Rehab

I had an interesting morning recently. Mayor McGee of Ridgeland asked me a while back if I could help him rehab some very old blueberry plants that he and Jane have access to. They were picking a heck of a lot of berries and giving them away to friends and family and eating them. He felt like they needed some loving to help return the plants’ vigor and he was right.

The old plants had ten to twelve major stalks and even more minor canes that were woody and crisscrossed all whichaway. Some of the older stalks had lichens growing on them parasitically, which can lead to a decline in their health. I could see where someone had pruned some of them years ago. When I asked him who did that, he told me that my sister had come out there to help him rehab those plants but they got rained out before they could finish.

We got after it together. I cut the big stuff out while he pulled the debris out of the way so I could see what I was doing. He would soon be bush hogging between the rows so he had to drag the limbs into the woods out of the way. We had just gotten all the 30 plants cut down to head height when we finally got that heavy rain that we had been praying for—we just didn’t want it to rain until we were done. Mother Nature let us know that you can’t always get what you want.

It started raining so hard we had to pack up the saws and loppers so they wouldn’t get wet. We sat in the cab of the truck to see if we could wait the rain out. We began to see that it wasn’t going to let up any time soon, so we cranked up and left the field unfinished. The hard part was done, but we made plans to get back when we can to finish the rehab.

We will cut out some of the old canes and try to get each bush down to 6 to 8 main stalks, and cut out some of the branches that were growing in the wrong direction. Blueberries produce on the newest wood, so we were stimulating growth that would produce next year’s berries. We also wanted the picking to be possible without the use of ladders. When we can finish, we will also clear out the centers of the old plants so most of the berries will be on the outsides of the plants for easy pickins. That will allow for some air flow, which is always a good thing.

On our ride up and back to the farm, and while we tried to outwait the rain, we had a chance to reminisce. Mayor and Jane have been friends with my parents since the early eighties when we became a part of their community. They were there for us while we built the nursery that was to become Garden Works. Mimi taught their son in high school, and they are now close friends with Mimi’s mom, Hilda Robinson, since they now live right across the street from each other in Ridgeland. They have been so kind to her and have made her feel right at home. They are close friends with Karen and Maur as well, so we have a large connection with the McGee family that we will always cherish.

We talked about my parents and the interesting circle that has formed. I told him the story about when my parents came down to Grenada to visit me while I was a Peace Corps volunteer. I’ll never forget the day my father and I spent a few hours out on a rocky cliff overlooking the ocean. We had spent a week together looking at the work I was doing developing a papaya fruit that could be grown efficiently and could be safely shipped to Holland. We also did some snorkeling and hiking on the beautiful island. My mother, Rita Martinson, was busy making friends and, being a lover of all things that bloom, was in Rita heaven!

My father and I had set aside some time to talk about life after Peace Corps. I loved what I was doing and I had developed a real love for tropical agriculture in developing countries. I had an offer from a coworker to revitalize his citrus orchard in the Dominican Republic. As I was telling Dad that it would be eight hours by truck, then a day’s ride by horseback to get the fruit out of the orchard to market, he looked at me without saying anything—with the look of concern on his face. Then, as I told him about a great offer to work in the United States with the Rodale Institute as an inspector, deeming organic farms as genuinely organic and educating those farmers that wanted to be certified organic—a rigorous series of things that have to happen to reach that status—Dad listened quietly.

We watched the waves crashing on the cliffs when he asked me if I’d given any thought to coming back to Mississippi to help him with the family business. I had considered it. I knew it meant giving up my life as a wanderer. I also knew it meant I would have a way better chance of crossing paths with my favorite person, Mimi. It had been years since we’d seen each other, although we wrote letters to each other regularly and I thought about her constantly.

Dad and I talked about what it would be like to come home and be a part of the family business. Karen and her husband Maur had already bought Green Oak Nursery from him, so he was at the Garden Works location in Ridgeland. For those of you that have been around here a while, you will remember it was originally called Discount Nursery. It was Discount Nursery from 1983 until around 2000, when Mimi finally convinced him that the name sounded more like a place to buy tires or cheap furniture. She also convinced him to build a wood façade and the interesting design that Garden Works is today.

While a seagull stood on a big rock listening to our conversation, we decided that we needed to have our own greenhouse operation attached to the nursery. The bedding plants that were being offered to us for resale were limiting, and we were always at the mercy of the truck drivers as to whether or not we would receive the product on Monday or a Friday. It’s hard to run a business like that.

We thought if we produced our own annuals, perennials, and herbs, we would be able to grow a higher quality plant that didn’t have to get trucked in from other places. We could grow whatever we wanted and we could restock daily. As we shook hands on the deal, I’ll never forget—the seagull flew away at that very moment, as if he were overseeing our decision process. Call me crazy, but I believe in signs.

