Eagle Lake Nursery Tour

September 21, 2013 - Eagle Lake Nurseries Tour

Tony and Anne Heuver started Eagle Lake Nurseries in 1970 just east of Strathmore.  At the time there were no nursery businesses.  Instead people were digging from shelter belts to plant in the city.  The Heuver's had no product for their landscape business so they decided to start a nursery.  Now there are many more varieties available in the industry then there were back then.

Their daughter Anita Heuver is now part owner and Manager.  She attended the Horticulture Program at the University of Guelph and worked in industry for a number of years and one year in Holland.  She has now been working on the farm for 20 years.

Over the years Eagle Lake Nurseries has expanded to over 800 acres:  500 acres of field grown caliper trees and shrubs, 25 acres of container grown shrubs and pot-in-pot trees and 300 acres in crop rotation.  They have 30,000 sq.ft. of greenhouses for propagation and perennial production and for cold storage of plants over the winter.  They don't do any annual production and instead bring that in.  Their Garden Center is open from April to October.  The bulk of their business is wholesale at 85% with only 15% retail.  They do not have any Christmas retail.   About 40% of the retail market is from Strathmore with the remainder from Calgary.  Once again Calgary is the main wholesale market but they do ship throughout Alberta, BC, Saskatchewan, Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, North Dakota and Alaska.  The nursery is open year round.  They treat each of these market segments very differently.  The commercial side does not require a lot of packaging where as the retail side requires the product to be 'pretty' with packaging.

Eagle Lake Nurseries Website Link

The size of the organization requires them to have a more sophisticated record keeping system.  All of their areas are clearly labeled and recorded in their AGS (Advanced Grower Solutions) inventory control system.  The staff also records the amount of time they spend in each section which allows them to determine their product costing.  It is also an integrated system that takes care of their full cycle accounting needs including order fulfillment, accounting and payroll.

If any of the product gets too old it is pulled manually and placed in their compost pile which they later burn.

Since nursery crops are a long life one of their biggest challenges is determining what product to grow.  Fads change and what sells one year mat not sell the next year.  There is also the added challenge on the commercial side of the business in that the landscapers are the last on site and there may be significant delays in delivery of the product they ordered even to the extent that they can't take it until the following year.  Currently Elms are the biggest demand in the commercial sector with Green Ash being out of favour at the moment.  Eagle Lake is also part of a Growers Group that is constantly working on and testing for new commercially viable big street trees.  Swedish Elm is their biggest residential seller at the moment.

Irrigation is a huge factor in the success of the company.  They get their water supply from the Western Irrigation District canal system.  Eagle Lake is shallow salty water so they do not use it for irrigation.  Right now they don't reuse any of the water and there is significant waste with their sprinkler system and the winds they have to deal with but this may change in the future depending on what happens with the water supply.  This is one of the threats to their business that Anita is keeping a close eye on.  As the nursery expanded they learned to make sure to properly grade their staging areas before laying down landscape fabric and drainage tile to get proper drainage so the product wasn't sitting in water.  They do have a back up water system in the slough that has cat tails that act as a filter system.  The Western Irrigation District opens May 1st and shuts down October 1st each year.

They use overhead sprinklers in their container section but use drip system in the rest.  Depending on the growth stage of the trees they have different watering needs.  They use a spaghetti irrigation system in the pot-in-pot area that mists into the pot.  The system is on a time clock but they make sure to check it daily to ensure that there are no problems.  In fact it is one persons entire job to check on when they need to water depending on weather conditions, etc.  In the heat of the season they are watering daily.  They have 20 year round staff and up to an additional 65 workers in the peak season.

Over the years Eagle Lake started using the pot-in-pot system and has 7, 10 and 15 gallon pots in 25-30 acres.

They find it is very effective to ensure that the product is nicely spaced, not falling over in the wind and makes order selection so much easier.  They do put white tree wrap on the trees as rabbits are a problem in the winter.

In their caliper tree fields they plant a rye fescue grass mix that requires minimal cutting but helps with weed competition and allows them to work in fields under most weather conditions.  In the actual row of trees they use round up.  Every other row is wider to allow room for their equipment.

Eagle Lake's practice now is to spread their various products over different areas to reduce the risk of crop loss from things like hail storms.  Hail insurance is not economically feasible but there can be some relief through programs like Agristability.

Their fields are enclosed by large fence to protect trees from the deer.  One staff member is also devoted to watching for diseases and pests.  Eagle Lake will use spray for diseases like fire blight.

Eagle Lake was in the process of preparing their trees for winter by watering them in before irrigation system shut down for the year.  They also grade (measure) the trees using a color coded system and anything that is too large is marked down.  Anything that is smaller is staked.

Eagle Lake does very few seeded trees although this is an area of opportunity with the shut down of the shelter belt program.  The majority of their product is from tissue culture and cultivars which they purchase and bring in since it is hard to do in Alberta.  They generally only fertilize once a year otherwise they find that there is significant spring damage which is costly.

Eagle Lake has an area where they prepare their own media of sawdust, sand, peat moss and bark mulch.

As they purchase new equipment they keep the old equipment as back up.

It was great to see a horticultural operation of this magnitude to see how a small business can grow into a larger more complex organization.  Anita's advice is to have product diversification and be well rounded.  Commercial sector is looking for knowledgeable plant people so there is an opportunity to help them buy.  The industry is becoming more technical all the time.  Employees have to be diversified as well and able to do weed management in summer and prune in winter for example.