If you ask anyone on our team what it is that gets them excited to come to work every day, you’re likely to hear a common theme. It’s the plants and the people. It’s the fresh air and a chance to help beautify our community. It’s the camaraderie centered on a love for the natural world, a bias toward jobs that keep us on our feet, and of course, a passion for sharing this near-obsessive enjoyment of plants and the benefits they bring to our lives.
Here, we introduce you to a few members of our Nursery Yard team – who come to us from a variety of places and backgrounds but who share a common goal to help you find the perfect plant for the perfect spot in every landscape. And since both our native and cultured landscapes are exploding in color right now, we asked them to share their pick for their favorite tree or shrub for fall color too.
Kait Barth // Hophornbeam
Kait began her career in social work but found after a while that she needed a break. Kait’s family was the outdoorsy type, and growing up, she was always drawn to plants, nature, and outdoor activities. So, our store seemed like just the change she was looking for. Kait loves to learn new things, and that natural curiosity has guided her success here – starting with annual and tropical plants, moving to Plant Care, and now as a team leader in the Nursery Yard. Along the way, Kait worked to become a certified arborist and is currently completing her degree in Horticulture.
Her favorite plant for fall color: hophornbeam. It’s a native understory tree that turns a beautiful orange-red in the fall, and she loves the interesting texture this tree brings to the landscape too. Even late in the season, hophornbeam’s unique fruits – which resemble the dangling, multilayered cones on a hop plant – give this tree its own quirky personality.
Tom Anderson // Fothergilla
Did you know financial planning provides a great background for working with plants? Long-time team member Tom Anderson is proof. A financial planner for years, Tom was looking for a change and turned to his love of gardening. After taking classes in plant identification and landscape design, Tom began his career in our Nursery Yard and has been a well-loved and respected member of the team ever since. Tom’s strength is his fascination in how plants succeed where there do – what makes them thrive under one set of circumstances but fizzle out in another. That’s where the financial planner in him really shines. He says it’s about knowing what you want for your future and taking the time to pre-plan for it far in advance. That’s how you achieve a landscape you’ll love, and Tom is a pro at helping his customers make that happen.
For fall color, Tom’s hands-down favorite is fothergilla. This shrub, a relative of witch hazel, produces showy, bottlebrush blooms in the spring, but it’s true glory is in its brilliant fall color – a mix of glowing orange, yellow, and red, which Tom says give the effect that the foliage is on fire.
Ethan Anderson // Bur Oak
Ethan Anderson feels most right in his world when he’s outdoors. So, after earning a degree in Environmental Science, Ethan made his way to our store. Starting out on the operations side of things, Ethan quickly moved to the Nursery Yard where he now spends every day doing what he loves – enjoying the company of great plants and helping people create their own perfect plant-based environments at home. Ethan explains that working here is a unique experience – there’s really no other place like it – and it suits him in ways that are hard to put into words. You just feel it. And Ethan knows it’s exactly where he wants to be.
When asked for his favorite plant for fall color, Ethan answered immediately with bur oak – an unexpected response considering bur oak’s fall color isn’t exactly a showstopper. But brown is a color too. And what bur oak’s fall show lacks in fire, it makes up for in longevity. Long after other trees have burnt through their glowing oranges, reds, and yellows, bur oak’s leaves persist on the tree well into the winter for the chance to collect a pretty frosting from that first snow fall. Foliage isn’t everything that’s interesting about a tree either – Ethan loves bur oak’s heavily textured bark and the interesting gnarly silhouette its branches take on over time too.
Nancy Hoffman // Serviceberry
In her twenty-four years on our team, Nancy has watched our store evolve, seen changes in what our customers look for, and developed long-standing and important relationships with countless fellow team members along the way. It’s a family, she explains, and one that perfectly suits her love of wide-open spaces and outdoor things. Nancy has always lived outside the city limits, surrounded by natural landscapes, and this gives her a different perspective – one with experience and inspiration from observing the way nature grows its own trees, shrubs, and perennials. She then passes that insight onto the people she loves talking to every day at the store – and has fun doing it too.
If glowing orange is what you’re after in your fall landscape, then Nancy suggests serviceberry – a native, understory shrub or smaller tree that keeps your interest in all seasons of the year. On her acreage, Nancy enjoys serviceberry’s white flowers in early spring, then spends June competing with the wildlife for those delicious edible berries. And in the fall, she loves to see her serviceberries light up the landscape in fiery shades of orange and red.
Melissa Bussell // Viburnum ‘Autumn Jazz’
As a kid, Melissa Bussell’s dad made her work in the yard – something she wasn’t thrilled about. But as she matured alongside the landscape she helped plant and care for, she found joy in knowing that this beautiful mix of trees, shrubs, and perennials came about by the work of her own hands and heart. It created a satisfaction inside that didn’t come with looking at other people’s gardens and landscapes – and from then she was hooked. By her sophomore year in high school, Melissa knew natural things and places would be her calling. This year she finishes her studies in Horticulture with an ultimate goal of becoming a state or national park ranger one day. For now though, Melissa’s interest in trees keeps her occupied in the Nursery Yard where she loves helping people create landscapes that bring them joy and grow with them into the future – just like the landscape she built with her dad.
When it comes to fall color, Melissa loves orange, so her favorite plants show that bright hue. One of her many favorites is ‘Autumn Jazz’ viburnum. In the fall, this substantial shrub glows in multiple fiery shades from yellow, through all the oranges, and into deep red too. And through the rest of the year, ‘Autumn Jazz’ attracts pollinators, birds, and other wildlife with white spring blooms and blue-black summer berries.
Come Talk with Our Team
Fall is the perfect time of year for planting. And now for a limited time, our Fall Planting Sale is in full swing with 20% off all trees, shrubs, and perennials – still 100% guaranteed with a one-year warranty. Or two years for trees.
If you want to talk plants or need a little help choosing the right one for your landscape, stop in and talk with our team. It’s what we do – and it’s all part of our goal to make Omaha a more beautiful, healthy, and sustainable place to call home. So come say hi – we’d love to help you find exactly the plant you’ll love in your landscape for years to come.
