Spring 2008

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Deep roots sustain Hughes Nursery and Landscaping during Floods of ‘08

By Tom Hughes

Well Watered

When you grow trees for a living you plan on spending a fair amount of spring and summer watering young plants. Here at Hughes Nursery and Landscaping, located in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, we water our 30 acres of trees by hand with the help of a small tractor and a 500-gallon water tank. This year has been unique. As of July 1, we have only watered the fields once. Mother Nature has deluged us with more water than we needed.

Our water woes began in the summer of 2007. Ample rainfall in August sent our fields and landscapes into fall with very moist soil. A wet fall and copious snowfall from November through March saturated the soil for spring planting. The wet trend continued through April in Eastern Iowa.

Fighting the Clock and the Elements

April is a busy time at the nursery. We dig 1,800 trees for transplanting into residential and commercial landscapes in our area. At the same time we plant 3,500 young trees in our fields for future harvest. Rain showers ranging from a tenth of an inch to more than two inches every few days throughout April made for muddy fields.

A two-week-long dry stretch of weather in mid-May allowed us to cast aside our goulashes and plant from sun up to sun down.

By late May the relentless rain started again and didn’t let up until June 15. At times we joked with friends and clients that we should be in the ark-building business instead of landscaping.

The Cedar River rose steadily through early June and then surged to a crest of more than 10 feet above previous record heights. We’re several miles from the Cedar River and were not impacted directly by flooding, but more than 4 inches of rain fell on June 12. The water swept through our saturated fields taking tons of topsoil with it as it cascaded to the nearby creek. A portion of our nursery stock was underwater for several days and we continue to monitor the affect of the oxygen-depleting event on the roots. As of the end of July our biggest loss appears to be topsoil.

Community Spirit

Unfortunately our friends and neighbors in downtown Cedar Rapids experienced far greater losses. As soon as the Cedar River began to fall, we began to realize the havoc water wreaked on our homes, businesses, and community. It was truly amazing to see our community dive into clean-up mode.

Here at Hughes Nursery we coordinated the removal of 36 dump truck loads of sandbags from Mercy Hospital in Cedar Rapids. Everyone we asked to lend a hand readily donated their trucks and personnel. The bags were removed in less than five hours and the hospital was one step closer to reopening.

The devastation was immense, but the human spirit to over come the worst was even more exceptional.