#9 CONVERSATIONS* part two (revised 6/10) " what happened?"

Sarah thought about her search for the keepers of plants over the last ten years. Where were those little garden stores that had given her such pleasure and relief from the day to day pressures of her life?

Sarah. What happened to all those great little garden centers that were in almost every town and city in America?

Nick. Well, there are still a few of them left. The owners are holding onto this lifestyle and still loving what they do. But, most of the good ones have vanished. And all the reasons for them being gone have to do with the owners and their desire for a change. You know, we were young when they started, without two nickels to rub together, but full of ambition and dreams. We found a little spot along side a road outside of town, got out the hammers and paint bucket and made a beautiful place. It wasn’t the business expertise that made us successful. It was our eager positive energy that made it happen. Hell, we bought our little garden store for 27,500.00, the whole thing, business, land and building, the whole enchilada. We paid an extra 3,500.00 for all the inventory and fixtures. It was an old concrete block fruit stand with a couple of pop machines, a walk in cooler, and bunch of bug sprays and a toilet that sometimes worked. The years past, very fast and soon, too soon, many of us got old and ran out of energy or got sick or just got tired. We just could not pack around bags of fertilizer from dawn to dusk.

Our kids didn’t want it. Neither did any other kids their age. They were just not having any of this hard, long springtime life. They saw their moms and dads dragging home and dropping or falling asleep in the bathtub just beat. The kids wanted the comfort and security of the big company, the corporation. Funny thing though, after the little garden store was long gone and it was too late, the idea of packing plants and the springtime rush looked pretty good to them after all.

Yeah, there are lots of reasons why they gave up. They got really kicked in the teeth when the big stores all around them started selling plants and garden supplies big time. There just was not enough money to keep up with these flashy places and the big boys would slash the prices so much, it made their plants look expensive.

They would see the accusing looks on their gardeners faces as if their long time garden store guy was cheating them. It made them sad and angry. Some tried to match the prices and beat the big boys at their own game. They borrowed money to purchase a new sign, buy some new shelves and improve their places.

But at the end of the season, there was no profit dollars left for them to make it past the long winter ahead. Some tried other things to sell, a Christmas store, wood stoves, items for rent, but it did not work.

Sometimes a buyer would show up for the little garden stores. In a few seasons, the buyer was gone, the place was run into the ground and all that was left was a little down payment money and a huge mess to clean up.

And the gardeners changed in their towns and cities. Families were now in full tilt mode of survival with little time and less money to spend on any leisure time they had. The shopper who would visit the little garden store moved from the garden to the spa with their dollars. They wanted Pilates and massages and golf outings and tummy tucks. They sold the big house and moved into the condo. A little patch of lawn and a few pots of flowers is good enough as long as someone else took care of them.

The new young homeowners, the new customers of the little garden store, could not tell the difference between a marigold and a marshmallow and could care less about the whole gardening thing. Why would they go out of their way to find this little store when all they wanted was a few “flowers” and be done with it.

So this slide began slowly and then very fast down the slope. The one and only bright spot in this disappointment was the land. The land saved them. Remember, they bought the place cheap near the edge of town. Now the land was worth something and often a lot of something to a lot of buyers. The deal was made. The papers were signed. The tractors and dump trucks arrived. The little garden stores vanished all across America.