Buds & Blooms/Tristar Plants – Above and Beyond Businesses

Buds & Blooms and Tristar Plants have greenhouses in Sparta, Tennessee, that sell plant varieties locally and nationally! Listen to Owner Allen Selby as he discusses the importance of small businesses helping one another during times of crisis and how he broadened his market when the opportunity presented itself.

Episode Transcript

Karen Wilson: Welcome to The BLC Connection podcast. (00:02):
undefined
I am Karen Wilson and your host for today.
Today's guest is Allen Selby with Buds and Blooms and TristarPlants.
Welcome to the podcast Allen.

Allen Selby: Thank you Karen. (00:14):
undefined

Karen Wilson: Well, I have been a fan of yours for quite some time. (00:15):
undefined
As far as, I didn't really understand that you had TristarPlants, but let's start with Buds and Blooms.
You've got a gorgeous greenhouse with, or several greenhousesthere, on your property with all kinds of beautiful plants and
things, and I forget how I found it, but it's a great place.

Allen Selby: Well, thanks, and thanks for having me here. (00:36):
undefined
Buds and Blooms started technically in 2004.
We took a year and did a lot of research, did a lot of shopping,you know, trying to
find the correct houses and things that fit what we wanted todo.

(00:57):
And so we started construction, I believe it was in November of2004,
and our first selling season was April of 2005.

Karen Wilson: So you've been in business quite some time now. (01:11):
undefined

Allen Selby: Yeah. (01:14):
undefined

Karen Wilson: Has horticulture always kind of been something that you loved or did you grow into this? (01:15):
undefined
Pardon the pun.

Allen Selby: Well, yes and no. (01:23):
undefined
When I was going to college, I worked for a greenhouse andnursery company
in Van Buren County and really liked the job.
And kind of got away from it, and life happens.
You know, you have to make a living, and you get married and havekids.

(01:48):
And so, I had another career.
As part of that, me and my wife bought a farm, and, we grewtobacco for
years. And then the tobacco climate got what it is today,
and it was no longer very profitable to do.

(02:11):
And so we looked for alternatives to replace that income on thefarm.
And, so we were talking to them one day and I said, you know, Iwouldn't mind to get into the greenhouse business a little bit.
I enjoyed it when we done it before.
And so she said, "Well, if that's something you want to do,let's look at it." That's kind of how it started.

Karen Wilson: Well, I would think there would be a lot of research. (02:31):
undefined
And, you know, I mean, some of us have green thumbs and some ofus don't.
But when you get on the scale that you all grow on, probablylots of research and trial and error, I guess on
crops.

Allen Selby: It's both. (02:48):
undefined
And Buds and Blooms has kind of evolved.
In the early days, we went out and found people who could producethe
plant in plug form, and then we'd just bring it in andtransplant it, grow it for a few weeks, and be ready to sell.

(03:09):
And so over the years, we've evolved and now we sew our ownseeds.
We grow our own plugs.
We're as self-sufficient as we can be for two reasons.
One, we have more control over the plants when they're ready,when they're, you know, when we need to sow

(03:30):
. So it's kind of like time on demand thing.
And the other thing is that it's another way to keep the costdown for the consumer.
You take the middleman out, right?
The biggest hurdle in retail is how to keep our prices wherethey need to be for where we
are. I got a good friend, James Smith, who has SmithGreenhouses, and

(03:58):
I always got a lot of information from him when we werestarting.
And he said, "We're a 100 miles from being in a situation wherewe could make a lot of money." B
ecause the national market, Chattanooga –

Karen Wilson: Yeah. I was going to say Nashville, Franklin. (04:12):
undefined
Whenever you go to shop places like that at their greenhouses,it's a bit of a sticker shock.

Allen Selby: Yeah it is. And so that was one thing. (04:20):
undefined
We want to be an alternative to the big box stores.
And the really high end greenhouses and nurseries.

Karen Wilson: Well, I will say coming onto your facility there, it looks high end. (04:35):
undefined
You've got lots of choices and lots of variety there.
So you feel like you're getting to shop at, you know, I kind ofequate it to what maybe Mary's used to be
in McMinnville, Tennessee.

(04:55):
They were a very large greenhouse, but you all have a hugeselection there at Buds and Blooms.

