Nurseries Feel Chilling Effect of Cold Spell

Ben Noda looked at the pile of dead plants and trees before him as if he were attending a wake.

Noda, manager of Gardena-based Mayflower Nurseries Inc., was surveying the damage caused by last month’s cold snap at one of Mayflower’s four growing sites. Plant stocks, green and ready for sale two months ago, resembled kindling and had been gathered up for disposal.

“You could put a match to it, and it would all go,” Noda said.

In all, Noda said, the frost spell caused Mayflower more than $394,000 in lost inventory. About 73,500 plant specimens--30% of the company’s stock--was destroyed.

Like Noda, many growers and nursery retailers throughout the South Bay are reeling from damage caused by December’s chill. Many of the consequences are only now being felt, as brown, withering, tropical plants are being given up for dead. Faced with the prospect of water rationing--which could affect both plant growth and consumer demand--growers are anticipating the worst spring sales in several years.

“When you add this to the effect of drought and everybody telling each other we’re in a recession, it’s something we really don’t need right now,” said Ralph Klages, president of the California Assn. of Nurserymen, a 2,300-member trade group.

County agriculture officials estimate Los Angeles-area nurseries lost $10 million because of the freeze. But growers and county officials say that figure will likely climb as the full impact of the frost becomes more fully known.

Tropical shrubbery, such as popular varieties of ficus, hibiscus and bougainvillea, were hit particularly hard. At Takata Nursery Wholesale Growers in Torrance, co-owner Margie Edelman said almost all of the company’s shrubbery was wiped out by the freeze. In Torrance, Edelman said, temperatures dipped to 18 degrees on Dec. 22, which left even the plants that survived in poor shape.

Takata Nursery, considered small by industry standards with six growing sites on about 10 acres of land, lost $50,000 in inventory.

“For my size, this kind of damage is going to be hard to get over,” Edelman said.

Because of high premiums, Klages said most growers do not carry insurance on their stocks. He predicted that there would be a limited supply of tropical plants in Southern California for up to a year. And, Klages said, some plant stocks that survived might have a difficult time attracting buyers.

“Some things will come back, but they will come back as very ugly plants,” Klages said.

Dead and dying plants litter the growing sites of Pacific Nursery in Gardena, where entire sections of plant varieties were “burned”-- nursery parlance for a plant’s freezing death and the brown, crisping effect it produces.

Sharon Tachibana, vice president of the wholesale firm, estimated Pacific’s losses at $300,000.

“It’s a question mark for us right now,” Tachibana said, in assessing the impact of the frost on spring sales.

Torrance-based Rolling Hills Nursery Inc., which has retail, wholesale and landscape divisions, estimated its losses at $330,000, said owner Tom Akiyama. Much of Rolling Hills’ damage was related to the loss of ficus trees.

However, Akiyama said his biggest concern was not the frost damage.

“It’s the water shortage and the economy,” Akiyama said. “If they ration water, you can’t tell plants not to drink so much.”

In addition, consumers will be less inclined to purchase plants or trees, Akiyama said.

As for a prolonged recession, Akiyama said, nurseries generally fare well in hard times because people usually stay home and work around the yard more instead of traveling.

Growers, of course, are not the only gardeners to feel the pinch caused by the frost.

At the South Coast Botanic Garden, an 87-acre county facility on the Palos Verdes Peninsula, officials report losing thousands of palm and ficus trees--all of those planted in the last three years.

County Arboretum officials say it will take several months before damage figures can be fully compiled, though they are expected to be much more severe than initially estimated.

And growers and botanists are not out of the woods yet. Noda, the Mayflower Nurseries manager, worries about another freeze in the coming months.

“One more and we could be dead,” he said.