Here is our little greenhouse. It may be small, but we use every square inch of it. I was asked by someone if it’s a full-time job to keep this going. Yeah, it is. Even though many professional greenhouses are much larger, and this one is only 60 feet long by 24 feet wide. (Most commercial greenhouses are at least 100 feet long and much wider.) It is a lot of work. Running the nursery in a rural area and running a retail site in Atlanta takes two small teams of people.
About 200 species churn through this small space every year. Some species we only grow one or two plug trays in a year. Other species that are in high demand we will need to grow multiple plug trays. To top it off, with more than 200 native species, there are almost 200 protocols for growing them. Many species have particular quirks for successful germination.
Because our native plants have evolved in our climate, the greenhouse is not heated, the plants don’t need it. They are only germinated and hardened off in plug trays in the greenhouse. Once the seedlings have hardened off in the plug trays they go to the outside area, in the picture above, that we call the “grow pad”.
