We've had a modest retail aspect to Good Oak for almost two years now. Our goal has been to offer the books and tools that we already recommend to our clients. More recently we decided to expand our efforts to get more people involved in restoring native plants to our landscape. And with this new effort is a new name: Good Oak's Land Stewardship Center.
This spring, we'll not only be selling quality garden tools and informative books, we'll also be teaching classes and workshops on ecological restoration and sustainable landscaping, and by the time the growing season rolls around, live plants! So we thought we'd start this off with a little gift to our clients and friends. This week we're throwing a FourDayHolidaySale. You can shop at our online store, or our physical Land Stewardship Center on Madison’s east side. With this sale, there are three ways to save:
10% our entire stock from Tuesday through Friday! Use Code HOLIDAY10 in the "Vouchers" field of the checkout module.
An additional 20% off one select item each day of the sale (see below).
FREE LOCAL DELIVERY to the Madison Metro area! This includes:
Madison
Monona
Middleton
McFarland
Cottage Grove
Fitchburg (north of Lacy Rd.)
We hope you can take advantage of this sale to get a gift for a loved one (or a little something for yourself) and that you have a great holiday season. As we move into the new year, we hope you'll watch the Land Stewardship Center grow!
Most people aren't aware that Good Oak has done some modest retail sales of tools and books. We have a small web-store, and do some sales at the Wisconsin Garden Expo, and other events.
We're focusing on being able to offer books on the topics of plant identification, gardening for pollinators and birds, native landscaping, invasive species control and a number of other informative and inspirational topics.
We also offer a selection of hand tools to help get the projects done, from our favorite, the hori-hori, to clippers, loppers and hand-saws. Our goal is to offer high-quality, durable tools that get the job done, and not cheap gimmicky tools that you'll break, toss out or leave on the back of the shelf. We have tested everything we sell ourselves before it goes into the store.
We're proud to say that we're in the process of expanding our retail offerings on multiple fronts. We have expanded our shop/office here at HQ, which now affords us a small retail space here at 4606 Pflaum Rd in Madison. So come on by and see us!
And, just in time for Christmas, we'll also have more great things to share with you: we'll have nearly twice as many book titles, and we may be nearly tripling the tools we offer. Look for an announcement coming in the next two weeks.
Bigger Things Coming
That's just the start. Over the next few months we'll continue to improve our web store, start offering classes and seminars at our new office space, and expand our offerings of tools, books, materials, and just in time for spring planting, live native plants!
Our goal is to be able to offer all the information, tools, plants and other materials to allow people to take action in their own backyard,"back forty" or community to restore native plants back to our landscape. We view our little retail store as one of the first steps towards that goal.
UPDATE: With cold weather closing in, we have ended our fall plant sale for 2015. We sold over 250 plants, we're glad they all found homes!
End of autumn overstock plant sale… scary low prices (50% off retail cost of most plants)! These plants are not dead, just dormant or going dormant, and should rise from the ground once again in the spring. Plant them now and just water them once or twice and you're all set until spring!
Through no fault of their own, these little darlings are extras from the summer growing season. Please help them find a good, loving home before the cold fingers of winter arrive.
Offer ends soon! We will be winterizing the plants in a couple of weeks. See below for our current plant inventory list which will be updated in real-time as plants are sold.
To Order:
Contact Melissa by email (melissa at goodoak.com) or phone (608.250.0513). Plants can be picked up at our office at 4606 Pflaum Rd., by appointment, or delivered for an additional charge.
Are you looking for an ecologically-sound job? Know someone who is?
Our long-serving Senior Technician, Micah, is heading off to graduate school. He leaves some big shoes to fill! So we're looking for folks experience in landscaping or natural areas management work to join our team as a Technician, getting the good work done on the ground.
We're also hiring for a new position, a part-time Administrative Assistant who can help us streamline and organize our office so the rest of us can spend more time in the field and working on projects!
Lastly, we're still looking for a skilled and experienced landscaper to join our team and lead our ecologically-minded landscaping division. Yes, we're ready and willing to hire now, at the end of the season, for the right candidate!
For more information, click on the links above, or see our Employment page.