Allen Selby: Well, we try to be a one-stop shop. (05:02):
undefined
Of course, you're never going to have everything.
One good example is tomatoes.
You know, every spring people come in, "Do you have such andsuch?" Or do you have this variety, that variety.
I've had that for years.
Well, the bottom line is that if I grew every tomato that wasout there, that's all we would have.

(05:27):
We could fill the whole facility with tomatoes, and so we can'tgrow everything.
But we do in our researching and when we get to the end of theyear, we keep notes on things
people ask for.
And, you know, if there's a high demand, we'll incorporate thatinto next year's selections.

(05:47):
But that.
I don't know how many greenhouses you'd have to have if you weregoing to grow –

Karen Wilson: All the different varieties. (05:55):
undefined
Well, and you have to keep in mind too what grows well here.
Someone that has moved here from, say, Alabama or Mississippi orup north, what they're used to there is going to be a little bit
different variety than what we can grow here.

Allen Selby: Right. (06:11):
undefined

Karen Wilson: So you have to, you know, our climate. (06:11):
undefined

Allen Selby: Yeah. And when we get to the Tristar part, that's one of the hurdles there. (06:14):
undefined

Karen Wilson: Yeah. Well, let's talk about that. (06:20):
undefined
I had no idea that you had this online business called TristarPlants.
Tell us I guess the story.
Let's go back though before we start that, because you all hadan event at Buds and Blooms in 2017 because of a
tornado that you guys had to just start over, which is, that'swhat I think other small businesses could

(06:45):
really learn from is coming off of a disaster like that.
How did you rebuild your business?

Allen Selby: Well, that event happened the Saturday before Thanksgiving in 2017. (06:53):
undefined
Now, before I tell the story, keep in mind that we start ourspring crops in January.
So I'm looking at mid November, and we have a tornado.

(07:14):
And at that time, we had six houses.
Well, the tornado completely destroyed three, and then hadsignificant damage on the other three.
We had to rescue the plants that we were growing at the time.
And so, the community, the nursery community,

(07:40):
and I'll tell you who.
It was Jimmy Denton, Woodpecker Greenhouses in Doyle.
He said, "Bring your plants down here and put them in.
I've got some empty houses, and I can house them until you, youknow, get something in place." And, so we did
that, that weekend before Thanksgiving.
That's all we done was haul plants all weekend.

(08:03):
And, so it was kind of all hands on deck.
You know, we got to get houses back up.

Karen Wilson: I guess it was pretty shocking to look outside from an event like a tornado, which normally you're kind of not (08:14):
undefined
prepared for in November.
That's highly unusual.
And to see such devastation at your own farm.

Allen Selby: Yeah. And so, you know, like I said, you don't have much time to process it because you've got (08:30):
undefined
plants growing and now they're outside.
It's cold, so you don't have a lot of time to sit there and feelsorry for yourself or
kick the dirt, and "What am I going to do?" So luckily there,there, all of

(08:55):
our houses have been bought locally, and there's a company inCookeville that fabricates greenhouses.
And so I called the owner the next day and I said, "You know,this is what's happened.
This is what I need." And kind of talked about the situationthat I was in.
Didn't have a lot of time.

(09:16):
Didn't have a lot of people to do it.
And so he said, "Well, we'll come over, and we'll build them."And so right before Christmas, maybe the week before Christmas,
we had three houses back up.

Karen Wilson: Wow. That's amazing. (09:29):
undefined

Allen Selby: Yeah. It was. (09:30):
undefined
And so, we were ready for 2018 spring.

Karen Wilson: Well, and thanks to the help of other small businesses, like, Woodpecker Greenhouses and then the (09:39):
undefined
builder in Cookeville.

Allen Selby: Yeah. (09:48):
undefined

Karen Wilson: I think small businesses are really good about leaning on each other and helping each other out in a time of need. (09:49):
undefined

Allen Selby: Yeah, and the nursery and greenhouse business is a really tight knit community. (09:56):
undefined
You wouldn't think.
I mean, we're competitors.
But just like we were talking about the different varieties wegrow, we can't grow everything.
And so another greenhouse will have things that we don't, andwe'll refer them to that greenhouse or whatever.

Karen Wilson: Right. (10:17):
undefined

Allen Selby: And so there is a camaraderie inside the industry. (10:18):
undefined

Karen Wilson: Yeah. And I would think too, like everybody in White County, like you said, you can't grow everything, but you'll let them or (10:22):
undefined
they'll let you be an expert on certain things.
And then you send each other to each other to their customersyour way.

