Bachman’s Spring Open House

A while back Jason, John and I took a short trip up to Bachman’s Cedar Acres site to attend their Spring open house for landscape contractors and gardeners. There were some interesting products and seminars. Of special interest in the new products was a pre-assembled bubbling rock. It would make a nice water feature if you don’t want to go to the expense of installing a larger water feature or pond and waterfall system. You get the benefit of the sound of running water but fish and plants are optional. I could see it being integrated into a paver patio with ground cover plants and maybe a water lily or two.

We also saw a low profile vinyl landscape edging ( that doesn’t show that “black bead” that some clients don’t like.) that can take the place of steel or aluminum edging. It is quite a bit thicker than regular vinyl edging, so it will hold its shape better, which will do a better job of keeping the integrity of the bed lines.

We also attended some good plant and hardscape seminars. Of particular interest to me was a seminar on rain gardens presented by Rusty Schmidt (photo at left) of the Washington County Conservation District. He talked about a project they did in the cities where they installed several rain gardens in a block of a residential area, and reduced the runoff in to the storm system by approximately 80%!. I am going to learn more about this process and share it with you.

John Daniels (right) of Bachman’s also gave a presentation iinforming us “what’s new” in the plant world. There are some new varieties of spruce and some interesting, ornamental barberries.

All in all it was a really nice open house, very well attended and with standing room only for the seminars.They also gave tour of their greenhouse range. Great food, too!