Closing A Chapter

This is the final post I will write for this particular blog. You see just as we are moving our blog is moving too. After all, without a full time nursery it seems a little silly to keep blogging about running a full time nursery.

But before I go I’d like to say I’ve had a great time these past 9 years running Ashdown Roses. The roses, the people I’ve met, our customers and most of all the folks I worked with. We are a family and that extends to everyone who came up and spent hours volunteering doing all kinds of things. So a big thank you to all of them.

Ashdown also gave me my “name” in the rose business and I know the opportunities presented now would not be there without it. But quite honestly the events of the past few years that prompted this blog have sometimes made it difficult to go to the old property one more day, knowing I have yet another battle to fight. I would have liked The War Of Roses to remain a past historical event.

More changes are coming and we’ll be announcing them soon. But we will still be in the rose business and so for now instead of focusing on producing rose plants we are going to focus on…

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Doors closing and opening.

It's been a whirlwind month. As it appears the property isn't going to sell anytime soon and therefore we will not be able to use the equity to move and hunker down until the economy gets better, I decided to simply suspend plant sales. The overhead of running a nursery is simply too high and too risky during these times.

What helped push me into this was a trip to Seattle to do a workshop for the HRF group up there. Sue Hopkins invited me up and arranged everything. The day of the workshop some 40 plus rose growers from novice to experienced came, and for five hours we talked about feeding, care, pruning, climbers and the rose business in general.

I loved it! And apparently so did they because all stayed past 6:00 PM. The You Tube videos played a major part in convincing them to come. Lots of nice compliments on them.

What I realized that weekend, with a little prodding by Sue and Marji, is that there are rose things I can be doing that aren't about raising and selling plants. Like teaching, writing, leading rose tours, licensing and more.

So instead of trying to keep a plant production nursery going during these times, and particularly one that's been crippled, I decided to stop producing plants and focus on producing rose growers.

Someone told me during that weekend that in order for doors to open you have to purposefully close some. So I closed the door on selling rose plants and lookee here. Lots of open doors around us.

Size Does Matter

The ongoing move to our new retail site is letting me know I've been living in a rose bubble these past few years. We are so used to dealing with rose people and passionate gardeners who are familiar with mail order plants being smaller, that I forgot what the general public wants when they drive up to a garden center.

They want a large one.

As large as possible.

And they want it NOW!

And even in this economy they are willing to pay a higher price.

Case in point.

We had just transplanted some Mons. Tillier roses from their smaller liner pots that we ship in, into two gallon pots for the retail area. Some good potting soil, nice organic fertilizer, patience and Mother Nature means in about 4-6 weeks that rose will be much bigger and indeed a more attractive plant to sell.

A customer walked in just a few days after we did this and wanted those larger pots. Trish told the person they had just been transplanted and were in fact the same size as the smaller ones, which were less money. Nope, the person insisted, I want the larger ones. Trish said that would be fine just leave them in the pots for a few months. Our motto is give them honest information and then give them the rose they want.

The customer went off happily with three great, newly transplanted, roses and we learned something.

Better to sell the same plant for $22.95 in a larger pot than $15.95 in a smaller pot.

You see, size does matter. To our bottom line!

Sittin in Limbo

We are waiting for the property to sell. And waiting and waiting and waiting. We are at the point where we can’t move forward with our future until it does. You see, I will be using the equity from the sale to prep and set up the new property where our greenhouses, Rosarium and production facilities will go. This is a separate area from the new retail site. We are already over there.

The bank situation left us with little in reserve so we pretty much live and pay our bills off sales of the roses; something the tanking economy has made a bit more difficult to weather. It’s also making the property harder to sell. The equity from the property sale will not only be our means of setting up the new place but also our cash cushion.

Welcome to being a small business in the first part of 2009!

I’ve been told a few times to possibly find an investor – not an idea I’m against. But finding an investor for a rose nursery is harder than the old needle in a haystack cliché. A nursery like ours is a labor of love. While I’m sure investors want to be loved, I doubt a portion of the love that goes into a place like ours is considered a good return. Then again in this day and age it’s probably a better one than most!

I’m not complaining mind you. I’d still rather do what this than anything else in the world. As I always say, “it could be worse. I could have a job”.

So we are going to continue to move forward and spread some serious love into our customer’s gardens. We have it in spades.

Want some?

Know anyone who wants to buy twenty great acres in the upstate with lots of love in it?

Phone lines are open!

Our First "Red Clay Day"

Last Saturday morning in a slight rain I found myself surrounded by 7 of some of the greatest people I've ever had the pleasure to know. Here's how it happened.

We have close to 3600 rose bushes in the ground. Some have been there for close to seven years now and they are quite happy and firmly rooted where they are thank you very much. They don't want to move but since I have no plans to leave them behind they haven't much say in the matter. There comes a point where you have stop talking to your plants and start barking orders.

There is actually plan in place to move them. We'll accomplish this by cutting them back very short and "dig" them out of the ground with a bare-root rose lifter. This is a simple device pulled by Jethro with a blade going about 12 inches into the ground that severs the deep roots and then a short ramp on the back that heaves the rose out of the ground accomplishing two things. Getting the rose out of the ground with your back intact and further dispelling that "roses are delicate plants" crap.

This works for mature plants but not for small ones. They just get sucked into the rose wake as Jethro and the digger work their way up and down the rows. So this means first the small roses need to be dug up and planted in pots - by hand - one by one by backbreaking one.

And that's how I found myself surrounded by 7 eager volunteers who also happen to be dear members of our rose family this past Saturday. They brought shovels, gloves, clippers and most of all an energy and spirit that cleared the rain from the skies. Did I also mention they also brought a great pot-luck lunch? Including vegetarian chili for yours truly.

