them and ya’ll has been the biggest help to
me! We have all been able to accomplish this
together.”
Having extra hands has been a huge deal considering that Dad was still working a fulltime
job at the time that he started Butterfly Gardens. Pete and Sylvia have always watched
over the field as well as helped water and fertilize the plants in the early stages of growth
when things are extremely critical. “Those
early months are the most crucial,” Dad tells
me. The plants usually come in around June
each year and have to be transplanted to the
pots and then carried out onto the actual
field to be connected with the water lines.
Dad orders his plants from a company called
Park Seed. He picks the colors and varieties
based off of what he has seen do well over the
years. Larry and Kim Garrett introduced him
to the mounded mum which he has seen the
12
best results from. Dad plants roughly 17-19
different colors each year nowadays, which
is a much larger differentiation from the 10
original colors that he started with! Interestingly, those first 10 colors came in the form of
ladies’ names. Knowing nothing at the time
about which colors to pick, Dad based his
decision off of the names of women in our
family. For example, some of the first colors
included: ‘Hannah’, ‘Warm Megan’, and ‘Vanessa’.
When asked what his favorite part of the mum
business is, Dad will be quick to tell you that
it’s watching the plants grow and develop.
His least favorite part is moving them onto
the field after