| Bennett's Nurseries: More Than Flowers |
Bennett Nurseries, located on North Memorial Parkway in Huntsville, has gone beyond just selling plants and shrubberies. They are locally known for their Pansy Festival in the fall (October) and the April-May festive weekends in the spring. I planned to just rush in and grab a few bedding plants and leave. Over two hours later, I emerged with a cart-full of colorful and unusual plants and an adventure that I hadn't expected to find in a greenhouse.
As you enter the grounds, you're invited to help yourself to free Starbucks coffee, spiced tea or a old fashioned 8 oz. collectors' bottle of Coke or Dr. Pepper. Children delight in the electric LGB toy train as it circles under trees and greenery on its track. During the busy fall and spring season, on weekends free barbeque chicken is served, along with live entertainment that has included everything from classical country to a harpist. The grounds are park-like, with a wooden stage for the entertainment, a gazebo draped with wisteria, strategically placed wooden rockers and comfortable benches throughout for customers to sit and enjoy the music, rest from their shopping or rock an exhausted child. Landscaped beds show ideas for customers to use in their own gardens. Throughout the 15 greenhouses, you'll find amusing signs like this one: "Rabbits Keep Out......This Goes for Groundhogs, Too." The atmosphere is fun, light-hearted and inviting.
George Bennett is the man behind the scenes. He bought out his partner, David Byers in 1971 and became a strictly retail nursery. Bennett was ahead of the times with his marketing strategies, offering free refreshments, a congenial atmosphere, and family entertainment. The bedding plants are grown on a farm in Tennessee, west of Fayetteville, and then transported to the Huntsville nursery. In the fall, Bennett's carries over 300,000-400,000 hand-planted pansies. Half of the crop is grown at the Tennessee farm, half at the nursery. Bennetts also stock over 10,000 colorful mums in the fall. All are sold to the public; none are sold to wholesalers.
During the slow winter season, Bennetts is busy preparing for their spring extravagant. Over 2,000 roses that include over 175 varieties are brought in from California and Oregon. They are bought as a grafted rose brush and are potted and allowed to grow naturally so they will be ready for sale in the spring. No roses are sold in packages. Spring time is aglow with over 500 varieties of perennials and unusual annuals, like the Fanflower, Supertunia, and unusual varieties of tapien, temari, and Verbena, that can't be bought anywhere else locally. Winter is also the time that Bennett's prepares the 16" hanging baskets that they are famous for, using a wire basket pine straw lining, potting soil, and annuals planted in the top and sides of the basket. "Bennett's is always looking for the best possible new varieties of perennials," says Jeff Bennett, son of the owner. Huntsvillians have come to depend on that diligence.
Bennett's is a small, independent family-owned business--a little guy--with a big guy's marketing skill and a tremendous dose of warm, inviting Southern hospitality. It's a lovely way to spend a weekend with the family and get some gardening done at the same time. If you haven't been there, you might want to give it a try next time you need a pansy or a hanging basket.
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