It’s been a month or so since we last formerly played our diagnostic game, so how about we start off this week’s newsletter with a new challenge. Take a look at the daylily below and see if you can see the issue:

I bet you're thinking, "C’mon, it can’t really be this easy, can it?" All I have to say for now is maybe it’s an easy challenge or maybe it’s not what it appears to be. Are you sure you already guessed the correct answer? Perhaps your eyes are deceiving you ...

It’s time for me to ask, "What’s happening here?" How about you ponder the possibilities while you enjoy the next few articles? I’ll reveal the answer before signing off.

This is the title of an article Ellen Wells recently shared in her October 22, 2021 Buzz! newsletter. If you’re like me and don’t fully understand why there’s a labor shortage, I encourage you to read Ellen’s article and article links below.

That’s what one economist is calling the current scarce-worker economy, the "take this job and shove it" economy. We’ve seen the help wanted signs everywhere—the Jiffy Lube, the Wendy’s, the big boxes, the chain and independent restaurants, and grocery stores. We’ve been asking ourselves as a country and as employers, where’d all the workers go? So when a recent New York Times e-newsletter with the subject line, "Where are all the workers?" dropped in my inbox, I couldn’t have clicked to open faster.

Like the study of economics in general, figuring out what’s causing this worker scarcity is complicated. And what complicates it, as I read the article, is that there’s a bigger dollop of human emotion in this equation than your typical formula for determining GDP or some other economic acronym. Here are my takeaways from the NYT piece:

• Americans are flush with cash. That's thanks to many reasons: pandemic shutdowns, travel restrictions, stimulus programs—from this and the previous administration—are just a few. Yes, unemployment benefits went up, but so did home values and stocks. Americans in all economic strata have more of a cushion in their bank accounts than they had pre-pandemic.

• The low-wage worker is revolting. As this article puts it, we don't have a shortage of workers as much as we have a shortage of workers willing to accept the working conditions that today’s economy often demands. Folks have had time this past year to assess what’s important to them. For lower-wage workers, health and safety—physical and mental—are top of mind. Hopes and dreams, quality of life, all of those emotionally laden and objective factors are in play.

The question is, what happens next? Some folks are taking themselves out of the labor market completely, for whatever reasons, such as the aging Baby Boomers. But as that pillowy cash cushion thins for many still-working-age people, folks will feel the need to get themselves back into the labor force regardless of working conditions. Who holds the upper hand? Ben Casselman, author of the article that the NYT e-newsletter is based on, says the labor market is in a standoff: "Workers are holding out until their savings disappear. Businesses are holding out until their customers disappear."

Thank you, Ellen, for this great information and allowing me to share it with the Perennial Pulse subscribers.

Top Perennial Performers

It’s always great to see how perennials perform in different regions of the country. Join perennials enthusiast Paul Westervelt at 2:00 p.m. Eastern on Thursday, November 4, 2021 as he shares highlights from Saunders Brothers Zone 7a trials. He'll also be sharing some growing and scheduling tips for producing perennials in containers. Paul packs his presentations with lots of energy, enthusiasm and tons of great content. You won’t want to miss this one. Click HERE to learn more.

Tax Guidance

If you’re a business owner and would like to keep more of what you make, I recommend you attend AmericanHort’s Tax Guidance webinar at 2:00 p.m. Eastern on November 17, 2021.

Join experts from K·Coe Isom, the nation’s leading food and agriculture consulting and tax accounting firm, to discuss what you need to know about estate planning and estate taxes heading into 2022. Click HERE for event details.

As I look ahead to next spring, I found myself thinking about what perennials provide tons of color and can be easily grown into wonderful, blooming plants in the same growing season. In other words, here are a few colorful first-year flowering perennials for you to consider if you’re still looking for a few great perennials for next year’s programs.

Coreopsis UpTick Gold & Bronze

This bright, cheerful interspecific hybrid coreopsis from Darwin Perennials is easy to grow and has lots of flower power. UpTick Gold & Bronze has large, nearly 3-in. yellow flowers with dark reddish centers. It doesn’t require vernalization and is day neutral, which allows it to be scheduled for perennial programs throughout the year. Hardy to Zone 5.

