A house of their own

Edibles sales at The Flower Bin in Longmont, Colo. had been steadily increasing over the last few years —until last year. “In the last five to six years, we’ve been going up 12 to 13 percent on veggies. Then in 2013, we only had a 3 percent increase,” says owner Don Weakland. As they looked into why this had happened, they came to the conclusion that they simply weren’t offering enough plant material to sustain their continued growth in revenue.

And that’s when Weakland decided to build an addition onto the existing greenhouse to fulfill the need. “Finally it just got to be where we said ‘We need more space,’” he says. “We had that last bit of area on our property and we decided to build a house just for the edibles.” They currently offer 35-40 tomato varieties, 20-25 sweet and hot peppers and “the usual edibles,” says Weakland. They also offer berries, citrus and even hops out in the nursery area. The grower-retailer is known for its hanging baskets, and has been incorporating tomatoes and cucumbers into its baskets, which are very popular with customers, for a while now.

As any retailer who’s made additions to the existing structure or property knows, it’s not as simple as putting up new walls and calling it a day. “We went through so much with engineering and legalities,” recalls Weakland. Construction was slated to start in October 2013, and didn’t kick off until January 2014. The project was finished in April, just as the spring season was kicked off in Colorado.

The investment paid off — edibles sales were up 13 percent again this year. However, Weakland doesn’t think they’ve topped out quite yet. “I think next year, once we have more time to get organized, we’ll do even better,” he says. He plans to include additional signage and create more creative display areas rather than the typical row displays.

Besides increasing edibles sales, the new addition benefited the annuals section, where edibles used to be displayed. They were able to carry more annuals in the space that the edibles previously occupied, and sales in that area increased as well. Also, Weakland says that once the edibles season is finished, the house won’t sit empty. One of Weakland’s longtime growers, Jose, has already claimed the space to expand the store’s in-house poinsettia production.