April 4, 2001
Spring has sprung for area greenhouses
Greenhouses have warming effect on anxious local gardeners
By Carol South
Herald contributing writer
Despite the dirty piles of old snow and an occasional dusting of new, spring has sprung in area greenhouses.
While winter officially ended in the outside world March 20, greenhouse owners began thinking spring as early as last fall. They began creating it in their protected environments as early as January, with a big push of planting beginning at least a month ahead of gardeners' best hopes.
And inside a greenhouse, where temperatures can reach 100 degrees on a sunny day, the smell of fresh dirt, growing plants and moist air can be a sought after antidote to winter blahs. Sometimes owners find that smell appeal alone will draw customers long before they can begin gardening outdoors.
"We have people stop by just to smell in here, but only on sunny days," said Leslie Roush, owner of Keystone Perennials. "It's fabulous, you can get a tan working in here."
Roush just opened her business last Sunday and already has had customers calling up to find out what is available. Some customers are so eager to begin their growing season they buy plants to baby along until warm weather hits: carrying them indoors at night and outdoors in the day.
Meanwhile, Roush and a crew of family and employees are in the midst of the spring rush of deadheading perennials from last year, planting and organizing. These tasks will keep them busy until spring catches up in the outside world.
In fact, the next three or four weeks will be a greenhouse owner's most labor-intensive time of the year.
"We're planting 3,000 perennials and also will be constructing some cold frames," Roush said. "You just can't hold gardeners back around here, with out long winters in northern Michigan you can't hold them back."
Layering is a key to successful greenhouse work during the early spring, noted Carol Morris, co-owner of Breeze Hill Greenhouse for 14 years. Just like with any winter sporting event in northern Michigan, working in a greenhouse can take employees from sweating to a chill in a short time.
"We all layer and take layers on and off all day," she said. "Even when we have all the fans on and it is winter outside, it can get too hot in here because a little sun goes a long way in a greenhouse. The sun can fry everything when it is so tender just after planting."
Florigen Greenhouse is a wholesale greenhouse that supplies area grocery stores and garden centers. In business for 23 years, they have 25 greenhouses and are moving toward greater mechanization every year to handle the 30,000 flats of flowers and thousands of hanging baskets they supply to area stores and garden centers every year.
Managing an operation of that scale may diminish some of the romance of spring's coming, but owner Peter Melcarek still notices his winter escape, where things are green and growing as early as February.
"It's warm and humid in the greenhouses, a totally different environment than outside," said Melcarek, who starts his spring planting in January. "There's a lot of plants in here now, we are finally filling up."
Greenhouse workers note that there is something spiritual about working with growing things all year round; something they find, well, addicting. Morris even has employees who eagerly come back to work each spring, ready to get their hands in the dirt and start growing things.
"It is like a rebirth all the time here, you plant something and you see it really did come up," Morris said. "I don't think I've done a job like this, I call it a job but is something we all take pure enjoyment out of. It gets crazy when you start selling things but we all tremendously enjoy the growing and nurturing part of it."