Allen Selby: Yeah. And you know, that's the way it was back in the 80s, and before that. (10:37):
undefined
That just happened to be when I was in.
But in the old days, certain greenhouses, they specialized incertain things.
Like, you know, one greenhouse or nursery would specialize inmaple trees.
Somebody else would, would specialize in azaleas.

(10:59):
And so you would see people out going place to place to place toget their order.

Karen Wilson: Yeah. (11:06):
undefined

Allen Selby: But its kind of got away from that now. (11:07):
undefined

Karen Wilson: Right. Everybody kind of likes to have their hand in a little bit of everything. (11:10):
undefined
Well, and in that case, in case of a crop failure, you've gotother things to sell that year.
It's kind of helpful, as they say, not to have all your eggs inone basket.
So you decided to take the business kind of on a national level,with
Tristar Plants.

(11:32):
Tell us how that got started.

Allen Selby: Well, I've got two sons that are, they're adults now. (11:35):
undefined
One of them has been involved in it since he was nine years
old, and that's kind of the direction that he wanted to go now.
The youngest boy was not so much.
He didn't embrace it, I guess.

(11:58):
But I had a friend who had this business, and he was
reaching retirement age, and his kids didn't want to be involvedin the business anymore.
And so he came to me two years ago and said, "Hey, I'm going toretire.

(12:20):
Would you be interested in buying the business?" And thatbusiness was 10 or
12 years old at that time.
Successful. And so we looked at things and talk to my sons.
And so, we decided that that's something we'd like to do toexpand

(12:44):
our business to bring them more into the fold.

Karen Wilson: I guess taking a business online and tackling the whole shipping part of it (12:49):
undefined
was probably, I mean, is that – that seems kind of intimidatingto me.

Allen Selby: Well, the shipping part is really the easy part. (13:03):
undefined
I'm 63 years old.
I'm not exactly in the middle of the tech age, you know?

Karen Wilson: We're barely hanging in there, aren't we? (13:14):
undefined

Allen Selby: Yeah. Just barely. (13:17):
undefined
And so the challenges have been how to learn

that side of it (13:26):
how to build a website, how
to pick your inventory you're going to have.
All those things that you have no idea about.
Shipping is pretty easy.
You decide which carrier you're going to use or multiplecarriers, and you set up those accounts and off you go.

(13:50):
It would have been more difficult if this hadn't have been anexisting business where we learned from the other business.

Karen Wilson: Right. (13:58):
undefined

Allen Selby: How they done it. (13:58):
undefined
And, of course, no two businesses are the same.
So there were some changes that we made to it.
But we learned how to do the packing and the shipping and allthat before they closed down.
The biggest hurdle is advertising.
How to go from a local business into a national business becauselocal

(14:25):
business is easy. You call the local newspapers, you call theradios, you get on Facebook, which primarily is
what we've been using all these years.
But that is just a small segment.
Now you're going to 48 states.
So how do you do that?

(14:47):
And it's been a struggle.

Karen Wilson: Well, I was going to say, you know, the website is your landing spot, and you've got to make sure that that's user friendly (14:49):
undefined
and up to date.
But then, as you said, where do you advertise without gettinginto hundreds of thousands of
dollars in TV or Southern Living or places like that wherepeople are kind of shopping

(15:13):
these? And then is this kind of too residential people, or is itmore commercial,
like people that are building houses and things like that?
Are they the ones ordering from you, or is it a residentialmarket?

Allen Selby: It's probably 90% residential, you know, homeowners. (15:28):
undefined
We have a lot of homesteaders that buy from us.
Typically, what we see is, is if we get a landscaper, somethinglike that, they'll call us on the phone.
And they'll say, "Hey, you know, I need 50 of so and so and 100of this." And that's typically how

(15:55):
we'll work with those folks.

Karen Wilson: Well, I did notice, and I guess I didn't think about, homesteaders, but a lot of what I saw online was like blueberries (15:58):
undefined
and fruit and things like that.
And I guess they're looking at this, you know, as something thatthey want on their farm to produce.

