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July 15, 2004
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July 15, 2004 |
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Buyer sought for Glen Garden Gifts
As Patsy Gardner prepares to retire and sell her business, Glen Garden Gifts, she said that she considers flower delivery one of the best parts of the job. She has loved being able to give flowers to make people feel better and thinks that having a local place to buy flowers is important for Yellow Springs. She said that she hopes whoever buys the business will maintain it as a flower shop and be as connected to the village as she has been. Gardner was bookkeeping for Current Cuisine in 1993 when Camille Hill, who owned the flower shop at the time, approached her in Kieth’s Alley and asked if she wanted to buy the business next door. Gardner, who had considered owning her own business for several years, stuck her head in the Currents’ back door and asked if they wanted to buy a flower shop with her. “Sure!” was the answer Steve Current threw over his shoulder as he whipped up something for his gourmet food store. Gardner and the Currents owned the flower store together for three years before Gardner bought out her partners and, she said, has worked hard not only to run the business but to participate in the weddings, engagements, illnesses, memorials and other emotional ceremonies that flowers make nicer. “We cry a lot with the families when they come in after a loss,” Gardner said. “That part of the job is hard, and we’ve been here long enough that you do lose people you love.” With the many surprise occasions people often use flowers for, flower shop workers often know news they’re really not supposed to know, and they know it before anyone else. “Your florist never tells,” Gardner said in all seriousness. “We know a lot about what’s going on, but we have to be very careful.” Cut flowers are perishable items that demand fast-paced coordination of events and often creative triage when things don’t go as planned. In the summer months especially, Glen Garden does the flowers for many weddings, sometimes two and three in one weekend. Once on the day of a wedding at the Dayton Art Institute, the family of the bride told Gardner that an unexpected extra Aunt Minnie turned up at the wedding and needed a corsage. Gardner acted fast, taking a few branches from the larger arrangements to make a perfect corsage, and no one was the wiser. Another time Gardner was doing the flowers for a funeral, but she couldn’t find the delivery entrance to the parlor. She and her employees were frantic, she said, because they needed to get to the wedding they were doing next. When they found what appeared to be an opening, they hoisted themselves up and forced their way into a room the funeral director later told them was where the bodies were prepared for funerals. Unexpected things happen in the shop as well. Gardner said she’s seen love blossom right before her eyes when customers see someone else in the store they want to meet. The instant anonymous delivery is a fast way to a first date before two people even exit the store. Proposals, though not quite as romantic, also occur in the store. Most of Glen Garden’s flower business comes from local customers, Gardner said. Cut flower arrangements cover 60 percent of the business, and the other 40 comes from gift, card and children’s book sales. The store has over 1,200 square feet of retail space, with more than double that for storage in the basement and in the garage facing Kieth’s Alley. Gardner rents the space from Naomi Furay, whose husband was a pharmacist when Furay Drugs was located there in the 1950s. The space has been a bike shop and the retail store Records and Fresh Vegetables, Gardner said. After 11 satisfying years of owning the flower business, Gardner said, she has just recently come to feel OK about changing her course and slowing down a little. “It’s just been this year that I feel like I’m ready to let it go,” she said. Gardner said she is committed to following through with any projects she starts and doesn’t want her clients to feel abandoned, should a sale occur before an event she has already planned. Several people have made inquiries in the past several months, and one party came close to buying it. But she is still open to talking to others who might be interested in the kind of dedication and rewards that a flower shop demands and provides. Gardner declined to state the sale price. Inquiries about the business can be directed to Gardner’s business associate, Marty Moran, mmoran@clrpath.com or 320-253-1424. Even though Gardner wants someone else to run the business, she said she is still ready to jump at the opportunity to work at Glen Garden Gifts and help make the transition smooth. Even as she looks forward to free time for family and travel, she gets teary at the thought of leaving her life at the flower shop. “I really love coming to work every day, that’s why it’s been so hard to let go,” she said. “It’s hard work, but it’s very rewarding, because no matter what the occasion is, if you’re giving someone flowers it makes a person feel better.” |
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