Big Grower September 2019 - 4

COVER STORY
at Welby Gardens and what the company has
planned for 2020 and beyond.
Welby Gardens' founders Alex and Esther Gerace were married in 1938 and spent 62 years together until
his death in 2001. Esther passed away in 2017.
In 1976, Welby Gardens created its own plant brand, Hardy Boy, to distinguish itself from other growers
and emphasize the hardiness of its plants.
POSITIONED FOR THE FUTURE
In June, Welby Gardens announced plans to
sell one of its facilities in Denver and relocate
the company's headquarters to its Arvada,
Colorado site. The sale of the 74th Ave. property
in Denver is expected to close in the fourth
quarter of this year.
This is a strategic move that will allow the
company to refine its business objectives, grow
some of its existing business and continue to
serve its customers the way it has been doing for
the past seven decades.
John Gerace said the move will also enhance
the company's already strong financial position
and allow the family's second generation to fully
retire from the business.
One area of real growth for the company is
its young plant operations. According to John,
the Hardystarts vegetative liner program will be
focused on growth to position the company as
a young plant leader serving small to medium
growers across the country. " For our young plant
business, we have room to grow so we intend on
continuing to develop our [existing] facilities to
grow that business. "
Welby's Hardy Boy finished program will
refine its product offerings to focus on key
items that landscapers and independent garden
centers have relied on them for.
For many years, Welby Gardens also had
a walk-in wholesale shopping center where
landscapers of all sizes could come in and
" shop " for products for their installations. With
the upcoming changes, Welby Gardens will no
longer have this walk-in shopping center. It
closed at the end of June.
However, all of the other business activities are
continuing uninterrupted in 2019, including all
summer, fall and holiday crops, such as pansies,
cyclamen, summer perennials and poinsettias.
farmers markets - and the company has been
growing (a lot) ever since!
Throughout the company's history, four
different generations of the Gerace family have
been continually proactive in adapting to the
changes in the marketplace.
From the early days, the company has always
been a wholesale grower. In the early 1970s a
retail store was added and later grew to three
locations. Currently they have one standalone
retail store in Denver, Country Fair Garden Center.
In 1976, the company created its own plant
brand - the Hardy Boy brand. The company
wanted to distinguish itself from other growers
through its growing methods. Due to the
Colorado climate, crops are grown on the drier
side and toned with fertilizer to make them, as
the name says, hardy.
The brand is " committed to providing garden
success to a distinctive market by featuring
products that promote living color, beauty and
quality of life in our outdoor environment. "
4 SEPTEMBER 2019
About 16 years ago, the company made the
decision to get into the young plant business.
Colorado's high light and arid climate provides
the optimal conditions to produce hardy starts,
thus the name of the young plant program,
Hardystarts!
What started out as a 1,500-square-foot
growing operation has evolved into a Rocky
Mountain power house with more than 1
million square feet of growing space in three
different locations in 2019.
But as the company prepares to head in to
2020, there are some major changes in the
works for Welby Gardens.
The third and fourth generations of the
Gerace family are in the process of refocusing
the company, streamlining its operations and
making plans for future growth.
In early August, GPN's Big Grower had a
chance to talk to John Gerace, director of
operations and one of the five owners of the
company, to discuss the upcoming changes
TWEAKING THE MIX
In 2019, Welby's business mix was projected to
be 40% landscapers, 40% IGCs and 20% young
plants. In 2020, John says, that mix is targeted
to be 40% landscapers, 30% IGCs and 30%
young plants.
" Our business hasn't really flipped, but
because of our new footprint, the young plant
percentage of our business is going to be a bigger
part of our sales. "
John says the company's core landscape
business also will evolve as it focuses on larger
landscape customers. " Our landscape customers
count on us to help them be successful and let
us direct their buying and that will continue. "
He says those landscapers are looking for
advice from the Welby team on which landscape
varieties they should be using because they want
some assurance that their customers are going to
be happy with them.
Welby's IGC customers have always known
they could rely on the company for high quality,
reliability and on-time delivery. " They come to
us every year because they want to know what
is new for them to sell. "

Big Grower September 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Big Grower September 2019