Allen Selby: Right. (16:14):
undefined

Karen Wilson: Not just for pretty. (16:14):
undefined

Allen Selby: Yeah. We do a pretty big line of berries and fruit. (16:15):
undefined
In the spring, we will do.
It's called pre-sales.
So we'll start about January.
And then we'll do strawberries and asparagus and garlic andrhubarb,

(16:38):
just to name a few.
They'll start ordering those in January and then, we'll startshipping them out late March
through April.
But now the fruit trees and the berries and all that, we sellthat year around.
And so right now, that's what we're getting ready for, youknow, we're potting up fruit trees

(17:04):
and maintenance and trimming all that, you know.

Karen Wilson: What have you found to be, I know it's probably a work in progress, but the most successful thing that (17:08):
undefined
you do to advertise outside of your area here?
Have you got something where you're like, okay, I think this isone thing that's really brought it in, or do you still work on
that all the time?

Allen Selby: We work on it daily. (17:29):
undefined
We don't just sell on a website.
We sell five different platforms.
We're on Amazon, Etsy, eBay, Pinterest, Facebook and Walmart.
So Facebook and Pinterest is not really a selling platform, butwe do get orders from there.

Karen Wilson: Right. (17:51):
undefined

Allen Selby: And so, each one of those inside, each one of those platforms, they have their own advertising. (17:52):
undefined
And unfortunately all five are different.
But then for the website, primarily, we use Google Ads.
And if you've never looked at it, it's a mountain.
I've got a book I'm reading right now.

(18:14):
It's 500 pages of just how to navigate through Google Ads.
So just when you get comfortable with one thing, then Google Adsevolves and changes the process.
So it's always something different, and you're always having tolearn.

Karen Wilson: And it sounds like you do a lot of this, you, your family, do this yourselves. (18:30):
undefined
You don't. Do you outsource any of that?

Allen Selby: We do have a marketing agency that takes care of Google Ads just because it's so complex. (18:38):
undefined

Karen Wilson: Yeah. Well, and all the keywords and things like that. (18:44):
undefined
And then you have the stars and, yeah, yeah.
It is. I know we deal with that at Ben Lomand some too.
And there's some of it we can do in-house and some of it weoutsource too, because as you said, it's constantly changing.

Allen Selby: Yeah. (19:00):
undefined

Karen Wilson: And, you've got to concentrate on growing things. (19:00):
undefined
You can't concentrate every day on.
You can't be the best marketer.
You can't be the best horticulture person.
You got to choose it and outsource some things.

Allen Selby: Yeah. I was talking to, we had a high school aged guy that worked a lot here in (19:14):
undefined
town for the fall season on weekends, mostly, but sometimes inthe afternoon.
Anyway, he was talking about what he was going to do.
You know, he'd just took the SATs and looking forward tocollege.

(19:36):
So I was asking him what he's going to do, and he told me kindof where his interests were.
I told him, I said, "Well look, get your degree, find a goodcompany that you're happy at,
and work as hard as you can.
Go as high in that company as you can.
But never own a company doing what you want to do.

(20:01):
Because at the time you buy that company, you're no longer, let'ssay, an engineer.
Now, you're a businessman."

Karen Wilson: Right. (20:11):
undefined

Allen Selby: "And you never get to do what you enjoy." And my son, my oldest one, we were sitting in the office the other day, and (20:11):
undefined
he said, "All I do is sit here at this computer.
I never get out to grow any more," you know.
And you just can't.
Because especially on this online thing.

(20:33):
Like, it's not just Google Ads, it's everything changes almostdaily.

Karen Wilson: I know with like, the advent of even like TikTok, like I've noticed you've gotten into making videos and talking and things (20:38):
undefined
like that, and I'm sure that wasn't necessarily in your comfortzone to do.
But that's kind of where advertisers are going into thesedemonstrations.
And then it also gets some sales too.

Allen Selby: Yeah. And TikTok, that's kind of a, I almost say it's a phenomenon. (20:57):
undefined
But it's really not.
It's kind of the way our society is going.
Because when we look, when people get on our website, the averagetime they spend on our website is 45
seconds. And so that's the TikTok mentality.

(21:22):
People get on there and scroll, and they may be there fiveseconds.
They may be there 10 seconds.
You don't know. I mean, I would venture to say most of the timethey don't watch the full video.

