The Anniston Star ● Monday, October 12, 2009
MONDAY RECORD YOUR GUIDE TO PUBLIC RECORDS AND VITAL STATISTICS IN CALHOUN COUNTY
OFF TO WORK ... WITH GREENHOUSE OWNERS
Garretts bring out life in their greenhouses BY BILL EDWARDS bedwards@annistonstar.com
The “dead of winter” is a phrase that means little to Larry and Kim Garrett, because when they go off to work, they see life all around them in their greenhouses. The business that bears the name of the married couple, Garrett Greenhouses, caters to the wholesale and retail houseplant trade from all around the region. They raise everything except shrubbery. More than 40 varieties of hanging baskets are sold, as are flats of bedding plants, pansies and vegetables. On Alabama 21 six miles north of Jacksonville, the greenhouses fill about five acres of land out of 100 that have been in the Garrett family ever since the mid-19th century. It’s land where Larry Garrett’s grandparents were truck farmers and his late father owned Joe H. Garrett egg farm, the largest source of brown eggs in the area. It was Larry’s grandmother, though, who inspired him to enter the business some three decades ago. She had “plants everywhere” and “people came from all over to buy plants from her,” Larry said. After illness slowed her down, he took over the operation. “I started the greenhouse 32 years ago in one little house and didn’t know when to Please see WORK ❙ Page 3
INSIDE
Stephen Gross/The Anniston Star
Kim Garrett, co-owner of Garrett Greenhouses near Jacksonville, arranges some mums. Garrett says she sold 20,000 mums this year and plans to plant 25,000 to 30,000 next season.
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