The long, warm days of summer are my favorite time of year. Plants seem to like it too as every sort of plants from the corn in the fields to the prairie perennials are putting on quite a bit of height this time of year.
But there is one particularly large and fast growing perennial that gets very noticeable this time of year as it reaches up to 12' in height. Unfortunately, it is also an extremely aggressive plant that can crowd out just about any perennial or shrub. This plant's roots are massive and trough, they can tear through asphalt and even building foundations. So this species is not only a threat to natural communities, it can also cause some extensive damage to infrastructure.
I'm speaking of course, of Japanese knotweed (Fallopia japoinica, a.k.a. Polygonum cuspidatum).
Athena, who stands 5'8" is dwarfed by this colony of Japanese knotweed.
This species is also extremely difficult to control. Its root system is so massive that its difficult to get enough of any herbicide chemical to translocate down to the root from the relatively small above ground foliage. I said relatively small, yes, the roots are just that big that the 10-12' stalks are only a small portion of the biomass!
Furthermore, any small fragment of root or stem, as small as a pea can take root and form a new plant. So it is often spread readily by mowers along roadsides and by flooding, erosion and ice impacts along stream and lake shorelines. And digging out every little pea sized piece of root is, of course a labor-intensive and tedious process. Its also somewhat resistant to herbicides.
Regular mowing, every two weeks can starve the roots, but this process can take years. Smothering can work as well if you mow it first, but you have to cover the entire colony so no leaves are sending energy to the root mass, including new leaves that will inevitably sprout after the colony is covered.
We like to use the cut, wait, and spray technique described in the below video, but we use Milestone herbicide instead of glyphosate (Round-Up®, etc.) as the glyphosate has proven to be only mildly effective against Japanese knotweed.
Unfortunately, some gardens still share this
species, often mistakenly calling it "Mexican bamboo". Some people also
try to establish this plant for edible purported medicinal purposes.
Though it can help with inflammation, and possible aid in treating
Lyme's Disease, most medical applications for this plant have proven to
be false when studied rigorously. Really, for those die-hard herbalists,
there is really no need to establish it on their own property, wild
populations in our area are frequent enough that they could supply an
enormous demand.
Locally, we have a massive infestation of Japanese knotweed along the Southwest Commuter bike path in Madison, some colonies along Starkweather Creek, rural roadsides in Fitchburg, various small patches in the parks of Shorewood Hills (and getting smaller each year due to Good Oak's efforts), along the Military Ridge trail at the McKee Rd./Verona Rd. intersection, between Old Middleton Road and the railroad line immediately west of the underpass/on-ramp onto University Ave... and many, many other places. Still, several dozen colonies is better than several thousand, and aside from along the Southwest Commuter path, these patches are all less than an acre in size.
So be diligent, if you find this massive weed on your property, get it under control! If you find it on public ground contact your city/town officials to report it as many municipalities, including Madison and Shorewood Hills, are making an effort to keep knotweed in check before it can spread further and cause damage to infrastructure.
UPDATE: We've extended the application deadline for the Sustainable Landscaper and Technician position to March 6th. We've been busy with the Garden Expo and brush clearing, thus haven't found time until late in the process to really get this announcement out 'in the wild' sufficiently.
We're looking to fill a few positions here at Good Oak.
For the Sustainable Landscaping Manager we need someone with a strong background in horticulture and landscaping, knowledge of native plants is less important since existing staff already have that skill... but boy will you be getting a lesson.
Speaking of lessons, our spring and summer internships are open as well, we're looking for college students that want to learn a lot about native plants, ecological restoration and sustainable landscaping. Our spring internship starts in early-March, and applications are due soon, so don't wait!
Good Oak will again be attending the Wisconsin Garden Expo, this weekend, February 13th - 15th. As usual, we'll have a booth where we'll be selling items from our Sustainable Garden Center and talking to folks about our landscaping and ecological restoration services.
Frank will be giving two presentations this year:
Bright and early at 9:15 on Saturday he will be speaking about "Restoring Your Woodland to Health" in the Waubesa/Kegonsa room.
Sunday afternoon at 2:15 the topic will be "Save the Monarchs!" in the Mendota 4 room.
