Esbenshades

With some greenhouse operations wholesale business is just a way to move excess crop or one grower doing another a favor. But Lamar Esbenshade had a vision to become a leading wholesale supplier of quality plant material to the horticultural marketplace from the beginning. As his business grew so did the demand for his crops leading to year-around production in over thirteen acres of greenhouses. After 42 years that vision has not been lost as evidenced by the full menu of quality crops offered today. Esbenshade’s Greenhouses can help growers at any stage of the production cycle.  We offer a full line of rooted cuttings, pre-finished and finished crops.

We start off the year with cyclamen and primrose both as pre-finished and finished crops and we are moving into high gear with our spring liner production. We also produce our own seedling plugs for bedding plant production at this time of the year.

Pansies   If Easter is early we will also have Easter crops in full swing and will be starting spring pre-finished and finished crops. By the middle of March we start selling pansies, cole crop vegetables and other cold tolerant flowering plants. As quickly as we sell Easter and pre-finished crops we are filling the greenhouses back up with annuals, vegetables, geraniums, hanging baskets and all of your other spring favorites. By the end of March we are rooting the first round of poinsettia stock plants and April signals the start of rooting asters & chrysanthemums for fall color. As we are busy selling and delivering our spring crops in April and May we are also rooting two million fall chrysanthemums and asters to be sold through our broker network. This successful, long running program was Esbenshade’s Greenhouses first attempt at producing rooted liners for sales through brokers, and this program continues to grow every year.

Flowering Kale     When June rolls around we are still selling some spring annuals with emphasis on larger containers. Mums are being potted and poinsettia stock is ready to be spaced out, quickly refilling the greenhouses. Before June is over we are taking the first poinsettia cuttings while finishing up fall mum production. In July we are busy with the poinsettia cuttings, starting pre-finished and finished poinsettias and potting flowering cabbage and kale. We receive our first shipment of geraniums in mid-July for stock plants and cyclamen are started for early pre-finished and finish sales also. We force an early 6.5” mum crop for late July and early August sales while busily potting and spacing poinsettias. We wrap up poinsettia cutting production in August and have the poinsettia crop planted and spaced by the end of September. We are also delivering fall crops in August and September. Pre-finished poinsettias ship in September giving us more room to space the finished poinsettia crop.

If there is a slow time at Esbenshade’s it is in October. The poinsettias are spaced and growing and the fall crops are sold. The geraniums and other stock plants for spring are being nurtured so that they can produce their bounty. This is a time for recovering poly greenhouses and other greenhouse maintenance before cold weather visits the region. Early varieties of finished poinsettias are selling by Thanksgiving as well as cyclamen. By this time we are also starting to root geraniums and other spring liners. By Christmas the poinsettias are a memory and the yearly cycle starts again.