February 2017 Seedling Sale

February 2017, Seedling Sale

Linn County Small Woodland Seedling Sale

The 22nd annual Linn Chapter seedling sale was a two-day event. Friday was the day to pick up seedlings from the nurseries, prepare tables in the Santiam Building at the Linn County Fairgrounds in Albany, fill the 130 pre-orders and finally set up for the public for Saturday. Saturday was the day for customers to pick up their pre-orders and visit the Good from the Woods displays. Also, there were about 100 walk in customers to purchase seedlings.

All of this ran very smoothly thanks to the help of volunteers from the Linn Small Woodlands Chapter, 4-H members and their parents and our college scholarship recipient. This year Bonnie and Lance Marshall chaired the seedling committee for the first time and they did a fantastic job of ordering the seedlings, getting out publicity, thanks to Katie Kohl, processing the pre-orders from our customers and answering phone call and e-mail questions. Don and Carol Cree picked up the seedlings from the Brooks Tree Farm Nursery with a little help from Lance Marshall. Jack Lowers picked up the seedlings from Heritage Nursery and Bob and Mary Brendle picked up the coast redwood seedlings from Plum Creek Nursery.

Jim Cota obtained the grand fir and incense-cedar seedlings along with supplying the sawdust needed to wrap the pre-orders. Jim Merzenich donated a box of Valley ponderosa pine. Rod and Ann Bardell donated potted seedlings they started from seeds. Christy Tyetook over Fay Sallee’s job at the Friday and Saturday events arranging jobs for all the volunteers and making sure none of them got overworked and all had fun. Fay still prepared all the pictures and plant descriptions for use at the sale.

Working at the fairgrounds on Friday, we had Kyle Rankin taking the lead in helping set up the tables and arranging the area for processing the pre-orders. Kyle has helped us every year since he was a little boy working with his grandparents Lon and Laura Rankin. Bill Bowlingused his experience from prior years to arrange the pre-order pick up area making it very efficient to find all the orders. He had great help from Katie and Steve Kohl along with two 4-H members.

Once we started filling the pre-orders, we needed folks to stand behind each species bag of seedlings to carefully count out seedlings for the orders. We also needed people like Ken Crouse to go around to the different tables and gather the seedling orders and take them to the people doing the wrapping of the orders. Dan Thackaberry took the lead in making sure the hardwood seedlings and sword ferns were correct. Nancy and Larry Mauter were key players in the conifer area. Mike Barsotti helped the wrappers by making sure they did not run out of work to do by delivering orders to their wrapping table.

The people doing the wrapping do a very important job. They must make sure the counts fit the orders, the roots are kept moist and carefully wrapped in newspaper and sawdust and then sealed in plastic bags. They also have to make sure every order is complete and no seedling species are missing. Wrappers included Kyle, Tyrell and Wesley Rankin, Jack Lowers, Jim Cota, Bonnie Marshall, Shirley Jolliff and Lee Peterman along with several 4-H members and parents. We even had one customer, Cory Koos, who helps us each year to get the orders ready.

Saturday we opened the doors at 8:00 am for our customers. There was a steady stream of people coming to pick up their pre-orders. The walk in customers that had not pre-ordered enjoyed buying the seedlings that were left and visiting the Goods from the Woods booths. Many of the workers from Friday came back to help on Saturday. Help on Saturday included Mikaela Gozney, our college scholarship student. Additional Linn Chapter volunteers helping on Saturday included Jonathan Christie, Shirley and Joe Holmberg, Bud Baumgartner, Kathy Otis, Carol Cree, Brock Cota, Brian Rabe and his son Brogan. In addition, ten 4-H families helped with the Saturday event.