The benefits of our mariani plant center
One of the biggest challenges of nursery production and installing trees in the landscape is the complication of dig timing and the fact that so much field-grown material can only be safely dug within a specific window or windows of time. Our solution to this problem was the creation of the MPC, or Mariani Plant Center. The MPC is our 18-acre above-ground sales yard located at our Kenosha nursery, and we keep it stocked all season with B&B field-grown plants and unique outsourced specimen plants, as well as groundcovers and Garden Prairie container inventory. About 7 acres of the MPC is devoted to our Accelerator® container program. The MPC allows us to provide the highest quality plant material year- round so that you can plant at the time that works best for you, and it is conveniently located three miles from the Illinois border right off I-94.
We call it the Mariani Plant Center because it’s more than simply a holding yard for pre-dug material. It is essentially a growing range where we maintain the quality of the plants throughout the season by regularly fertigating and spraying for disease and insect control. Our pre-dug nursery stock actually puts on caliper while we are maintaining it in the MPC. Root balls are shrink-wrapped in plastic, which conserves water and helps to keep the roots cooler. This is all done to ensure that our field stock is just as healthy when you go to plant it as it was the day it was dug, so that it will be as successful as possible in the landscape.
Our MPC Manager, Autumn Scott, tags each tree, whether it’s outsourced or is coming from our fields, so you can count on consistent quality, but we still welcome and encourage tagging from customers. Autumn travels all around the country selecting the highest quality specimens, bringing in most of our shade trees and ornamentals in spring and restocking Buxus, Taxus, and Arbs throughout the season. She also brings in spruce and pine for the fall. The MPC is fully stocked by mid-May.
Together, our MPC and in-ground nursery allow us to provide the highest quality field-grown material throughout the year, whether your situation calls for B&B or container material, and whether you can take it at the time it’s dug or you need to wait until later in the season. We also shuttle Garden Prairie material to our MPC multiple times per week, so you can pick up everything you need in one stop. We are always available for tours and tagging by appointment, so let us know if you can stop in and see us sometime.
