The Flower Bin celebrates 50 Years in business

A trip to the Flower Bin is a spring ritual for many homeowners. The nursery is their resource as they're planning their vegetable gardens, brightening outdoor spaces, or seeking out overflowing hanging baskets for their porch.

This year, the family-owned business is celebrating its 50th anniversary. Since its opening as a small greenhouse in 1971, it's grown to include a gift house with multiple larger greenhouses on Nelson Road in Longmont, and a 50,000-square-foot greenhouse on a 20-acre farm in Platteville.

Don Weakland co-founded the business with his wife and the couple still maintain side-by-side office desks above the main shop space. In honor of the anniversary, he talked to us about the growth of the business. "The first year we were so small, but we kept building and buying more land as we could," he said. "It wasn't until 1993 that we were able to buy the three acres on the corner and that's when we were able to really expand."

This thoughtful, gradual approach may partly explain both the company's success, and Weaklands' 2016 induction into the Boulder County Business Hall of Fame. Other reasons behind their success are a community-focused approach to serving customers, a large selection of healthy plants, and their long-term, knowledgeable employees. According to Weakland, many employees have worked there for a decade or longer.

General spring gardening tips

In 50 years, the Flower Bin has accumulated plenty of experience helping area gardeners be successful. Kim Jackson serves as the Greenhouse Manager and, after ten years of employment, has honed advice-giving to a fine art.

When asked what she would tell customers looking for spring gardening tips, she starts with generalities. She advises people to become label readers – both labels on the plants and seed packets, and the signs prominently posted in sections of their greenhouse.

Jackson also recommended that gardeners take the time to consider what they want to do and where they want to do it. After that, she asks them to consider the details of their location, especially lighting. "Is it a full sun area, a part sun and part shade area, or all shade area," Jackson asked. "If it's an all shade area, we're probably not going to recommend they do much in the way of vegetables there."

Lastly, Jackson suggested that as shoppers are evaluating plants, they take care to choose ones that look healthy. "Don't buy something that you think is not doing well, thinking you're going to fix it when you get home. There are so many times I have had people say, that it didn't really look great when they took it home, and I wonder, 'Well then, why did you take it home?'"

Gardeners can start planting now

Jackson wants gardeners to know that it's not too soon to start planting. "Pansies and violas, both of those can be planted in the soil now. They can take the frost and the freeze and the occasional snow when we get it," she said.

Jackson also offered a list of vegetables that can go into the ground in early spring. These include plants in the cabbage family like Brussel sprouts, broccoli, and cauliflower as well as spinach, carrots, peas, onions, and lettuces.

For those looking to grow from seeds, The Flower Bin has had several long-term relationships with reliable seed vendors. Jackson said that one of them, Colorado-based Botanical Interests, used The Flower Bin as a test store in the seed company's earliest days. Now the company has a global customer base.

She added that if gardeners wanted to use starts instead of seeds, that can work too. Growers simply need to put plants through a hardening-off process first.

New for the 2021 growing season

When Jackson talked about some of the newer varieties available this year, she focused first on herbs. For this season, The Flower Bin has 114 kinds of herbs, including 15 varieties of basil and six or seven different types of thyme. "Each gives you a little bit of a different flavor," she said.

There are also a couple of offerings that Jackson is particularly excited about this year. One of her favorites is a speckled petunia. "There's a red petunia variant with white spots and it's turning out really pretty. It's called surprise sparkle red and it's really, really something."

She added, "There's also been a lot of new offerings of coleus plants to us as the grower. So this year, we've chosen colors on all spectrums, yellows and oranges and reds and purples. Lots of choices."

Jackson seemed most excited about how all the plants for sale are selected.

"We take a lot of time and a lot of care in choosing the varieties we have here. Our head grower has 27 years at the store. He knows what grows well here and what grows well together. We have a lot of knowledge behind what we are offering."