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“Hope Rises from the Ashes”, Jewish Journal
Hope Rises from the Ashes
Amy Sessler Powell
Jewish Journal Staff
Thu, September 01, 2011
Photos by Amy Sessler Powell
Allan Huberman’s roof garden survived the fire.
Allan Huberman and his son, Dana, stand in front of the plants for sale before the fire.
The Jewish Journal visited Allan Huberman in July to report on a new soil he developed, with vast potential in environmentally friendly technologies.
Just days after the Journal’s visit, but before publication of the story, he experienced a near total loss of his business when a tanker truck on Route 1 overturned on July 23, spilling fuel oil and fire into the Penny Brook, which runs along the back of his property.
The Journal has rewriten the story to showcase not only Huberman’s new product, but his courage in the face of this tragic fire.
SAUGUS — Allan Huberman’s new soil, the EZ Gro Watergrip Growing Media got a trial it was never looking for.
Many of the plants grown in the newly developed product survived a devastating fire on July 23 that burned four buildings at Huberman’s fourth generation nursery on Vine Street.
These sturdy plants are in many ways a metaphor for Huberman’s spirit. As he surveys the wreckage of his greenhouses, he remains positive.
“We’re all still here,” he said, as he walked through broken glass, charred plants and ruined property. “This fire could have been so much worse. It could have taken out all the houses on this street.”
His own house on Vine Street survived, though he lost his greenhouses, a storage building and office. The driver of the tanker truck, Neal Michaud, 59, of Manchester, N.H., died in the fire. More than 120 people were evacuated to shelter as flames leapt 80 feet in the air.
Before the fire, Huberman was busy meeting with universities, government officials and all sorts of people who might invest, purchase, research and manufacture his new product, EZ Gro. At the same time, he had experiments all over his greenhouses to see how the new product worked over time. He has continued these meetings as he adds new ones with insurers, adjusters and others.
So what is EZ Gro? It is a lightweight soil that retains enormous amounts of moisture, thereby conserving vast amounts of water. At the same time, plants seem to flourish in it, eliminating the need for pesticides and reducing weeds.
One EZ Gro product, called “the brownie,” is essentially a one-by-two-foot rectangular brick of spongy dirt, weighing 3.5 pounds dry, but up to 34 lbs. wet. Plants germinate quickly in the brownie, producing roots in much less time than competitive soil products.
To showcase what his product can do, Huberman has a series of raised beds and sample roof gardens that have been growing over different periods of time. He also has a few samples growing with competitive soils to show the contrast. (Visit http://www.ezgrowatergrip.com to see pictures of the gardens at various stages).
In addition, he uses EZ Gro in the plants he sells at his Vine Street business. Eerily, a walk through the burnt and exploded greenhouses reveals that many tomatoes, eggplants and peppers are still growing, even though the leaves appear to be brown and charred and the water has been shut off since the fire.
“We were not looking for an experiment like this, but it proves a lot. The material retains moisture and the plants are regenerating,” Huberman said.
Since he is now closed and was never in the retail vegetable business, he has offered the tomatoes to My Brother’s Table in Lynn.
At the same, time, the roof garden experiments survived. During the Journal’s first visit, Huberman tossed plant clippings on top of the brownies to show that they would germinate. On the second visit, one month and one devastating fire later, the plants had created roots deep into the brownie.
The older roof gardens remained lush, as if the fire never occurred. They appear as an oasis of green and growth among the char.
“This stuff is magic,” Huberman said.
What’s in the medium? Huberman won’t tell, but he has a patent pending. For now, he guards the intellectual property that went into the product development much like the Coca Cola formula or McDonald’s secret sauce.
His journey to developing this product comes from generations in the nursery business. Plants used on roofs or interiors such as malls and offices usually died, so he set out eight years ago to develop a product that would work better. The result is EZ Gro.
Huberman is working with universities, government officials here and abroad, and business leaders to try and garner investors, as well as a manufacturing plant in Massachusetts or at least New England. He is also working with UMass to test the soil in various contexts.
One of the main applications for the EZ Gro product is roof gardens, popular in Europe. According to the International Green Roof Association, the benefits of green roofs include storm water retention, a reduction of dust and smog, and the provision of a new habitat for plants. Benefits to buildings include increased roof life, reduced noise levels, thermal insulation, and effectiveness as a heat shield during hot weather.
Experimental roof gardens exist at the Chicago Botanic Gardens and many other U.S. locations. Legislation in a growing number of countries require roof gardens for certain structures.
The brownie makes the creation of roof gardens easier because the brownies are easy to get onto roofs, and easy to plant and sustain.
Despite the wreckage around him, Huberman is still moving forward. The only time he was reduced to tears was when his temple in Saugus, Congregation Ahavas Sholom, sent him a check, a gesture from his Jewish community, to help in the moments after the fire.
“I sent it back as a donation, but that check from the temple turned me to mush,” Huberman said.
He vows to rebuild the nursery, while also working to advance EZ Gro.
Huberman said, “My father always told me the sun will come out tomorrow.”