We hit the fields and 7 hours, countless bags of soil and pots and a great lunch later some 500 roses had been lifted from the ground and now rested in their pots in one of the cold frames.

I was perhaps more exhausted than any of them but not because I worked harder. But because each passing hour of laughter and rose camaraderie further put the past behind and reminded me why I do this for a living. So while they lifted some 500 roses those Magnificent 7 also lifted two years of weight from my shoulders. I suspect Trish felt the same.

Now I Am Excited

So this morning I finally went over to the new property. I mean, I have been there before- lots of times. But I was able to look at our new cozy little office and see what Paul has done as far as clearing the back. It will be fun to actually have others to talk to during the weekday. Not that Paul can't carry on a conversation, trust me, the man can talk when he wants to. We are actually going to share an office for the time being. That should be interesting. Thank goodness we have roughly the same taste in music!

The back half of the property is still a little rough. The potential is there. The gardens are going to be so pretty. Plus we have all kinds of places to plant up close to the little buildings. There are even a couple of ponds, one with fish. I just hope we can keep the cats out of that one. I can see Duchesse "fishing" in my minds eye.

I really have to start packing. Anyone who has seen my corner knows what a packrat I am. I have saved every single card our customers have sent me. Not to mention photos! Then add the coffee cups, stuffed bears, books, my massive pen collection, and just your average crap. I am tired just thinking about it. And don't try to tell me that moving is a good time to clean out. I moved across country with some of this junk, you think I can get rid of it now?

More to follow later, my train of though just left the station.

We Score

I love living in a rural area. With prices going up everywhere things here are still reasonable. In fact downright cheap sometimes.

Case in point. I settled the terms of part of the new land today that we are moving to. It all started when I thought we were going someplace else until I got a phone call. "Paul, it's Rhonda. We heard you were moving the nursery. What do you think about moving in here with us?" Now having been happily ensconced in a relationship for the past 18 years, it's been a long time since I'd had an invite like that from a member of the opposite sex so needless to say my interest perked right up!

"Here" is a small garden center about 3 miles from our current location, about 2.5 from where I thought we'd be going, but best of all about a quarter mile off Hwy 11 & Hwy 14. That is a major intersection with one of those new fangled, fancy, flashing single red lights hung right in the middle of the durn intersection. Yep, a bona-fide four way stop. That meant cars had to slow down and we could start participating in a great local past time called parting the tourists from their cash.

I've known the folks at Motlow Creek Gardens for years and they are great people. Our businesses are complimentary but different, and since they already had existing infrastructure like water, buildings, small greenhouses and most importantly a toilet, I thought this was too good an opportunity to pass up.

There was one hitch. While their property is perfect for sharing retail space there is no way it can hold five greenhouses, all our equipment and not to mention some 3600 rose plants we have in the ground. Jumping on the phone they called the man who owns the land behind them and asked if he would lease me five acres separately from my lease with them. He said sure and so he and I met, talked terms and that is why I love this area.

Five acres, long term lease, $100 per month total for all of it. Betcha can't get that in a city with real stop lights!

Bittersweet

After reading what Paul has written, I wanted to share some of my thoughts. For those of you that have been to our place you know how truly special it is. Most of the land is still trees and pond. Then you have the gardens. Oh the gardens! The main mother block was already there when I arrived. 17 rows of it anyway. Now there are 25. While I don't dig holes I do map the entire planting. I know every single plant up there. Some were from my garden in California! Now add in the new gardens at the front of the property. How many hours of planning and planting. Walking it over and over again- the thrill we felt when some of those plants bloomed for the very first time. It just never fails to amaze me- God's grace right in front of us.

The first time I ever saw the nursery it was just my husband and I. I don't remember where Paul was. I got out of our car and just stood there. Amazed at the green in the middle of summer and the blooms from all those roses! Huge plants too! I was used to the bareroot crops in Wasco. These were stunning. And I got to work there.

I still get to work there. I am blessed to still be around. I am excited for the change but I will always miss this place I call home. I am the only employee who can honestly say she slept in the nursery- not by choice but because it was the only place with heat at the time! Ice storm, a story for another day. I will miss our big red barn and all the crazy critters that can be found wandering. Like the turkeys. The snakes can stay.

So a new day and a new view.

Trish

The move begins

While we've known about the move up till this past week it's sort of been something looming on the horizon. This past week changed that for me when we started actually pulling up parts of the nursery, keeping what we want to take with us and throwing away the rest.

Yesterday I pulled up two rows of black weed cloth that we use to set older plants on. They are in the open and not in cold frames so we don't need them right now. They've been there for years, nestled amongst the stand of older trees I left when the property was first cleared some ten years ago. We chose that area because the trees offered protection from winds and hot summer sun on the newly growing roses. There was a feeling of permanence to those areas.

I pulled them up with Jethro's (our larger Kubota tractor) front end loader and dumped them into the large dumpster we've set on the property during this time. As I looked back at the long stretch of now bare earth I suddenly hit me that we were leaving this property and the move was physically beginning.

As the old cliches say with endings come beginnings and we are actually excited about moving forward after the events of the past two years (see sidebar at right). The new space, which we'll talk about more in future, presents wonderful new opportunties that we would not have where we are now. So once we get over moving four 2800 square foot cold frames, one 2800 square foot greenhouse, an office full of stuff, a barn full of even bigger stuff, 3600 rose plants in the ground, some 14,000 in pots plus all the other things we are pretty certain we need but will probably throw away in another year anyway we are in the end quite excited about all of this.

And that's our story and we're sticking to it!