NCNLA MEMBER SPOTLIGHT
Five Minutes with Ruth Currin Holcomb, Currin’s Nursery
Currin’s Nursery Willow Spring, NC Vice President Ruth C. Holcomb In business 45 years NCNLA Member 31 years Services Wholesale nursery Favorite NCNLA benefits Education, Green & Growin’, and networking opportunities
2014 – (left to right) – Eddie Collins, Saul Portillo-Perez, Mamie Collins (retired), Mayco Fuentes, Ruth Holcomb (Tanner the dog), Richard Currin, Emily Currin.
How did your family get into the business? What has been the most rewarding part of My father, Richard Currin, grew up fascinated by the your career? plants growing around him when he helped out with tobacco, so he decided to turn that passion into a career. After he graduated from NCSU with a degree in Horticulture, he started the nursery at a two-acre spot across the road from his house. He also landscaped and worked in the tobacco market until the nursery was able to fully support our family. The nursery has since expanded into a 24-acre location where he and my mother, Emily, and I work together to run the business.
What’s a typical day like for you and your family?
Typically, we will check in with each other in the morning and go from there. We work together to ensure plant quality is maintained and our customers are satisfied. There are a lot of details in between to make sure those two tasks are met each day, and our employees help us immensely in both areas. We find that our strengths and weaknesses in each area complement each other. We rarely work on the same task together, but each one of us contributes to a larger common goal.
8 | NURSERY & LANDSCAPE NOTES | SUMMER 2019
For me, just being a part of the nursery industry has been a rewarding experience. I don’t know of any other industry in which the members are so willing to give their knowledge and time to advance the industry as a whole. Although I grew up in our nursery, my knowledge of horticulture coming into my career was limited. I have had so many people help me further my knowledge and experience - my father especially - in order to help our nursery continue to be successful. We also have the best customers around. Interacting with them on a regular basis and seeing their businesses and families expand and grow is a pleasure.
What is your company best known for?
Plant-wise, we are known for growing quality plants that are as weed free as possible. We are in our twelfth year of an extensive weed program so that we don’t contribute to weeds in the end consumers’ landscape. Not only do we believe growing a plant without weeds results in a better plant with a healthier root system, we believe that will result in a more desirable landscape for the end consumer.
