February 2019 - 12

Fresh Perspectives
From Roots to
GARDEN CENTER
Fiddleheads Garden Center in Dalton, Georgia, has
been around for less than a decade, but in this time,
it's faced everything from unimaginable tragedy to
innovative expansion.
By Sam Brown
R
oots are necessary for soil
stabilization, proper nutrition
and plant growth. Our personal
roots influence our personalities,
ideas and beliefs in life. My family, especially
my grandmother Helen Lane, aided the
growth of my roots in my personality,
values, joys and skills. She taught me about
the value of plants to the soul, how to make
work enjoyable and the necessity of a close
personal community of friends no matter
a person's age. She has nurtured my roots
since I was planting her marigolds as a
toddler to when we worked hard removing
seemingly acres of invasive Chinese privet
to including me with her at garden club
functions. A reward of her legendary banana
pudding was often quite the persuasion for
such tasks.
She cultivated the soil of my roots and
my deep affection for plants which led me
to attend the University of Georgia for a
landscape architecture degree. Following
graduation, I worked in the Atlanta area as
a landscape architect designing landscapes
in a studio office setting for eight years.
It did not take long for me to realize my
roots of plant admiration were not being
cultivated by grinding away 90 percent of
my time under fluorescent lighting between
four walls and in front of a computer
screen. Plant life was calling my name and
I wanted to answer that call as soon as
possible, but I had no inclination of how
that desire would be satisfied.
Opening a garden center was obviously
the proper way to fill this void.
Discovering the Goal
The odds of being killed by a falling
coconut are 50 million to one and those
were better odds than our chance of having
a successful business when we began. The
idea of Fiddleheads Garden Center began in
2011 with almost all of the odds against us.
We had very little working capital to
begin. We were living in a town that was
in the middle of having the worst job loss
numbers in the United States. We had no
retail experience.
All that we could hang our hat on was
that we were two hard working guys - one
with a plant growing background and one
with a landscape architecture background
and love for plants. Planning began in June
and we began tearing down 100-year-old
barns in the community to utilize the wood
for the interior of the store.
As equal partners, Erik Gallman and I
knew we would have to create a special
destination to survive in such an economic
downturn. In all, two 1890s barns and one
farmhouse from the same decade were
used to create a welcoming interior and
rustic product displays.
The building landlord thought we had
decided to go in the reclaimed wood
business instead of the plant business.
This wood was paid for with hard earned
sweat during the summer months but
provided us an atmosphere that would not
have been attained with fresh lumber. Our
lighting centerpiece, that we handcrafted
using one of the old farmhouse doors with
our logo and mason jars, was dubbed the
" chandoorlier " and remains a customer
favorite to this day.
We had to build bathrooms as the space
did not have any and we felt we should
not build a run-of-the-mill lavatory. So,
naturally, we built modern-day outhouses
with rusted tin wainscoting, barn wood
trim and heavy handmade barn wood
constructed doors. These bathrooms were
12 | LAWN & GARDEN RETAILER | FEBRUARY 2019
February 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of February 2019
