It’s mowing day! At Hensler’s Nursery, we prefer mowing as a natural form of controlling grass and weed competition in our plantations. By fertilizing our Fraser Fir we stimulate lush growth, also activating weed growth which we snip right out. Adios, weeds.

The rain and mild temps this spring have our Fraser Fir trees looking magnificent!

Photo: One of our many work-horse machines called a Kubota tractor with a Ford mower deck. We customized it to fit a six-foot space between tree rows. Still going strong!

Oh, deer! Day 2: It’s a boy! Our newborn fawn is reacting well to all this attention. Photo: John Scheetz and John Hensler look over our new unnamed fawn.

Speaking of names … Can you help us give him a name? Send us your preference and we’ll select the most fitting one and give you all the credit!

Oh, deer! There was a surprise at the Nursery Deer Pen today. We have a newborn fawn with great, big eyes! We didn’t know the mother was expecting, but she is now attending to her baby.

For this photo, a telephoto lens was used to make as little disturbance as possible to the new baby fawn. Still to be determined: male or female.

We’ve been a little busy this week shearing fields of trees. See our “before, during and after” shots of Joe Hensler shaping a Scotch Pine tree. “Leaving as much new growth as possible allows us to deliver a perfectly shaped tree to you.”

Scotch Pine Tidbit: This is a hardy Christmas tree. Even if you take it home for the holidays and forget to water it, the needles don’t fall off.

Update: Our mallards have been busy mothering this week! Both nests hatched and between them they have 12 adorable ducklings to protect.

Weeds are not our friends. We are keeping the walkways of our hardwood nursery area weed-free with this tractor. Our Bur Oak plantings now have room to grow.

This week we continue our work to remove pine cones from thriving Fraser Fir. “If we don’t rub them off, the tree will put energy into producing the cone for seed. Where the cone grows, the branch will have no needles. De-coning improves the quality of tree for our customer.” – Joe Hensler

Interesting Fact: It varies from year to year, but there are cones on 20% of our Fraser Fir trees this year.