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Figuring It Out
| Barbara Mulhern
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>> Published Date: 1/15/2010
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 Eric Stahlheber likes to problem-solve.
Eric, a wholesale grower who with his wife Ann owns Southernwood Gardens in Jonesboro, Illinois, has had plenty of opportunities to do that over the last 33 years.
“It’s pretty interesting when you figure something out yourself,” says Eric, noting that is what has kept Ann and him going during some of the tough times.
“Growing is mainly trial and error. Sometimes you do some research on a plant and it will say it needs really well-drained soil. You would wonder why it was rotting, but eventually a light bulb might go off in your head and you say ‘Oh, that means very dry.’ Little by little you try different growing techniques until something works.”
Eric and Ann, who initially moved to southern Illinois in 1977 to “live off the land,” started out by growing vegetables to sell at a local farmers’ market. The next year they built a small greenhouse for vegetable transplants and herbs. “Due to problems with trying to grow vegetables organically and the fluctuating market, we slowly switched to greenhouse growing of herbs and perennials,” Eric says.
Over the years more small greenhouses were added, and today Southernwood Gardens grows its products in two 30 ft. by 96 ft. Quonset-style, heated greenhouses and approximately twice that square footage of shade structures with drip irrigation. Its customers, predominantly in the St. Louis Metro East area, include independent garden centers and landscape contractors.
Eric grows about 200 different varieties of perennials and herbs. “Herbs have always been good sellers for us and we offer many different varieties of basil, rosemary, lavender and thyme,” he says. Among the woody plants customers can purchase in 2-gal. containers are Japanese maples, bottlebrush buckeyes, Japanese umbrella pines, oriental spruce, dawn redwoods, hardy figs and blueberry plants.
“We propagate a much smaller proportion of our plants than we did in the past,” Eric says. “Now we take cuttings and do divisions, mainly to get plants that are not available from other sources,” he says.
Learning from mistakes
Unlike many generational family-owned greenhouse businesses, Eric and Ann started from scratch. “Neither my wife nor I had any experience except for small vegetable gardening,” Eric says. “No one in our families had ever grown plants, so it was all a learning experience as we developed our business.”
While the couple tried hard not to make many costly mistakes, they wound up making some regardless. For example, Eric says, when he and Ann started out, they didn’t know where to get the materials they needed. “I didn’t realize that fiberglass might only last three years,” he says. Another issue was trying to figure out which plants would grow well in their area. “A lot of money can be lost from some of these mistakes,” Eric notes.
Through much trial and error, however, Southernwood Gardens now not only successfully grows many popular plants, but also branches out into hard-to-grow, unusual and new plants.
“We try to grow the popular varieties of perennials, but also some of the difficult-to-produce plants such as Asclepias and Spigelia. If we can figure out how to grow a plant that has been problematic for us and for many other growers, we always feel a sense of accomplishment,” Eric says.
Southernwood Gardens hasn’t done any direct marketing for many years. Yet, it has achieved name recognition from other sources, including the Plants of Merit Program and a website devoted to coneflowers (www.coneflower.com). The Plants of Merit program—a consortium that includes the University of Missouri Extension, Missouri Botanical Garden, Powell Gardens and the Mizzou Botanic Garden—annually recognizes plants grown in the St. Louis region that are non-invasive, reliable, and preserve the environment. In 2009, one of Eric’s plants, the variegated Solomon’s seal, became a Plant of Merit. “This is a shade-loving tall groundcover; a woodland plant. It is a very good plant, but there are many other good plants, as well,” Eric says.
And last November, www.coneflower.com gave recognition to a new coneflower from Southernwood Gardens, Echinacea Little Annie. The website notes that at just 6 to 9 in. tall, this is the shortest coneflower on the market and “could be the start of the next phase of genetics in the coneflower market.”
Helpful Tips
Find a mentor. Eric strongly suggests that wholesale growers just starting out work for someone else before going out on their own. This is especially important, he says, if you don’t come from a family of growers. “If I had to do it all over again I would try to find someone else to work for who had been doing this a long time,” Eric comments. “I would learn from somebody who had actually done it in the past versus just reading books and periodicals.”
Know that not all new plants will be a success. Eric, who counts on his regular customers “taking a chance on some of the things I take a chance on,” says, “There is so much information that just isn’t there yet when a new plant comes out. Some new plants are winners and some aren’t. You never know.”
Love what you do. “Enthusiasm is probably more important than anything else,” Eric adds. “If it’s just a business proposition, it may not get you through the hard times.” GT
Barbara Mulhern is a freelance writer from Verona, Wisconsin.
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