Among the crop circles north of Pasco, row upon row of ornamental trees stand tall in their plastic containers along Sagemoor Road. It’s an unusual sight.

Hay farmers Everett and Sandra Wray sought to diversify their farm with an ornamental container tree crop in 2005.

The Wrays started with 450 trees as an experiment to serve the landscaping needs in the growing Tri-City region. Their initial bid a success, the next year they planted 6,000 trees.

“It just grew from there,” Everett Wray said.

They called their new business arm Garden Gate Nursery. 

Now, 20 years later, they have about 65,000 trees spanning more than 200 varieties under cultivation across a collective 50 acres. They predominately sell wholesale.

Why are they in containers? Because the trees can be sold and moved any time of the year to meet the needs of landscapers, contractors, nurseries as well as retail customers.

Chris Wray, one of six kids raised by the Wrays, works part time at Garden Gate, and explained the downside of other growing methods: “Ball- and burlap-grown trees do best if planted in early spring or fall and in most cases soon after they’re dug. They are heavier and harder to maneuver and there are more restrictions on them since they are transported in soil. Meanwhile, bareroot trees – which don’t have any soil at all – must be planted when they’re dormant. If they’re evergreens, they should be planted within the same week.”

He said another benefit of containers is being able to individually care for each tree’s needs, from water to pest prevention to fertilization. Each tree at Garden Gate is planted in a soil-less bark mix and watered with its own drip line.

The trees arrive as 2-year-old bareroots and are transplanted into successively larger containers, staked and meticulously pruned as they grow. On average, from the time a tree is started as a cutting to the time it reaches the customer takes seven years.

Though Garden Gate works with many local landscapers, it also ships a lot of their trees to the Spokane-Coeur d’Alene area, as well as Seattle and Portland, south and central Idaho and Utah.

Farmland forest

Everett Wray grew up on a dairy farm in eastern Kansas where his family grew alfalfa to feed the dairy herd.

In the 1980s, he was invited to the Columbia Basin by his brother-in-law to manage a farm in Pasco. Ten years later, he decided to start his own operation.

The Wrays had a connection with the owners of a wholesale nursery in Oregon’s Willamette Valley who could supply the baby trees, which initially sparked their interest in starting a container tree nursery.

“Amidst rising fuel and machinery costs and rental prices, they thought it would be a good idea to get into a crop that required less acreage and less heavy equipment to run,” Chris Wray said, noting the operation does require more employees.

There also weren’t many wholesale nurseries in the Pacific Northwest outside of the fertile Willamette Valley, the more arid areas to the east underserved, said Chris Wray.

The prospect of harnessing the abundant sunshine and using containers to moderate all other growing conditions seemed like an opportunity to plant an unexpected forest among the crop circles.

“It was a big learning curve,” Everett Wray said. “It’s like anything else – you get enthused about starting something new and you hire consultants and all kinds of advisers but there’s no substitute for a learning curve. You just have to go through it.”

The Wrays persevered and eventually had the opportunity to buy a 15-acre nursery in Boring, Oregon, which enabled them to take over the cultivation of young trees.

“The evergreen trees definitely grow better in the Willamette Valley. We grow all our evergreens from start to finish in Oregon. (At the Pasco nursery), we’ll bring some in and hold them for a job but we try to grow as much as we can (in Oregon),” Chris Wray said.

The Wrays’ youngest daughter and her husband manage the Oregon nursery, starting about 5,000 deciduous trees annually. The Pasco operation receives about 5,000 to 10,000 new trees annually.

Garden Gate delivers its own shipments via a small fleet of refrigerated trucks that can carry 150 to 200 trees at a time. Garden Gate delivers locally for a flat fee up to 20 trees within a one-hour radius.

The Wrays are proud to say that when properly cared for by customers, their trees boast a near 100% survival rate.

“It’s like having an orchard,” Chris Wray said, except there are hundreds of tree species to care for. “We’re using pest control because the trees and leaves have to look great. We can’t have aphids or any bugs because we’re inspected by the Washington State Department of Agriculture in order to ship.” 

Chris Wray said for 2024 their most popular species of trees by volume were: Autumn Brilliance Apple Serviceberry, Ponderosa pine and Austrian pine.

After managing the Oregon nursery for some years, Chris Wray branched off and became a software engineer, eventually settling down with his wife and kids in Pasco. He built the Garden Gate website and inventory management system and helps out when he can.

Tree tips for Tri-Citians

Garden Gate’s Pasco nursery is open by appointment, except in July and August when it’s not ideal for tree transplanting. It hosts spring and fall sales events when the public can drop in to pick out trees, as well as hanging flowering baskets.

For container tree planting, Chris Wray recommends chopping off or loosening roots on the outside and bottom of the root ball, especially those that encircle it. He said the root ball should be level with the top of existing soil or one to two inches above and no soil or mulch should be placed on top of the root ball.

Staking trees is a necessity for ensuring trees get well established in the face of the Tri-Cities’ wind.

Not enough water can certainly kill trees, but a larger threat is the lawnmower and weed whacker because striking trees over time will kill them, Chris Wray said. He recommends chatting with your landscaping crew about this to protect your trees.

High pH levels in the area and sprinklers spraying on leaves and branches in warm weather can lead to disease in some species.

Garden Gate Nursery: 2761 W. Sagemoor Road, Pasco, 509-412-4220, gardengatetrees.com. Open by appointment.