Inspiration date

What a great weekend! First, I get to have dinner with the great Doug Boyd of The Maine Bucket Co. Then I run into the just-as-great Thomas Birt of Tucson’s Mesquite Valley Growers Nursery. These men are significant to the industry in different ways, but they share a trait that permeates the green field: they’re good guys.

That’s something that has always struck me as significant: people in the business are by-and-large wonderful folk. I travel the country and see the same thing everywhere I go. This industry is marked by hard workers who have a passion for what they do and a compassion for those who benefit from it.

Take Doug and Tom, for example. Both could have considered retirement by now. At the very least, they could have considered slowing down. Instead, Doug tells me, “I just enjoy what I do so much that I really don’t have any desire to give it up.” To that end, he has expanded his custom display business to the point that it outsells his buckets/planters/deco items. He also has begun partnering with plant companies to create win/win sales items that look great and that are displayed impressively.

Tom, likewise, has stepped up his work regimen. When he was in Dallas for the TNLA Expo over the weekend, he made sure to arrive a few days early to expand his horizons. First, he went to the Dallas Gift Market to see what unusual “diamonds” might emerge from the rough. Then, he traveled to a recently opened outdoor specialty store, just to check out what it might be doing to attract customers that he hadn’t thought about. Of course, there’s not much he doesn’t think as these reports indicate. The reviews are in for Tom’s store, and they’re marked by a collective “Green Thumbs Up” from the customers.

Indeed, these two men typify what I appreciate so much about this industry. If I wore a hat, I would surely doff it to them. I hope they’ll settle for the notion that I think they’re great.

Or, did I already mention that?

-- Yale

Comments

[trey]

I wanted to visit the Tucson Nursery but there is no website. This goes to show that you don't need a website to be successful. Still I find it odd that they don't have one. I would have loved to take a virtual tour of the place or find out more about it.