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CapitalPress.com
Friday, August 12, 2022
CONFEDERATED TRIBES OF GRAND RONDE
ROBINSON NURSERY
An organized vision for success Reviving signifi cant plants
By MOLLY CRUSE
Capital Press
By GAIL OBERST
For the Capital Press
McMINNVILLE, Ore. — Step into the
offi ce at Robinson Nursery and instead of
being greeted by the familiar earthy smell of
mulch and fertilizer, like you might expect
from a wholesale nursery, colorful sticky
notes, charts, and an organized array of post-
ers line the walls.
Josh Robinson, co-owner and sales man-
ager of the nursery, has made it his mission to
change the way people think about the nurs-
ery industry. Which is fi tting, as Josh is also the
current president of the Oregon Association of
Nurseries.
“Trying to get people to see our perspective
and what it’s actually like running a nursery as
opposed to what people will think it is … that’s
the number one challenge,” said Josh. He has
served on the OAN board ever since he started
working at the nursery full-time.
“It’s been a long but very fun and fulfi lling
ride,” he said.
Robinson Nursery was started by Rick
and Roxanne Robinson, Josh’s parents, in
the 1980s. Josh is the sales manager, and his
brother, Chris, is the general manager.
They are excited to be “carrying the torch”
as the next generation of nursery growers, Josh
said.
Rick and Roxanne started the nursery by
growing bare root trees. But a decade ago,
Robinson Nursery transitioned to growing
their trees in pots.
“The reason we started doing that is because
there’s a lot of cool trees we wanted to grow.
But when you lift a tree out of the ground, it
obviously has some impact on the health of it,”
said Josh.
Making this signifi cant shift in terms of grow-
ing technique was not without its challenges.
Josh attributes a huge part of the nurs-
ery’s success to the combined feedback, inno-
GRAND RONDE, Ore.
— Most nurseries grow
plants with profi ts in mind.
Jeremy Ojua, supervisor of
the Native Plant Nursery
owned by the Confederated
Tribes of Grand Ronde, has a
more profound mission. The
Tribes are hoping to revive
plants that are signifi cant to
their people.
“It’s not a commercial
nursery,” Ojua said. “But
we’re happy to get the seeds
out on the land.”
Small lots of seed pro-
duced in the nursery are
available for restoration, but
not for commercial opera-
tions. Most of the seed and
starts from the nursery are
used on the conservation and
restoration acres the Tribes
now own or manage in Polk
and Yamhill counties.
The nursery started in
2014 and is also a stage for
education: Tribal and non-
tribal groups come to the
nursery to learn about the
importance of native plants
to the Tribes, and to the ecol-
ogy of the Willamette Valley.
Many of the native plants
growing in Grand Ronde’s
greenhouse and outdoor
nurseries have had their
habitats reduced in West-
ern Oregon, Ojua recently
told about 40 conservation-
ists, gardeners, farmers and
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Molly Cruse/Capital Press
Josh Robinson of Robinson Nursery.
vative thinking, and teamwork from every-
one at Robinson Nursery. A huge part of the
nursery’s success after making this signifi cant
shift in growing technique was due to the feed-
back Josh and his family received from their
employees.
“What makes us unique is that I think any-
body in any position at this company feels
empowered to give input about improving
a process that we’re doing,” said Josh. “We
have the frontline workers making signifi cant
improvements on a process we’ve done for
years, I think there’s something incredibly spe-
cial to that. So it’s the people and their ability
to make decisions and have it impact how we
do a process in the future.”
One of these improvements for the nursery
was coming up with an alternative potting sys-
tem. Shortly after transitioning to potted trees,
the team realized that the trees were getting
“choked out” in solid wall pots. So instead of
going back to raising bare root trees, Robinson
Nursery came up with an alternative solution:
air-root pruning containers and Grow Ready
Liners. These containers allowed the nurs-
ery trees to have a more fi brous root system,
while the liners allowed the trees to produce
more consistently.
Gail Oberst/For the Capital Press
Jeremy Ojua, Native Plant Nursery Supervisor for the
Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, describes to vis-
itors the cultural signifi cance of the plants he grows
for restoration.
local landowners.
It is no easy task to grow
native plants from seed, but
Ojua has had plenty of help.
In addition to the Tribes,
local and state watershed
groups and private ecology
nonprofi ts funded the ini-
tial set-up and ongoing oper-
ations. Many native plants
grown from seed take three
to fi ve years to mature.
Today, the nursery fea-
tures scores of native plant
species that have been sig-
nifi cant to the Tribes, some
thriving and some not. Ojua
points to the wild strawber-
ries and camas, which began
spreading once invasive
plants were removed from
the lower fi eld.
“We’re still learning,” he
said of growing tobacco and
other plants. Many of his
methods mimic those used
by Native people for thou-
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sands of years. Tribes, includ-
ing those in Grand Ronde’s
confederation, would harvest
plants in a way that fostered
plant and crop health over
time. Imitating those meth-
ods is a work in progress,
Ojua said. He said he’s still
fi guring out irrigation, shade
and fertilizing schedules.
He’s not averse to using
modern methods to foster
young plants. Clay-heavy
local soil in raised beds has
been amended with Wilco’s
professional potting mix.
Modern methods of thinning
and disease control are all
part of the nursery’s growing
toolbelt.
Responding to Ojua’s
care are camas, biscuit root,
yampah, native onion, yerba
buena, tall dogbane, salmon-
berry, mugwort, tarweed and
dozens of other species of
plants and trees.