For 5 Questions this week, the Herald speaks with Lisa Iverson, owner of Spring Haven Greenhouse, at 1591 146th Ave. NE, in Hatton, N.D.
Q: Your season is up and running. How have things been going this year?
A: We've been real steady with customers. It's probably the busiest year we've had. People are out early on, looking forward to picking out plants. I think it's still part of the COVID thing. People are enjoying gardening and enjoying their plants. Maybe they have a little bit more time because they're not doing other things quite yet, so it’s good entertainment right now, right at home.
Q: What do you do in the offseason?
A: In the offseason I plan ahead for next year, buying the retail items, feed orders and plug orders. I figure out combinations for the year head, and then I do bookkeeping for my husband's trucking business, Hatton commodities and transfer.
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Q: You have a custom potting service. Is it popular?
A: It’s growing each year and it seems to be our niche. They can drop off an order anytime after April 1. We just ask that they bring the pots and empty, last year’s soil removed. We have a little sheet that we write up in order to list things they might want, some people tell us what kind of sun or conditions that pot will be in, and we plan accordingly. They pick them up no later than May 20. They can bring their own pots in, or purchase from here. We get them going for a lot of graduations. If people have special events, we'll get them going so they look nice.
Q: You hold educational events there, what are they like?
A: We will have like a potting night, or we've done succulent fairy garden classes, things like that. This year we had one potting night with the extension service out of Steele County. We didn't do any last year because of COVID, and we didn't plan much along that way this year, but we'll probably plan events again for next year.
Q: Do you always carry the same varieties of plants, or do you change it up?
A: I try to change it up. I would say roughly about 25% each year is new. (I make the changes) just by going to the shows or studying online what they're predicting for the color of the year, what's going well from past seasons and advice from plant brokers.