Karen Wilson: Right. (21:34):
undefined

Allen Selby: They get bored. And so that's kind of our society. (21:35):
undefined
And so. I've got to find a way to sell you my product within 30to 45 seconds
.

Karen Wilson: Right. I know there's a lady I follow on Instagram who's a gardener. (21:48):
undefined
She's kind of into the different potting stuff, and I'm surethey have a business, but basically she's just giving
you information all the time about how to best what plants gotogether and what's in for fall and stuff like that.
And you don't even realize you're being sold to, but you think,"Okay, she's an expert.

(22:12):
I'm going to go buy from her if I live in her area there." So setting yourself up as the expert is what a lot of it
is, it seems like.

Allen Selby: Well, it is. (22:21):
undefined
And, we're an information society.
We want to learn as much as we can.
Just like we had a truck break down the other day.
I had no idea how to fix it.
So what's the first thing I'd done?
I went to YouTube. And so everybody's wanting to get as muchinformation as fast as they

(22:42):
can. And that's good, and that's bad, because you don't, youknow, when you're on the internet, you really don't know who
you're really listening to unless you research it out.
And 90% of the time, they don't do that.

Karen Wilson: Yeah. Yeah. (22:55):
undefined
You're just taking what they say as "Hey, they've set themselvesup as the expert.
I'm going to trust that they are."

Allen Selby: Yeah. (23:02):
undefined

Karen Wilson: Yeah, that's true. Youtube videos have been very helpful to mechanics and things like that. (23:03):
undefined
Trying to troubleshoot things that aren't in their wheelhouse,or that they've not dealt with before.
So what are some of the highs and lows of running a business?
I know we talked about the tornado, but have you had any likething where you're like, oh, we've sold this many

(23:25):
this year. And that is, that was great.
Or oh, we've had a crop failure this year, and it's just goingto be tough to overcome that.
What has been your, your biggest, I guess, shot in the arm whereyou wanted to just "Hey, this is going to make it.
I'm going to keep going."

Allen Selby: And well, I don't know that I can really say one thing because it changes every year. (23:44):
undefined
Probably the tropical and house plant thing has
probably been a win.
Because it's grown every year, you know.

Karen Wilson: Yeah. I did notice lots of people, you know, back in the 70s when we were kind of younger, house plants were a thing. (24:05):
undefined
And they're a thing again.

Allen Selby: Yeah. (24:14):
undefined

Karen Wilson: And I noticed some of that on your site and, that's, I guess the I remember the fig leaf tree was having a moment a (24:14):
undefined
few years ago, although they were incredibly hard to grow, Ibelieve, or to keep alive.
But I'm sure that has been a shot in the arm for you all.

Allen Selby: That and succulents. (24:31):
undefined
They kind of go along with that too, you know, because, you know,most of our customer base is
people in metropolitan areas where they're in apartments, or –

Karen Wilson: They don't have a local greenhouse they can go to. (24:47):
undefined

Allen Selby: Well, yeah. And then they don't have the area to grow. (24:50):
undefined
You know, they're doing a lot of container growing.
And so with the younger people, especially in dorms and stufflike that, they really like the succulents.
Not a lot of maintenance to them.
You know, they can kind of just put them there, and let themgrow.
But, the challenge is that there's, and it may just be me, butit

(25:15):
seems like there's more lows than there are highs a lot oftimes, because last year our mum crop, we have
problems in that.
And a lot of those problems aren't our own fault.
You have climate problems.
You have insects that may come in that are new that you weren'ttreating for.

Karen Wilson: A fungus of some kind that's cropped up that you really didn't have an issue with the year before, I guess. (25:41):
undefined

Allen Selby: Yeah. And then in the spring, we for whatever reason, I don't know what the reason was. (25:47):
undefined
We had some tobacco mosaic wilt show up in some tomatoes.
So, you know, you got to stay on top of that stuff.
Luckily, we have the place in McMinnville TSU Research Station.

(26:10):
So we can usually take those plants down there and get, youknow, an expert opinion on what they are or a diagnosis.

Karen Wilson: And then how to treat it, I guess. (26:18):
undefined

Allen Selby: Yeah, and so there's that. (26:20):
undefined
And there's a labor.

Karen Wilson: Oh, yeah. I didn't think about that. (26:28):
undefined
Labor is a huge issue right now for everybody.

