The Impact You're Making When You Choose to Support Our Business

The Impact You're Making When You Choose to Support Our Business

We couldn’t do this business without you, our customer. So I wanted to share a little behind the scenes on how much your support means to us, and what it actually does for us. Your support keeps our business going but also gives us flexibility for our family while we have small children.

While it may seem that the only way to support a small business is to purchase something from them, that is far from the truth. Supporting us can mean telling your friends about us, liking, commenting, sharing our posts on social media, subscribing to and reading our emails, referring friends, and even reading this blog.

When you do choose to support and purchase from us, here is the impact you are making:

1. You provide me (Mary) the opportunity to be a mom first, then a business owner. We can afford to have employees, so that we can work ON our business and not IN it all of the time. Having employees also allows me to work when I can, and to spend most of my days taking care of Holtan. When the new baby comes, I will be able to make that a priority. While I don’t get a “maternity leave” I get something better… I don’t have to “return to work” after 3 months at home. I can I get to still be at home with my new baby and my family.

2. You help us create a life we love, by taking some time off in the winter for our family, and having a flexible schedule when we need it. This is especially important this winter as we prepare to add another family member to our clan, but this also includes our extended family, being able to be there for them when they need us too. Family is what matters most to us, and you allow us to live this out day after day.

3. You’ve maybe seen the quote, but when you buy from a small local business, an actual person does a happy dance. This is absolutely 100% true. I get so excited when I hear from one of you that you are interested in something we are doing! You empower us as business owners to keep doing what we’re doing, which in turn provides jobs for other families, and helps sustain our communities.

4. As you support our business by coming to us with questions, referring us to your friends, and just talking about us in general, you empower and encourage us to learn more about being business owners, and connect with other business owners in our community. This just builds a stronger network of people supporting other people and you just can’t argue with the benefits of that!

These are just a few ways you are making an impact when you choose to support and purchase from small businesses like ours. We want to thank you for continuing to show up for us, and we are looking forward to Spring 2020!

THIS NURSERY GIG

🍂This nursery gig 🍂

I hear often, “You have my DREAM JOB! I would love to work outside with plants all day! 🍃

Yes, yes, I do love that part, but as a business owner, that part is a small piece of the bigger picture of owning and operating a retail nursery business.

Running a business is no joke. There is so much that goes in to it—the marketing, the finances and accounting, the billing and estimating, the ordering, the inventory, tracking, bill paying, payroll, decision making, customer service, employees, Human Resources, emails and phone calls—oh the emails and phone calls, and the list goes on and on.

I’m definitely not complaining because being busy is a good sign in business... but, man oh man have we learned so much in the last 5 years.

And having Holtan has shifted priorities for us. We want to work a little less, so we can enjoy him a little more. Sometimes phone calls don’t get made, or emails don’t get answered because we choose family over business. We are grateful to have customers who understand. 

So thank you to all of our customers who have stuck with us over the last 40 years, and especially the last 5... as we have transitioned the business out of Dave and Linda’s hands into ours...

The nursery will continue to change as our family changes. I’m not sure what that looks like, but i imagine time will tell and I trust it will be right. I suppose that’s the beauty of this thing they call a “small family business.”

How fortunate are we that we get to choose what we want for our lives?

Is it scary? Yes.

Is it worth it? ALWAYS YES.

We are looking forward to trying some new things in 2019 and continuing to serve our customers with quality plants and the knowledge to care for them.

Thanks for being here!

PIVOTING TO MAKE THIS WORK FOR OUR FAMILY

Over 5 years ago, when we decided to purchase Natural Plus we had NO CLUE what we were doing or what we were getting ourselves in to.

And to be honest, we still don't. 😂

But does anyone, really??

Aren't we all doing the best we can, making mistakes along the way, but then learning from them and growing and choosing better next time? 

When we bought the nursery, Dave’s dad Dave was running a landscaping crew and doing big commercial landscaping projects. We slowly inherited and took over operations of the crew and jobs in 2014 and 2015, however quickly realized it was more than we wanted to manage and more time consuming than we liked. We originally decided to purchase the business for the flexibility of working our jobs around our family. The demands of the landscaping crew, the appointments, the estimating, and the billing alone were more than Dave was able to handle himself, and keeping him busy all day and every evening, plus working the nursery on the weekends. He was falling more and more behind on everything because he was filling too many roles. We had to make a decision: get more help and grow the landscaping, or phase out that part of the business and focus on the retail nursery. We had a lot of deep discussions and spent hours projecting if a seasonal retail nursery could stand alone without the income from landscaping. We are excited to say that we {mostly} went for it, only doing a select few small landscaping projects that were still hanging on from previous years. We are continuing to trust in the process and take risks, choosing to pour in to the parts of this business that work for our family, and letting go of the parts that don’t. It’s been a long, slow process, and will probably never be complete. And it is oh so scary, not knowing if what we follow will continue to provide for our family and make our business profitable. We continue to have challenges, but choose to trust the process of it all, and know that we need to continue to make decisions for our business based on what we want for our family.

Business ownership has taught us so much in the last 5 years, but the thing we have gotten the most from it is THE PEOPLE. Our customers are the absolute best, and continue to SHOW UP and SUPPORT the little backyard nursery we have going here. 

We appreciate all of you, and thanks for sticking with us as we grow and learn how to make this family business work for us.

TIPS FOR SUMMER PLANTING

TIPS FOR SUMMER PLANTING

Summer has finally arrived and the beautiful colors and blooms of summer are everywhere. A common question we get in the summer is

“Is it too late to plant?” 

The answer is no.

Container grown plants can be planted anytime from spring through fall. And a benefit of planting now is that you can see the foliage and blooms of the plants you are choosing.  So if you have procrastinated or simply ran out of time earlier to complete your gardening projects there is still time.

Four questions that you should consider when choosing any plant are:

·      How tall do you want the plant to get?

·      Does your area have sun, shade, or part sun, and what direction does it face?

·      Do you want an evergreen or leafy plant?

·      Do you have any special wishes for the plant – color, blooms, etc.

Once you have the answers to these questions, we can easily help you pick the plants for your areas.