Delphinium Diamonds Blue

This F1 hybrid from Kieft Seed is definitely fitting for first-year flowering programs. First, the F1 seed provides at least 25% better germination than open-pollinated types. Diamonds Blue doesn't require a cold treatment for flowering. It's a facultative long day plant, which basically means that it flowers best when grown under long daylengths. Hardy to Zone 4.

Dianthus Kahori Pink

Here’s a dianthus that’s easy to grow and just blooms and blooms and blooms. Kahori Pink from Dümmen Orange is compact, flowers readily with no cold treatment or daylength manipulation, blooms all season (basically frost to frost), and has great heat and humidity tolerance. It looks great in the landscape or in containers. Hardy to Zone 3.

Gaura Bantam Iris Pink

I love gaura AKA Whirling Butterflies and they work well for first-year flowering programs. There are several great selections, but I like Bantam Iris Pink from Green Fuse Botanicals because it’s super easy to grow, not too compact and has beautiful flowers. Hardy to Zone 5.

Leucanthemum Sweet Daisy Christine

If there’s ever a perennial that’s both widely recognized and has great sell-through, it’s the shasta daisy. With many cultivars of shasta daisies requiring cold for flowering, not all of them are suitable for first-year flowering programs. This is where Sweet Daisy Christine from Dümmen Orange shines. It easily flowers without vernalization and can be grown for nearly any frost-to-frost sales date. Hardy to Zone 4.

These are just a few examples of the first-year flowering options available. These perennials don’t require vernalization for flowering and are relatively easy to grow. Perhaps I can show a few more first-year flowering perennials in upcoming newsletters.

If you’re looking for an in-person educational and networking event, there’s one just around the corner. The 2021 Northeast Greenhouse Conference and Expo is scheduled for November 3 & 4, 2021 in Boxborough, Massachusetts. There are several perennial sessions on the program, including:

• Best Perennial Performers at the Penn State Flower Trials, Sinclair Adams, Penn State
• Plant Growth Regulators in Herbaceous Perennial Production, Joyce Latimer, Virginia Tech
• Tune in to Green Infrastructure Through the Power of Plants, Steve Castorani, North Creek Nurseries
• Improving Irrigation Applications, Amanda Bayer, University of Massachusetts
• Diseases of Perennials and their Management, Sinclair Adams, Penn State

Several additional educational sessions are being offered covering lots of relevant topics, including pest and disease management, biocontrols, cannabis production, and more. The Northeast Greenhouse Conference also has a trade show packed full of innovative ideas and networking opportunities.

Click HERE to learn how you can participate in this great biennial conference.

At the top of the newsletter, I shared the image above and asked if you could determine what's happening with the daylily. At first glance, it looks like a super-easy challenge. I imagine the most common answer most of you came up with is improper planting depth. Then I implied that perhaps the challenge was too easy and your eyes might be deceiving you. Let’s see some of the possibilities: heavy rains, frost heaving, super nematodes lifting the roots out of the soil, or how about aliens emerging from the base of the plant ...?

I think you can see some of these possibilities are a little out there. If your first hunch and final answer was improper planting depths, you correctly solved this week’s challenge. Let’s take a quick look at how properly planted daylilies should appear.

The image on the left shows how daylilies should look when they're planted properly. Notice, there are no roots showing above the surface in this image. The photo on the right is an image out of the 7^th edition of the Simple, Sensible, Solutions: A Grower’s Guide to Finishing Perennials Guide from Walters Gardens. The line is drawn where the soil line after planting should be.

When planting daylilies from bareroot divisions, spread the roots over a central cone of growing mix in the center of the pot. Fill the pot, covering the crown with about 1/2 to 1 in. of growing medium. After they're watered in, the soil should settle so the crown of the bareroot is covered slightly with growing mix and no roots are exposed above the surface.