A Grower Perspective

Over the years, as Dave and I worked to build this nursery business, we have had countless interactions with people who share a common sentiment. They tell us that it has always been their dream to own a nursery and often they will follow this revelation with a secondary statement that they “love to garden.”

I used to try to explain that owning a nursery and “gardening” are not synonymous but I’ve come to realize that it’s pointless. There are people who have this perception and it’s impossible to change their minds.

Owning a nursery business is one of the most difficult ways to earn a living

that I can imagine. All entrepreneurial enterprises have their headaches and challenges. As a marketing professional working for a multitude of clients over the past two decades, I know firsthand what kind of difficulties all companies face. Being a business owner is not for the faint of heart.

However, being a nursery owner, like I suspect most agricultural endeavors, requires a thick skin and an impermeable spirit. It’s certainly a feast-or-famine enterprise. Sure there are good years but they can quickly give way to a year, or years, that leaving us biting nails and losing sleep.

In our business, we rarely see reprieve from the forces. Forces of natures are just one of the many wraths we experience. As if freezing temperatures that can completely obliterate entire crops – protected or not – aren’t not enough. We get to worry about too much sun and the ravages of heat on our plants and on our employees. We worry about wind and the swath of destruction it can leave if gusts are positioned just right to destroy greenhouses, flip plants and toss tree limbs that crush our products. We even worry about rain. Nature’s irrigation system doesn’t offer controls like our own engineered ones. We can’t turn rain up or down as plants require. And excessive rain causes flooding and other damaging results and infrastructure damage.

Add to weather things like layer upon layer of government mandates, environmental issues, labor concerns, land use regulations and other factors that make our road in business tough to navigate. Oh, and did I mention the economy? That too wreaks havoc like it does on any business.

It’s all a bit much at times and yet, we love this business too. It’s a wholesome business – family friendly. It’s as near to farming and the farming lifestyle that one can get without actually dropping seeds in the ground. There is a certain satisfaction that comes from responsibly making one’s living from the land especially when you see your children playing and growing up on that same land. It somehow buffers the insanity. I think those of us who stay in it, have some deep, near spiritual connection to the land which, I suppose, somehow keeps us grounded, strengthens our resolve and lulls us into believing that, surely, next year will be a better year.