ruppert says. \u201cSWT Design was looking for input on plant selection, and it was looking to receive as many SITES credit points as possible. Some of those points come from the grower.\u201d<\/p>\n In 2010, Bohn\u2019s Farm conducted a self-analysis of its wholesale production plant business that showed SWT Design and SITES it met or exceeded the eight SITES criteria for sustainable practices in plant production (see sidebar, Page 5).<\/p>\n \u201cGary and I reported the sustainable production practices that Bohn\u2019s Farm was already using. We didn\u2019t really have to change anything,\u201d Ruppert says. \u201cThe only thing that we\u2019ve really pursued was reducing the amount of peat moss in our growing mix. We\u2019re working with a wonderful company by the name of St. Louis Composting that has helped us reduce peat moss from 30 percent to between 5 percent and 10 percent. St. Louis Composting thinks we can eventually eliminate peat moss completely from our mix.\u201d<\/p>\n The self-analysis was submitted to SWT Design, which included it as part of its final presentation of materials for the Novus pilot project to SITES. \u201cWe were told that we were the first grower in the country to submit a self-analysis of the eight SITES points for sustainable plant production, and Hunter told us SITES was going to use ours as a guideline in the future,\u201d Bohn says.<\/p>\n Bohn and Ruppert worked with SWT Design to create a plant palette for the Novus pilot project, and representatives from SWT Design and Novus visited the farm to inspect the herbaceous plant material before it was delivered to Landesign.<\/p>\n \u201cThat was the first time I\u2019ve ever had a designer\u2019s client come out to see the plant material. There was a lot of attention to detail,\u201d Ruppert says. \u201cThe plants were roped off and kept in their own greenhouse so they were not commingled with all the other material. No other landscapers could go in that house.\u201d<\/p>\n Bohn says $50,000 worth of custom-grown herbaceous perennials from Bohn\u2019s Farm was used for the Novus landscape redevelopment (see sidebar, Page 28). \u201cAll herbaceous plants on the Novus site, whether plugs, quarts or gallons, came from Bohn\u2019s Farm,\u201d Ruppert adds.<\/p>\n The redevelopment of the 9-acre Novus campus landscape began in late 2010 and took approximately nine months to complete. Before the project started, Ruppert characterized the landscape as \u201cthe traditional corporate landscape, or what I like to call a mow, blow and go landscape.\u201d<\/p>\n The Novus project addressed several sustainable design best practices, including hydrology, wildlife habitat enhancement and monitoring, improved soils and vegetation with an emphasis on using regional materials, and features that address human health and well-being of site visitors. Highlights of the new landscape include:<\/p>\n In late January 2013, the Novus pilot project became certified after SITES awarded it with a three-star rating (150 out of a possible 250 credit points), making it the highest-rated landscaping project in the world.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Novus project is definitely something Bohn\u2019s Farm is very proud to have been a part of because it gave us a chance to learn more about how sustainable our plant production practices really are,\u201d Ruppert says.<\/p>\n Jason Bramwell is a freelance writer, and a contributor to and former senior associate editor of American Nurseryman. He can be reached at [email protected].<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Jason Bramwell \u2014 March 1, 2013 Bohn\u2019s Farm and Greenhouses Inc. has successfully used sustainable plant production practices throughout its history-first as a vegetable grower and now as a wholesale grower of hardy herbaceous perennials. As a young man working at Maryville, Ill.-based Bohn\u2019s Farm and Greenhouses Inc. in the 1980s, Gary Bohn didn\u2019t understand […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nursery"],"yoast_head":"\n
\nPhotos courtesy of Margy Terpstra, Bohn\u2019s Farm and Greenhouses Inc. unless otherwise noted.<\/em><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.amerinursery.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/A9226_4-300x212.jpg\")
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\nA crew from Bohn\u2019s Farm and Greenhouses Inc. works in one of the wholesale nursery\u2019s production hoop houses. Bohn\u2019s Farm has 5.2 acres of covered greenhouses and 3.5 acres of outdoor growing areas on 15 total acres.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cI think it\u2019s important to try to do your part as a grower to be as green as possible and to save the planet for the next generation,\u201d Bohn says.<\/p>\nFrom veggies to perennials<\/h3>\n
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\nA cart of perennials at Bohn\u2019s Farm and Greenhouses Inc. is ready to be shipped. Bohn\u2019s Farm\u2019s customers are located in parts of Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska.<\/p>\n
\nBohn\u2019s Farm\u2019s biggest produce customers were the three grocery chain stores in the area: Dierbergs, Schnucks and Shop N Save. \u201cOur relationship with Shop N Save was the longest because we also sold them perennials,\u201d Bohn says. \u201cUnfortunately, Home Depot and Wal-Mart pushed them out of the plant business.\u201d<\/p>\nBohn\u2019s Farm Sustainable Plant Production Self-Analysis<\/h3>\n
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\nThe landscape at the global headquarters of Novus International Inc. near St. Louis was redesigned as part of a pilot project by the Sustainable Sites Initiative (SITES). SITES certified Novus with a three-star rating, making it the highest-rated landscaping project in the world.<\/p>\nSITES set high<\/h3>\n
Herbaceous Perennials Used at Novus International<\/h3>\n
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\nLandscape architects from SWT Design transformed a previously barren and unfriendly looking retention pond at Novus International Inc. into an improved aquatic habitat with a pavilion for outdoor functions.<\/p>\n\n