The holiday season is a time to count our many blessings. These days, and throughout the year, we’re thankful for our wonderful customers and green industry friends worldwide. We’re thankful for our health, our families, our freedom and for this land and climate where we can grow great trees. We’re thankful for everyone who plants and cares for trees!
We’re especially thankful for our dedicated, hardworking employees who are in the midst of harvesting another outstanding crop of trees. We paused for Thanksgiving Day, but our crews were back in the fields at daybreak on Friday, taking advantage of a week-long stretch of sunshine and excellent digging conditions.
Every day, our tree team comprised of more than 400 year-round employees impresses us with their resourcefulness, skill, creativity, and determination to get the job done. Three times per year, we celebrate their efforts in our employee-written newsletter, Growing Together. A sampler of this fall’s activities on the farm is presented in photos and captions below. Current and archived issues, in English and Spanish, are found here.
We hope you enjoy this salute to our employees. From all of us at JFS, we wish you a safe, festive and blessed holiday season.
“Los Top Guns,” on Page 4, is a salute to 29 employees who are key to JFS success via their 30+ years of uninterrupted service. These longest-tenured employees at each of our six farm units guide and inspire as they lead the way in crafting exceptional trees. Pictured on the right, Victor Pineda celebrates 40 years this month!
Building and repairing bareroot pallets is among the many talents of Daniel Waldo-Perez, a 30+-year veteran who joined us in 1990. Rebuilds and repairs require almost 18,000 sq. ft. of ¾” pressure treated plywood. If laid edge to edge, that plywood would cover nearly ½ acre!
Fall planting is wrapped up in November. The planting team at Northwest Shade Trees lines out a new crop of VigorLiner® saplings that will be ready to dig and sell in three or four years – or more.
Seed pickers based at our High Forest Farm gather thousands of pounds of seed for planting this fall and spring. They’re gathering Acer griseum samaras from the Fireburst® Maple in our office landscape.
Several weeks after sharing its precious seeds with our picking crew, the Fireburst® Paperbark Maple delighted everyone with its long-lasting show of brilliant red fall color.
