CNGA LooseLeaf June/July 2019

14 The Growing Popularity of Container Trees Container trees are a convenient product with many benefits such as diversifying and helping address inventory challenges. As long as container trees are grown and delivered with proper care and watering, they can help retailers and wholesalers meet customer demand for high quality, year-round options. “We do a lot of just-in-time inventory, and don’t have a lot of plants left at the end of the year,” said Levi Heidrich, a co-owner at Heidrich’s Colorado Tree Farm Nursery LLC in Colorado Springs. “We usually start shipping in container trees in June, after we’ve sold out of our spring crop. It’s easier for inventory management and cashflow. There’s lots of reasons to sell container trees.” While ball and burlap trees can only be harvested in the fall, winter and spring when they are dormant, container trees can be shipped all summer long. Container trees also fill a customer need for smaller caliper trees. The smaller, lighter sizes as well as the convenient containers make them easy to handle, explained Heidrich. “In Colorado Springs, a small lot with a five-foot setback between the house and fence might be filled with window wells, meters and air conditioning units, so there’s no room to get a dolly back there. Hand carrying container trees is an easy solution for those types of small sites,” he said. Heidrich’s orders a good part of its container tree inventory from Clayton Tree Farm, which has two locations close to the Boise River in southwest Idaho. Joe Clayton, the grower’s business manager, agrees containers are designed to help customers who have limited space, even wholesalers and retailers who don’t have much room to store or display all the trees they can sell in a year. The ability to get new shipments of trees throughout the year provides more opportunities to sell and continue to bring in revenue beyond the spring rush. “Being able to sell container trees throughout the year helps our customers in many different ways. It allows them to spread their expenses rather than having to bring all the material in during the spring rush. It also helps them limit the amount of material that they have on the ground in Colorado that is vulnerable to the Front Range’s often extreme summer hail storms,” Clayton said. “And freight has been surprisingly reasonable on a truckload of container trees. For example, last summer on a full truck of #25s (160 trees), we were generally able to land them into the Denver area for about $15 per tree.” Clayton Tree Farm’s container crop consists of more than 50 deciduous varieties, ranging from ornamental and shade to fruit. They are grown in two ways, the smaller calipers—#7, #10 and #15—are pot in pot while the #25 are grown in a pot in the ground that is specifically designed and fabricated for the grower. In both methods, a bareroot tree is placed in the pot to start, with a potting soil Levi Heidrich Joe Clayton Photos courtesy of Clayton Tree Farm colorad o nga.org LooseLeaf  June/July 2019