Nursery deaths

**"* C* <d*@gmail.com>**

Our small, rural county had three nurseries, each established decades ago. 
The last of them just closed.

Wheelers, a good sized installation on the main drag, started as a small 
home greenhouse in Jim's mother's back yard before moving to a more 
commercial site and installation with a dozen poly houses some forty years 
ago. Jim thought he could manage it just like he did in 1970. His six packs 
were no better and more expensive than the nearby KMart, not to mention the 
Lowe's fifteen miles up the road.  Accent plants big box stores were selling 
in 4 or 5 inch pots he put in gallon containers at $6.95 like he always had. 
Perennials were mundane. Marketing was ... well, it wasn't. It was a typical 
second generation failure.

Gibbs nursery was found (if you could find it) through fifteen miles of back 
roads. Joan was a fanatic about perennials, uncommonly knowledgeable, and 
started putting some excess plants out on a picnic table by the road. For 
the last twenty years she has had busses come annually from two and three 
hundred miles away and she had a thriving wholesale business. If there was a 
perennial you wanted, Joan had it and could (and would) tell you all about 
it. Joan died two years ago, and the nursery was bought by a couple from New 
Jersey who loved gardening and had always wanted to run a nursery. Instead 
of concentrating on an endless variety of perennials, they started turning 
it into a more conventional, broader nursery. There was no drive-by traffic 
in that area, and people were not willing to go out of their way for just 
another nursery.

On another back road was another nursery that had been there since I was a 
kid (a long time ago). It gradually declined as it went through a series of 
owners, the penultimate being people from out of the area who had always 
wanted to have a nursery. Same problem. No drive by and no special draw. The 
last owner was a car salesman, again from New Jersey, who had read a book 
about running a nursery. I went out last spring to pay my respects and maybe 
buy some plants, and I have never seen such a disaster. I knew it would not 
last the season, and it didn't.

I say all this with some nostalgic sadness but not the despair I have heard 
from others about big box stores. In range we have a KMart, a WalMart, and a 
Lowe's, all fine for fill-in annuals and an occasional great find  I am 
particularly impressed with Lowe's which has a good selection, professional 
merchandising, and friendly and mostly quite knowledgeable personnel. There 
is really only one thing I miss. I don't know their names.

Sorry for the screed.

Duane Campbell
Syndicated garden columnist
Author: Best of Green Space; 30 Years of Composted Columns 

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