The Life of a Grower… Sunshine & Briars

People see the flowers, the edible plants, the herbs, and the Camellias and say, “I bet you love your life. I’d like to do something like this.”

Little do they know that the life of a grower is almost as grueling as being a farmer. In many ways, we share the same worries, the same joys, and the same heartaches.  Sometimes it’s sunshine ~ sometimes it’s thorny briars.

It’s simply the life we’ve chosen.

Growing plants is the heart of Blackcreek. It’s not just what we do—it’s who we are.

Growing isn’t just watering and fertilizing plants you bought from someone else. It’s starting life from a tiny seed, a cutting, or a graft and nurturing it into a beautiful, garden-ready plant.

It’s 365 days a year, often 10+ hours a day, reading the weather, checking the temp on the propagation houses, planting the seeds, watching the plants, pulling the weeds, eyeing the water, making sure they have food, solving problems, understanding the seasons, preparing for the worst, and eventually accepting that Nature always wins.

For more than 35 years, we’ve grown plants from seed, cuttings, and grafts. We’ve battled excessive heat, drought, floods, six inches of snow, hard freezes, hurricanes, tornadoes, insects we’d never seen before, and seasons when the economy made plants feel more like a luxury than a necessity.

Every plant is the result of countless decisions, patience, experience, and hope.

And yet… every morning I walk out my back door and watch the sunrise spill pinks and blues across the nursery. The plants greet me, waiting for water and care. The bees, butterflies, and pollinators are already at work, enjoying the fruits of months—and sometimes years—of labor.  They overcome their hardships.

In that quiet moment, I realize that none of those hardships matter.

That… is the life of a grower.

And I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Blackcreek Nursery
Where Nature Meets Nurture.