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.

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!

Move With A Touch So Light.

"You've got to hold it right feel the distance to the ground
Move with a touch so light until it's rhythm you have found
Then you'll know what I know"

Thus is the chorus of one of my favourite Dougie Maclean songs - The Scythe Song. He sings the tale of learning to work a Scythe from an elder. The subtext to me has always been learn from those who came before you. The second part is about patience. If you try to force or muscle, it won't work. Instead just relax, find it's rhythm and "then you'll know what I know".

I feel the same way when I am lucky enough to "sit at the feet" of some great rose folk and drink in what they say.

One of the greatest days of my rose life was one spent alone with Ralph Moore at his nursery in California. Ralph at 90 plus ran me into the ground roaring through his greenhouses to see what he was up to. But I remember something he said when the conversation turned to how he responded when people asked when he was going to retire.

"I have new seedlings this year that will take at least seven years to evaluate so how can I retire now. I'll have to wait at least seven more years." Not an exact quote but I think you gather the sentiment. Mr. Moore spent a good part of the day showing me how to bud this way or that way and towards the end I begin to find a little of the ryhtym that flew deftly from his fingers.

As I cast my rose history mind's eye back over what the late Jack Harkness called "The Makers of Heavenly Roses", I think how lucky those of us in the rose nursery business are to be the caretakers of the work of the masters. From Beales to Vibert and everyone in between we are the caretakers of centuries of experience, wisdom and gift.

Mr. Moore once told me he wanted to make sure everyone knew what he knew about rose breeding so someone could pick up where he left off instead of starting over again.

It is our responsiblity to use it wisely and carry it on in their name. And to stop and smell the roses along the way.

And thusly rhytms are found, we will know what they know, and if we are lucky carry it forward.

A Fresh Wind In The Rose Garden

"I don't want to try growing roses because they are fussy and need a lot of spraying"

Boy, if I had a dime for every time I heard that at a garden show I'd be independently wealthy. For years and years I felt we were swimming against the tide by trying to tell people that Garden Roses were different from Exhibition/Florist Roses and in fact are quite easy to care for.

Fast forward to last weekend. I was at the North Carolina Arboretum speaking at a rose event organized by the Asheville Blue Ridge Rose Society. They do a rose exhibition for the general public every year there. Members bring roses and they are set out in vases on tables, but it is not a rose show with judging etc. Instead the idea is to showcase the diversity of The Rose with blooms cut straight from their garden. They do a great job also with talks and a question and answer table. I did my talk "Roses Are Plants Too" and then stuck around for a few hours to answer questions.

For the first time I can remember, everyone from the general public I spoke to was open to trying Garden Roses and actually knew what they were. Personally I think the rose Knockout has a lot to do with this changing of minds. I suspect the Garden Forums, articles on easier care roses and even TV programs are also driving that effort.

Whatever the cause it was great to spend a beautiful sunny day in the mountains of North Carolina, talking roses and not feeling like the odd man out.

"I'd love to try some other garden roses because they are among the best plants in my garden" is what I hear now. And I love it! And then sell them a rose of course!

Ready, Set, Propagate

Man, I love this time of year. Propagation season is about to really get rocking. We've already done some from the existing plants we have in inventory but in another week we move outdoors to roses we have not had in stock this past season

Or, sadly several seasons for that matter. We had so many roses we wanted to propagate and offer to our customers but we just couldn't get to them these past few years. And quite honestly I couldn't focus enough to get us organized to get to them anyway.

Now however, we know where we want to go, Michael starts full time next week and since he is our main propagator I know I'll have a solid person out there running the show.

We have a very ambitious goal this year. 1000 varieties on the website by September 1st. I think we can do it and I've put the word out to the Red Clay Day Gang for help and I know they'll respond.

I certainly measure Ashdown's year by the business stuff like profit and loss, website stats, attrition rate of transplanted roses etc etc. But our identity and to me one of our yardsticks are the roses we offer our customers on the website.

We are privileged to care-take some lovely and special roses. And a responsibility of that privilege is to make them available to customers to keep them in commerce and in as many gardens as possible.

And for purely selfish reason I love seeing all those new babies blooming the in greenhouse. It's like seeing old friends over and over again. Talk about stopping to smell the roses!

Getting Back In Touch With My Inner Rosarian

I have a little secret to share with you. Wanna know the best thing about moving to the new retail location?

The privacy.

No, not at the new retail location but at the old location which is now closed to the public, which means on Wednesday and Thursday while Trish is at the new location I have the entire place to myself.

Wanna know what I did today, this Wednesday? Whatever I darn well wanted to thank you very much! I consolidated the roses in the large greenhouse, propagated for a while, potted up some new cuttings, did some watering, played with the cats and a few other rose chores. Since I now do all my financial stuff only on Monday, then Trish and I ship on Tuesday that means I get two full days on Wednesday and Thursday to myself to...

Get back in touch with my inner rosarian.

You see, I lost that part of myself when I was battling banks and what not. I rarely got the chance to get out into the greenhouses and the roses and well, play with my roses. I call it play because I have a hard time calling it work when I truly love doing it.

At some point we will move and I will be back amongst everyone on Wednesday's and Thursdays but right now while it lasts I'm going keep doing what I want in my roses. And rediscover why I do this in the first place.

Wanna know what I'm going to do tomorrow, Thursday?

Don't know - haven't made it up yet.

And that's my little secret!