Allen Selby: You know, and people come by, a lot of times, I would say we have 10 or 12 people every year stop (26:34):
undefined
by, and "Hey, do you need any help?
Do you need help?" But it's really hard to bring somebody offthe street and put them in a greenhouse
situation if they've never been in it before.

(26:54):
And you would think, well, put them out there watering orsomething.
But to put somebody in charge of watering your plants –

Karen Wilson: That's pretty critical too. (27:03):
undefined

Allen Selby: That is a way to really have a bad year. (27:05):
undefined
Because if that plant gets too wet or too dry, nobody's going tobuy it.
You know, and so actually your water guy probably is your mostexperienced guy most of the time.
And so it's hard, it's hard to get people to work you know.

Karen Wilson: Well, and that just have that experience. (27:30):
undefined
You've got to kind of invest in them by teaching them.
And that may not be their lifetime career.
It may be something that they're doing for a year or two.
And then they leave, and you have to start all over again.

Allen Selby: And with Buds and Blooms, you know, we're seasonal, so we can't offer as a full time job. (27:45):
undefined
It's just, you know, it's a few months in the spring, a fewmonths in the fall.
We have some retirement age folks that that fits theirlifestyle.
And we've used the same people for 3 or 4 years.

(28:08):
And so when they come in in the spring, primarily what they dois they plug our crops, you know, and transplant
seeds and things like that.
But they've been doing it so long that they come in and I cantell them, I can say, "You know, I need A, B, C and D done
today." And they go and do it.
Where if it's somebody just that doesn't have any experience,then I pretty much have to walk them

(28:34):
through and be with them the whole day.
This is the way this is done, you know.
And so that's a huge hurdle right there is labor.

Karen Wilson: Yeah. I could, I could imagine because, and then of course, there's a lot of talk on both sides. (28:47):
undefined
Some people want the minimum wage to go up.
Small businesses are sometimes hurt by that and things, so it'shard as the cost of labor
increases, that has to flow down into price increases andthings.

(29:11):
But as a society, we have to decide are we willing to pay alittle bit more for the reliability and the top
quality and things like that.
So yeah.

Allen Selby: Yeah, I don't know what the answer to it is. (29:22):
undefined
You know, especially in the nursery and greenhouse business, youused to see a lot of migrant workers.
That whole thing has changed.
The government runs programs to bring in those migrant workersnow, and you can sign up for that.

(29:44):
But to be honest with you, you're going to bring a migrant inthat may have worked in a bakery.
Or may have been a sheep farmer or has no experience in
this field.
And you're going to be paying them about $45 to $50 an hourbecause you've got to furnish them a place to live.

(30:09):
You've got to pay their utilities.
You got to pay them their wage, which is right at $20.
And so you also had to provide them transportation once or twicea week.
So when you add all that up, you're paying $40 or $50 forsomebody that has no experience.

Karen Wilson: Well and I would think some of the experienced ones tend to go to where, like California and places like that where the crops are (30:26):
undefined
constant. It's not quite as so seasonal there.
So it's probably hard to compete with states that are growing, or crops that are growing, probably year around, I would think.

Allen Selby: Yep. (30:45):
undefined

Karen Wilson: So your family, I noticed, has been part of the business community for a long time. (30:47):
undefined
How much has the support of White County and Van Buren andsurrounding counties meant to your business?

Allen Selby: Well, to Buds and Blooms, it's meant everything. (30:59):
undefined
That's the backbone of that business.
We've been blessed to to have a great customer base
from White and Van Buren, Putnam.
Just to give you an idea, we talked about in 2005, buildinggreenhouses.

(31:25):
So we built two greenhouses, 20ft wide, 100ft long.
Today, we run 26 greenhouses, and all of that's based on whatthis community has
supported and asked for.
When we first started that, that was kind of the beginning andthe end as far as we seen it at that time.

(31:49):
You know, we're going to have two greenhouses, and we're goingto dabble around –

Karen Wilson: It's as far as you could see. Yeah. (31:53):
undefined

Allen Selby: And have a good time, you know. (31:54):
undefined

Karen Wilson: Right. This is going to be fun. (31:56):
undefined

Allen Selby: Yeah. And so, there for long, for several years, we were building a new greenhouse every year, every year, every (31:57):
undefined
year. And so it's a double-edged sword, you know, it turned intoa lot more
work. But, how can you not grow when the

(32:20):
demand is there?