Now we were talking about something I could sink my teeth into. I loved the whole idea, and I loved the idea of building the greenhouses and adding a new aspect to his 60-year-old business. At that time, almost all the bedding plants being sold were mostly six-pack flats of common annuals, and the variety list was not impressive enough to inspire much.

We knew of two Mississippi businesses who had broken out of that mundane list of plants and sizes available to the market. In Raymond, MS, Standing Pine Nursery was producing a lot of what we needed and we leaned on them hard since the 1960s. We wanted more freedom to have what we wanted when we wanted it. They did a great job and constantly upgraded their plant list, but no one can have everything available. We continued making orders to Standing Pine long after we built our own, up until they closed up shop recently. We will always miss Dody and Jody Ogletree, the hardest working folks in the biz and close friends.

You read that right! Jody said he spent a lot of his life looking for a wife whose name would rhyme with his—and believe it or not, he found a Dody. What are the odds? We basically built our plant list around what they were offering so we could save space on our production tables for plants we couldn’t get from them.

Floyd Patterson at Green Thumb Nursery, which no longer exists after Katrina in Gulfport, Mississippi, was growing the best-looking bedding plants I had ever seen. He didn’t grow for the wholesale market and did not offer any delivery—he sold everything he grew right off the tables he grew them on. We loved that idea. The plants were so nice because he used an unusually large pot and some incredibly good soil to grow them in. The pots were square but they held the same amount of soil as a quart pot.

Most growers provide plants in what they call 4-inch pots—they are actually 3 1/2-inch pots that hold very little soil, which makes it hard to produce a big, healthy plant. The soil used by most growers is a soil that doesn’t hold water for long enough, so the waterers at the garden centers often have to water the plants more than once a day.

I understand why growers have to use smaller pots and less expensive soil. Wholesale growers’ profit margins are very thin, so they have to rely on volume and cost-saving methods to make it work. We wanted to grow for ourselves, so none of that mattered.

Our vision was to produce a large, healthy plant for 4-inch pot prices that would perform well for the customer. We also realized over the years that all the hanging baskets we had been selling were little 10-inch hanging baskets. It is nearly impossible to keep them watered during the summer months. We would go to a 12-inch hanging basket with a soil that would hold water longer, and we would use varieties that would cascade well over the ugly green pot. Mr. Patterson agreed to take me on as an apprentice for one year. I was so excited to get back and learn his tricks of the trade. I found a place to rent in Long Beach, Mississippi, that was close enough to ride my bike to work every day. I learned so much that year, and I still use the same 4 1/2-inch pots, 12-inch hanging baskets, and the same soil that I believe is the true secret to having plants perform as well as they do for us.

We had so many requests to sell the same soil to the public that we sell it now, and it is officially known as “the good stuff” by our customers.

During that year on the coast, I put my feelers out for any used greenhouses for sale. It turns out there are lots of people who build greenhouses that don’t last, after they realize that what works out on paper is very different than reality. I found 13 greenhouses from five different people who were ready to sell. Me and my team would dismantle the structures, pull up the posts, knock off the concrete, load them up in the 18-wheelers, and rehab them as we unloaded the hoop houses. The greenhouses are still on the Garden Works back 40 and still producing great plants.

My other reason to come home panned out! Mimi was just graduating from the College of the Ozarks with her degree in English Literature. She planned to teach high school English and coach cross country at Madison Ridgeland Academy. Although we were separated for three or four years, the minute we reunited the flame

was still as hot as ever! It was perfect—we continued living our lives and growing up, then circled back around to each other and made our commitment to each other soon after.

The story of Mimi coming into our family and our family business is one of our most interesting ones yet. Mimi discovered things about her artistic side that she had not yet discovered. As anyone that has seen her work would know, her eye for how things should look from a plant design standpoint is exquisite and so original—I’ve never seen anything like it.

I can tell you for sure that the Garden Works that you visit today is like taking a hike in Mimi’s mind, an uncanny gift. Our family knows that she has been one of our greatest gifts as far as bringing us into this hybrid shopping experience that we call Garden Works. I’ve been to garden centers all over the world and I’ve still never seen anything quite like it.

You’ll get the story of how someone who, although from a Delta farm family and had never gardened, blossomed into one of the best in the country next week. Until then, stay relentless in your quest to find a way to help someone struggling with all these waves of negative events that are impacting our lives. Most of all, protect yourself and remember—your yard is all you have that you have complete rule over to keep yourself busy and hopefully at peace.