bare-root back to Carman, ready for sale or replanting. After two years in southern Ontario’s longer, warmer summers, with higher humidity and milder winters, an apple tree will be six or seven feet high and well-branched. Grown in Carman the same tree would be four feet high and gnarly. “If we hadn’t expanded to Ontario,
we would be out of the tree business by now,” says Gerry, Lawrence’s son, who became the company’s president and general manager in 1998. The nursery business is fraught with
challenges. Tasks include weeding all the plants in the field or in pots. Aubin does not use herbicides. “It’s a choice,” says Gerry. “There are herbicides avail- able but even those that are registered for trees are harmful to trees in some small way. It would be cheaper with herbicides, I’m sure, but I think our trees are healthier.” Then there’s the weather. “There
were years when we grafted 80,000 trees — by hand,” says Gerry, “and we would get a late frost and lose the whole thing.” Every year, Aubin’s expects to lose 10 per cent of its entire stock. There’s no insurance, that’s just the cost of doing business. Seventy-nine years after Gerald
Container-grown potentilla and other shrubs in front of Aubin’s vast greenhouses. As well, Aubin Nurseries was one of
the first to store bare-root trees in the winter in refrigerated buildings. This allowed Aubin's to keep stock for ship- ping for longer periods of time. They were also one of the first nurser-
ies on the prairies to make the quantum leap from growing their herbaceous perennials and shrubs in fields to grow- ing them in containers. Before 1986, home gardeners on the prairies had a six-week window between May 15 and June 30 to buy and plant bare-rooted plants. With the arrival of container- grown plants, gardeners could walk into garden centres from May through October
and take home perennial
plants that they were able to transfer to their yards and expect them to take root and grow. This growing technique had been used earlier in British Colum- bia and Ontario but not the prairies. The change was driven by a market
shift: garden centres wanted to be able to sell all summer instead of just in spring. The container method improved cash
localgardener.net
flow for retailers and nurseries. But it was a lot of work, requiring major infra- structure, including miles of automatic irrigation systems as well as intensive labour. Container growing is fraught with climatic and economic challenge, but modern gardeners demand it. They also expect great-looking trees,
and that pushed Aubin to innovate again. Consumers want a perfectly straight
tree, something that is hard to produce in Manitoba. Prairie trees are started by grafting a cutting onto hardy native roots. When the plants are young their growth tips are susceptible to frost damage. Over a few consecutive years of this damage the trunk develops noticeable wiggles, becoming crooked. Trunks grow up straight in a milder
climate, so in 1992 Aubin bought 75 acres in Vineland, Ont., on the rela- tively balmy Niagara Peninsula. Since then, year-old Manitoba seedlings have been shipped to Vineland, field-grown for two years, dug up and shipped
Joseph Aubin bought his acreage at Carman, the company he founded grows and sells half a million plants per year — 97 per cent are wholesaled to the garden centres and landscapers. Aubin Nurseries sells across the prai- ries and beyond, in North Dakota, Minnesota, northern Quebec and B.C.’s Peace River district. Today, the multi-million-dollar Carman operation consists of 540 acres on four farms, 21 greenhouses, a large cold storage build- ing and a retail outlet. The farm at Vineland remains a crucial part of their operation. Gerry continues the Aubin Nurser-
ies legacy with growth and innovation in greenhouse production, field and container operations. The fourth gener- ation — in the person of Jared Aubin — is becoming more involved each day in continuing to create new standards for the industry, and in meeting the needs of customers with highly quali- fied, dedicated and knowledgeable staff and high quality nursery stock adapted for the prairies. x
Story updated from Pegasus archives by Cyndie Schram and Tania Moffat. Orig- inal story by Barbara Shewchuck. Photos provided by Aubin Nurseries, Barbara Shewchuck and Susan Morgan.
Fall 2016 • 69
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