President’s Message

Reflecting and Looking Ahead

ByPeter Mezitt, MCH

Looking back over the past few months, it was great to see members come together again at Plant Geek Day in Beverly and at the MNLA Live Event in Hopkinton. These two events were very well-attended and were great opportunities to reunite with people we haven’t seen in a while. It is remarkable how much we have in common and the amount of information we have to share. Thank you to everyone who attended and to our wonderful sponsors who helped support MNLA. For those of you who couldn’t make it, we hope to see you at upcoming events.

Looking ahead, the board is excited about our plans for the winter months. MNLA will continue to offer remote learning opportunities through the Virtual Forum Portal, but we are also planning to hold the live events that we typically enjoy including our Annual Winter Forum and Trade Show in February. Be assured there will be a lot of opportunities to learn and connect with industry peers in 2022. We will be sure to send out updates as things develop.

Speaking of 2022, I am sure we are all curious about what next year will bring. While demand seems to be tempering a bit in the second half of the year, it really has been two strong years for our industry. Supply and labor shortages seem to be the biggest challenges to most of us. As a buyer of green goods, I can tell you that the shortages on trees and shrubs with a longer growing cycle look to be getting worse while supplies of shrubs, perennials, and annuals with a shorter growing cycle look to be OK.

What we are experiencing here is happening throughout the country. On a recent buying trip to Oregon, I was not surprised to experience a seller’s market with very few items available from the growers, higher prices, and higher expected shipping costs for next year. I was surprised to learn that unlike in previous periods of high demand, nurseries are generally not able to expand and grow more plants to meet the higher demand. The main reasons for this lack of expansion are not enough labor to do the work and the high cost of land and materials. I believe this is the case around the country and not just isolated to the Northwest region. You would think that with the stimulus programs ending, we would see more people coming back to work. Unfortunately, this doesn’t seem to be the case and there are not enough people to fill the need.

So when we have a limited supply with high costs of materials and labor to do the work, we see inflation. It looks like most growers are raising prices next year and rightfully so. Therefore, we will all be faced with raising our prices as well. But how much will the customers be willing to pay for our products and services? I think we don’t really know the answer to that question, but I do think we are all expecting to pay more for things we buy, whether it be food, gas, clothes, etc., and consumers will be expecting to see higher prices from garden centers and landscaping services, as well.

For a start, let’s see how it goes with Christmas trees!

I hope everyone has a great holiday season.

Sincerely,

Peter Mezitt, MCH Weston Nurseries, Inc. MNLA President