Rohr’s Nursery July 2026 Update, Watering in the Heat, & Gravel Beds
We had a hundred Japanese maples come in last week, so fresh stock is literally coming into the nursery. The heat slows things down a little, but we’re still plugging away and have fresh stock coming in.
We still have quite a few customers coming in too, so a lot of local landscapers buy off of us and a ton of retail people that just didn’t get to it yet, you know, they’re coming in and we’re helping them do the landscape design. They’re bringing pictures and measurements of the areas they want to do, and we’re able to help them help themselves.
And one of the main questions that we ask now that we never used to is, are you using gravel or mulch? Because so many people have switched to gravel, and there are certain plants, like Wigilia, you just can’t use it if there’s gravel. It just gets too hot. The plant can’t bring up moisture quick enough to the foliage, so it’s an important question that we ask when we come in, because we’re going to guide you to the plants that are going to do well in that area.
And they are going to require significantly more watering to establish in a gravel bed versus a mulch bed. Just because you’re not getting any of that water retention that you get with the mulch. It’s kind of like a triple-pane window where you’re trapping, you know, moisture and coolness this time of year, and so the root systems are more constant in mulch than gravel.
A lot of people ask if it’s okay to plant this time of year. Absolutely. As long as you just have to water it.
That’s a common question. Anything in a pot will always do better in the ground. So you figure today the root system is going to be 95 degrees on that plant because it’s above ground. It’s going to pick up that air temperature. If it’s in the ground, it’s like in the 50s or 60s. So it’s much better for that plant to be planted in the ground. You do have to commit to watering in the summer, but the truth is if you plant it in May, you still have to commit to watering this year.
I mean, you’re not out of the woods because you had it in the ground four to six weeks ago. It’s still going to require some maintenance. The one thing we are careful to move in the heat of summer is our large balled and burlap material. You know, the 15, 20 foot tall maple trees that have a half a ton root ball.
Those guys don’t always transplant when it’s in the 90s like this. We actually will call off plantings when we’re hot like this, and we’ll move it back to next week when we’re going back to the mid 80s. And we actually spray a sealant on the foliage before that really big stuff goes out called wilt proof. We talk about it in the fall for, you know, winterizing plants. We also use it this time of year for transporting plants. It seals that leaf. Does exactly what it does in the winter time for the evergreens. But we’ll use it on leafy plants this time of year. It seals that leaf and prevents the wilt from happening when we’re transplanting it.
Questions? Email us at [email protected] or call one of our two locations: Portage (330-499-0101) or Everhard (330-492-1243).