Midwest Growers Weather Storms

By Greenhouse Grower staff|August 29, 2007

We’re pleased to report the storms that rolled through the Midwest last week were not too disruptive or damaging to growers. We checked in with about a dozen growers and grower-retailers to see if they were affected by flooding or storm damage.

In Michigan, the storms passed through many key growing areas, including Kalamazoo, Battle Creek, Lansing and Flint. Boven’s Quality Plants near Kalamazoo was without power for 24 hours, but had a backup generator to take over. “However, since we sell a lot of mums in the Ohio area, we are down about 20 percent on sales due to all the flooding in that region,” says Laurie (Boven) Pomeroy at Boven’s. “We are hoping that when they dry out, they will catch up to some extent as long as we can hold the flowers back enough.”

Anyone shipping on I-80/94 between Michigan and Chicago would have been affected by the flooded highway being closed in Northwest Indiana.

In Chicago, 70 mph winds tore down trees and damaged buildings Thursday night. At Ball Horticultural Co. in West Chicago, big trees toppled and damaged cars and parts of the building, but no one was injured.