FALL TOUR RECAP

Peter Hiel, MNLA 2nd Vice President It was great seeing everyone in

Helena last month for the Fall

Tour. Wednesday’s welcome dinner at Gardenwerks was well attended, where we enjoyed a catered spread of taco fixings from South Paw Street Taco. Luckily the greenhouse is a perfect place to host a party in the fall when the weather isn’t ideal. We could enjoy our tacos and drinks out of the rain and watch the thunderstorm roll through the valley. When the rain finally broke we were given a tour of the Flower Farm at Gardenwerks by Delisa Hiel. Delisa talked about growing everything from dahlias to tulips. She also explained how Gardenwerks is trying to provide locally grown flowers to the Helena community through multiple avenues, including a CSA, grab-and-go bouquets at local businesses, and wedding flowers. Thursday’s tour kicked off with more rain that stayed constant for most of the day. Our first stop was at 2M’s new branch in the Helena valley, where they served up breakfast burritos for our crowd. The new distribution center is something that’s been in the works for years and will be an asset for landscapers and contractors serving the Helena area. The new facility has a huge supply warehouse, a landscape lighting display center, as well as a large conference room to hold technical training classes. If the irrigation supply warehouse doesn’t work out, they could always open up a breakfast burrito shop. The second stop on the tour was Marks Lumber. Marks has been providing the Helena area with choice, quality forest products for over 75 years. We were split into two groups to watch the process of how some of these products are made. On one side tour-goers were bussed over to view the mulch and landscape products process, while the other group walked through the new lumber mill. There was quite a contrast in the processes, with the former using computers and lasers to produce boards of all widths and thickness out of a single log. Watching how the operators were able to use almost every square inch of the log was really impressive. The mulch process was more raw, and required less finesse. What it did require

was essentially a wood chipper the size of a small house that could shred multiple logs of substantial diameters in minutes. Helena’s 6th Ward Community Garden was the next stop. There we were met by Mark Majerus, who is a man on a mission. Public gardens in communities rely on volunteers and 6th Ward is no different. Mark is a member of The Native Plant Society and has taken it upon himself to clean up some areas in the garden that were left to the weeds. The area, that up until recently, only had a few species of native plants now has 25 native grasses, 26 native shrubs and 57 native wildflower species. Many of these species serve as a food source for pollinators and have also been used traditionally for both food and medicinal purposes by indigenous peoples. The 6th Ward Garden now has a place to show the community a variety of native plants thriving. A big thank you to people like Mark. Before lunch we stopped at a residential landscape installed by Greenup Lawn Landscape and Sprinklers. The site was a house overlooking the golf course in the Helena valley. The crew at Greenup had a tricky site with difficult access to deal with while working on this project. The series of large natural stone retaining walls along with the stone staircase connecting the lower lawn to the front of the house were really impressive. Anyone who works with stone especially ones of that size know how much work went into creating this landscape. Lunch for the tour was served at Chadwick Nursery in the greenhouse, which was just one of many uses for this particular greenhouse. Owners Greg and Karen have been running Chadwick Nursery since 1983 where they have provided Helena residents with all their nursery and landscape needs for almost three decades. After a delicious lunch in the greenhouse Greg gave a tour of the grounds and explained how every square foot of the property has a use. After 30 years in business Greg, Karen, and the crew have had to work through many problems that they solved with some ingenuity, a good plan, and lots of hard work. Next on the tour was another residential landscape west of town; this one installed by Gardenwerks. The homeowners of this historic cabin wanted to accentuate the native surroundings. Gardenwerks installed over 2000 native grass and wildflower plugs on the site and seeded large areas with native grasses. The hardscapes were installed using a mixture of native granite boulders along with flat willow moss stone and limestone paving stones. After a long day out in the rain the heated greenhouses at High Country Growers were the perfect place to enjoy some food and drink and learn about growing everything from poinsettias to hemp. High Country Growers is Montana’s largest wholesale grower at over 10 acres and owned by Bob Hitzeroth. The tour of the facility was given by the owner Bob who was only able to show a portion of the operation due to time. The poinsettias are quite a sight, with tables filled with various sizes of plants as far as the eye can see. According to Bob they are not the easiest plant to grow, but the timing at which you start poinsettias works for space in the greenhouse as well as keeping staff on for the slower months. Another plant we were able to see in production was hemp. At High Country they grow the plants for its oil, which they have processed and bottled locally in Montana. Tour attendees were able to take CBD oil samples home with them, which was a great end to the tour. The last stop on the tour found us at the State Capitol complex where we met Ginny Sullivan and Molly Kruckenberg. Ginny is the Development and Grants Officer and Molly the Director of the Montana Historical Society. The Montana Historical society is currently constructing a new state-of-theart facility on the Capitol grounds adjacent their current location. Most of the tour was done virtually where we were able to see renderings of the new

building and its extensive landscape. Molly walked us through how the new Heritage Center will have an interpretive trail through the site that will use exclusively native plants. Molly explained why the landscaping of the new building will be such an integral part of the project, stating primarily the connection with nature and plants are why most Montanans live in the treasure state. It was great to see a project of this scale have the landscape portion held in such high regard. It was a great Fall Tour this year even with rainy weather. Thanks to everyone who came, hosted a stop, or sponsored. We are looking forward to next year’s Fall Tour in Great Falls.