Karen Wilson: Yeah. Because what you know, I guess started as almost like a, what people call a side hustle where you're just kind of doing it (32:23):
undefined
for extra money, like you said with the tobacco.
And then it turns into a career for you, for your sons.
And I'm sure your wife works in it at times, too.

Allen Selby: She does, you know, and I just retired. (32:41):
undefined
It'll be two years this February.
So from 2005 to 2021, me and my wife both
worked full-time jobs.

Karen Wilson: Oh, wow. (32:57):
undefined

Allen Selby: And she still works her full-time job. (32:58):
undefined
Both boys had a job.
They were part time.
One of them would work early in the morning.
One worked late in the evening.
But it's always been just kind of a side job.
And so you get off your regular job at 4:00 or 5:00, and thenwe're in a greenhouse till 10, 11, 12 at

(33:21):
night, you know. And that was kind of every day.

Karen Wilson: Yeah. But it takes that to run a business and to keep it going, like you said. (33:24):
undefined
I mean, it's pretty much all consuming, I guess.
You maintain your other job sometimes for insurance andretirement benefits and things like that.
But I'm sure you all could work at this all the time and do.

Allen Selby: Oh, yeah. (33:42):
undefined

Karen Wilson: Talk to us about the impact technology has had on horticulture. (33:43):
undefined
Just even since you started, you know, do you irrigate oranything like that with
technology?
Or basically is it all on the sales side?

Allen Selby: When you look at the industry, technology is advanced to the point where a lot of (34:01):
undefined
greenhouses are all remote controlled now.
As a matter of fact, we were talking about the research stationin McMinnville.
All their stuff, you know, they can pull it up on their iPads ortheir phones, and they know exactly what the climate's doing in

(34:26):
there, and they can adjust without being on site.
You know, they can change the temperature, change theventilation, run the water.
With us, not so much.
I mean, we have evolved a little bit.
The biggest thing is back to the watering situation.

(34:47):
It takes eight hours to water.
And usually that's like two rotations through the operation.
By the time you get everything watered, once it's time to turnaround and start the second wave.

Karen Wilson: Wow. (35:01):
undefined

Allen Selby: Now there's reasons that it has to be that way. (35:01):
undefined
And the biggest reason is, it goes back to one of the things wewere talking about before, is we have so many varieties i
n each greenhouse.
And so if we had one greenhouse that was dedicated to, say,petunias, then we could automate

(35:24):
that, and get the right fertilizer on them and the right amountof water.
But when you have petunias beside marigolds.

Karen Wilson: Two totally different demands. (35:36):
undefined

Allen Selby: Exactly. So we can't turn overhead watering on and take care of that all at one time. (35:39):
undefined
So we have to hand water.
And then they get, you know, they get the right fertilize, andthings dry at different rates.
And so. We do automate where we can.

(35:59):
Now Tristar, their houses are completely automated because it'strees and shrubs that are already
established. A lot of the problems in Buds and Blooms is we'retalking about little seedlings,
and they're very vulnerable to disease when they're seedlingsbecause you get too much water, you get funguses and root rots

(36:21):
and all this other stuff.
And so, the Tristar plants are a lot more forgiving than thestuff we grow for Buds and Blooms.

Karen Wilson: Well, that's good to know that there are certain areas that you can utilize technology in, but then in Buds and (36:30):
undefined
Blooms, it's more kind of customized.
It's still like where you have to do it yourself, and there's strong benefits to that.
Because you've not got the root rot and the funguses and thingslike that, because you sure don't want to sell plants that have

(36:53):
all that kind of stuff.

Allen Selby: Right. (36:54):
undefined

Karen Wilson: Well, thank you so much, Allen. (36:55):
undefined
This has been a great podcast.
I think all the information has been so helpful.
The online part of it is very interesting on how you evolve froma hometown and still
maintain a hometown business, but also go nationally with itonline.
So thank you for being a part of the podcast.

Allen Selby: I appreciate you having me. (37:17):
undefined

Karen Wilson: Yeah. Thank you. (37:18):
undefined
And I'll say thank you to our audience for joining us today.
Our special guest has been Allen Selby with Buds and Blooms andTristar Plants.
We invite our listeners to tune in for future episodes and sharecontent with other businesses.
Until next time, this is your BLC Connection.