On September 20 and 21, we (Ohio State students majoring in Landscape Horticulture or related field) had the pleasure to attend a 2-day field trip to Northern Ohio. The places and sites that we visited were all related to horticulture in some way. These included landscape companies, nurseries, garden centers and botanical gardens. This tour of environmental or landscape horticulture operations was very exciting, educational and most of all, helpful to me.
Of all the places we visited on our tour, I think the one that I was most interested in, was Corso's Flower & Garden Center. They are located in the northeast area of Ohio, in Sandusky. I am choosing to write my report on them because they seemed very organized and knowledgeable. Corso's started in 1941, and is now owned and operated by third and fourth generation family members. Corso's provide services in garden center, landscaping, and wholesale production of flowers. There are not too many garden centers that have retail services to the public, and are also able to grow annuals, perennials, herbs, and mums as wholesale to other garden centers. They have 237,000 square feet of poly house area and 150,000 of outdoor production, which does not even include the actual garden center and landscape area. So, in general, they are a pretty good size company.
Corso's employs about 52 full time employees and about 65 part-time employees, with the average number of years worked at Corso's being 8. One of their main focus is definitely the wholesale area. They are able to supply garden centers throughout Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Indiana, northern Kentucky and Buffalo, New York. In a given year, they are able to produce about 1,612,00 perennials, 300,000 herbs, 42,000 garden mums, and 50,000 annuals as retail and wholesale plants. They also grow many poinsettias and flowering hanging baskets, but are for retail only.
Corso's is able to keep everything alive with their irrigation system. They use city water and have 3 injectors for fertilizer. The soil media that they use is Bio-Comp and Sure Mix.
Another horticultural focus of their organization is the landscape services they provide. They offer design/build installations, maintenance services, spring and/or fall clean up, pruning, summer flower plantings and do-it-yourself designs. Corso's specializes in creating outdoor living areas that well offer privacy, comfort, and convenience.
Chad Corso, vice-president and also our host, did not go into much detail about their landscape services, but I am sure they offer the same quality and professionalism as they do through their wholesale and retail services. My personal impression of Corso's Flower and Garden Center is pretty positive. I like how they were able to grow from a retail garden center, into a wholesale provider and landscape division. Like many other horticulture industries right now, Corso's was able to grow with the help of Hispanics that come to work as migrant workers. These people come to work in the industry in the months of March through November, the times when nurseries and landscape companies need the most help. And in many times, these workers work the jobs other people would not be too interested in because of the labor work and the amount of pay they offer. Corso's has about 15-20 migrant workers that mainly work in the wholesale area. Another thing that I likes about Corso's is that their landscape company also did maintenance work. Many landscape companies today, only do plant installations and hardscape construction. With maintenance services, I think a landscape company is truly a landscape company. Corso's provides the whole range of landscape work, usually what the client expects and wants.