Dig back deep in your childhood. What's one of the earliest memories that made you happy? Teresa Neil has made a business out of her early love of flowers.
"I walked into a flower shop when I was six years old, and I was at home," she said. Fast-forward a couple of decades, and today she owns Berea Garden Center.
Neil grew up on a farm in Berea. "When people ask if I stayed in my field, my answer is yes," she said with a laugh. She studied horticulture at Eastern Kentucky University, started a family with her husband, Michael, and spent three years as a teacher's aide at Silver Creek Elementary School. In 1995, she started the garden center on her family's 25-acre farm, which her grandmother bought in 1921 for $11 an acre.
"We're on the edge of town, but the town keeps creeping closer to us," she said of Berea's growth.
Her specialty is customer service. Instead of having an anonymous cashier who knows little about plants and flowers, Neil can find a particular plant when a customer requests it. "I like to be remembered the next time I go in a place, and we do that," she said. She travels across the state and into Tennessee for annuals and perennials. "I prefer to go to places where they have the space for production and I can choose my own flats."
Running a garden center is a lot of hard work. "You couldn't do this job and be a couch potato," she said. Madison County has a clay-based soil, in contrast with the limestone of Fayette County. With all the new neighborhoods popping up, homeowners are wondering what to plant where. Neil can tell them where to plant a dogwood and other shrubs and plants. "In season, the garden center consumes every ounce of my energy," she said. Her husband, a machinist by trade, helps out on the occasional Saturday. Their sons, who are in their early 20s, do some mowing and deliver mulch.
The next field over from the garden center contains a driving range, now in its fifth season of operation. Neil doesn't play golf but her husband and sons do sporadically. "We had a hayfield and needed an alternative use for it," she said. On a beach trip to North Carolina a few years ago, they saw a driving range on a field that looked like their own space. The Sunday afternoon they got home, a friend came over and hit a few golf balls to see if there was enough distance. "The next day, three people came over and said, 'We saw you playing golf. Is this a driving range?' That was our market research."
It did take more planning than anticipated. Neil got the six-acre field zoned for commercial use and hired a golf consultant from Cincinnati for advice on equipment (10,000 balls the first year). The driving range is an informal atmosphere for 20 to 25 people at a time, including families with children, to hit golf balls off grass or mats. There's a drop box for money and buckets of balls on a picnic table. "It's semi self-service and operates on the honor system," she said.
The garden center provides Neil with the bulk of her income, as the driving range isn't a predictable business. Berea Garden Center has a selection of flowers and herbs, hanging baskets and tropical plants, trees and shrubs, bulk mulch and compost. May is the busiest month, and Mother's Day is the busiest day of the year. She sees more builders and landscapers in the winter and retail customers in spring and summer. Next on her to-do list is a move toward installation, including designing flower gardens and planting them for people. The garden center is open six days a week and on Sunday afternoons in May. The driving range is open from daylight to dark all year.
To advertise her small business, Neil has found donating to fundraisers to be successful. "I've tried putting a coupon in the paper, but they were never redeemed," she said. So she supports churches and schools with their fundraising activities by donating a plant, free bucket of balls or a gift certificate. She enjoys seeing the smiling face of the person who received the prize.
"It offers a sense of accomplishment, but you're not going to get rich," Neil said of owning a garden center. "You don't go into it for that. I just like to play in the dirt."
Kathie Stamps is the co-founder of www.ISBO.biz, an online directory of independent/small business owners.