What does it mean to ‘PlantRight’?

After making the time and monetary investment, homeowners and property owners/managers want and expect their landscapes to look great. Our PlantRight Guarantee program is designed to help landscape professionals understand how they play a vital role in that process. Using the PlantRight method will not only provide a better product, but it can also speed up the planting process to make it more efficient and improve plant establishment.

Through this training, you will understand the processes that have gone into growing the plants for your landscape projects. Many of the plants that you’ll purchase from our nursery are grown by our internal companies such as Schwope Brothers Tree Farms and Utopian Plants as well as a few trusted growing partners. We are especially selective about the plants you will find on our sales yards because we not only want you to succeed as a landscape professional, but we owe it to our industry and clients.

Healthy seeds/cuttings and genetics produce quality plants. During the entire growing process, we seek only the best plants and each year we eliminate plants that have a new variety that has stronger branches, blooms longer, or is more resistant to disease. You can feel confident that the plants you purchase at our nursery are of the highest quality with the best chance of success.

Once you complete our specially-designed training course, the guidance and instruction will contribute to your success as a landscape professional. We’ve intentionally designed this program to help you and your company flourish by giving you all the necessary information to give plants a healthy start. Aside from learning the proper plant installation techniques, you’ll learn why using PlantRight Compost and PlantRight Bio-Life 800+ will help. The plants purchased from our nursery and installed by you will not only look fantastic, but will remain healthy.

You’ll also learn tips to help your company increase revenue by offering follow-up services. No matter how good the plant’s genetics are, if it is not put into the ground correctly with proper follow-up maintenance, it will not thrive. A large portion of the training you will receive is about how to correctly install plant material and why proper mulching is important as well as when staking is needed. These things will help make your operations easier and more efficient.

PlantRight Guarantee Benefits

Happy customers with fewer callbacks and more referrals

Fewer return trips to the nursery saving time, vehicle wear and tear and money

Less job do-overs which saves money and makes crews happier

Overall better for the environment -less fertilizer and pesticides - more tolerant trees

Better looking plants that flower better, grow faster, and have less pest issues

Healthier bottom line with more income and less/easier work

How a healthy plant begins it's life.

A healthy tree begins with a healthy seed with healthy genetics. The majority of trees at our nursery have been grown by our skilled crews at our own tree farms around the United States. From Oregon to Missouri to Kentucky to Indiana, we have more than 3,000 acres of land where we grow high quality trees and shrubs. Our crews are highly skilled with years of experience in growing and maintaining our plants. They know how to prune trees for strong future structure resulting in a healthy start for each plant for

several years prior to them becoming available for sale at our wholesale yards. They are experts in helping trees develop a healthy and vigorous root system.

Our trees develop strong root systems to support the trees using propagation processes such as air pruning vs. manually trimming roots. This results from growing our plants in specially-designed fabric bags and PlantRight Packages. Manually cut roots tend to shoot a few new roots right back in the same direction as before, while air pruning creates a more fibrous root system overall. Black plastic pots commonly lead to root girdling and overheating of roots, while PlantRight Packages favor straight

non-girdling roots with thick and fibrous root systems. The PlantRight Package rootball won’t crack in half because it has a robust network of fibrous roots. The overheating of roots grown in black plastic pots often results in dead roots. Air pruned roots are white and very much alive.

What to look for in a tree at a nursery.

While selecting trees, you should find trees with straight and fibrous, non-circling roots, a trunk that doesn’t need a stake to stand-up, and good branch structure. We grow the majority of our own trees internally, therefore you can count on us for the healthiest trees in the market. Our internal production brands use something not directly seen by the consumer, but the

results are readily apparent. We use a product called PlantRight Bio-Life 800+ as part of the growing process that contributes to producing a healthier plant at a lower cost.

Who is Professor PlantRight and what qualifies him to teach classes about the PlantRight Guarantee?

Rick Spurgeon joined PlantRight in April 2021 with the responsibility of educating our customers and internal team members about how our PlantRight products can help grow healthier trees, shrubs, and plants. As a graduate of the University of Missouri with a bachelor’s degree in forest management, Rick recognizes that much of his education came from his own hands-on experience. Growing up on a small farm, Rick turned away from a manufacturing job that awaited him after high school graduation.

Knowing he wanted to spend time outdoors and around trees, he received his college degree and never looked back.

Rick is a Board-Certified Master Arborist through the International Society of Arboriculture (ISA). He is a former president of the Midwestern Chapter of ISA, certified arborist, and former president of the Kansas Arborist Association, and has received the Kansas State Forester Award. He earned the ISA Tree Risk Assessment Qualification.

Most recently, Rick created and managed an urban forestry program for the City of Olathe which entailed planting as many as 2,000 trees per year. He also was responsible for overseeing all removal and pruning operations, insect and disease control, and landscape/irrigation maintenance of city medians. Additional Olathe properties maintained by Rick and his team included parks, city buildings, trails, creeks, construction areas, and streets. Prior to working with the City of Olathe, he spent a few years consulting and managing private lands for timber production and operated a logging crew.

Without a doubt, trees are Rick’s passion in life. While he said that his favorite tree tends to evolve, he loves the vibrant fall colors that sugar maples put on and most recently he has grown to appreciate smaller tree varieties including the eastern redbud and golden raintree. He also enjoys researching state champion trees and recognizes that trees create cooling shade, raise property values, and reduce stress levels. Rick is an advocate for Bio-Life 800+ as well as the entire PlantRight system and sees the benefits it provides all plants, including trees. He understands microbes provide ideal “food” for plants and those same microbes could not exist without trees. He looks forward to increasing the knowledge of our internal team as well as sharing his knowledge with other tree and plant enthusiasts to help plants look vibrant, grow fast, stay healthy, and require less maintenance. Installing plants is the first step, and using the proper products is vital. When those things are done right, landscapers save money, improve their own reputation, and gain referrals and additional jobs. That cycle just keeps making the lives of everyone in the green industry easier.