The Greenhouse Odyssey: Seven- Phranques
By Lorraine Miller
Inertia: The tendency of a thing in motion to stay in motion.
I’m that thing! Cactus Growers is rolling along. I’ve hired people besides my mother and we’re busy.
I’m paying the bills but still, I worry. Have I hit a plateau? The customer base was good. Retailers were calling. The problem was that after ordering a handful of cactus, they’d ask for a dozen Boston ferns, a few English ivies and some Venus Fly Traps. No pressure, but it seems I have to be all things to all people.
The Ten Commandments scowled at me. I was coveting my neighbor’s house.
Frank and Gloria Erickson owned the property next door but they didn’t live there. It was a weird property. The house was a bit of a shack with the front yard gravel. Just inside the property line was a Reagan billboard looming over both of our properties. In the backyard was a cinderblock building 30’ wide and 60’ long. It had been a chinchilla farm in the early 1900s. Chinchilla made a less expensive fur coat than mink. Frank was a landscape artist with the ‘nom de brushe,’ Phranque. Although the chinchilla shed had no heat or running water, Phranque made it his art studio.
I bumped into Gloria, the businessperson of the couple, on occasion, and I cautiously floated the idea of buying her property. She was more than agreeable but she wanted a Boardwalk price. I was thinking more about the Marvin Gardens range. She wouldn’t budge. Now what? All I wanted was the backyard. An off-the-wall idea struck me and I presented it to her. “Can I pay half now and take the backyard? I’ll build more greenhouses and increase my cash flow. Then, I’ll pay the second half in 5 years and take the front.” If my question surprised her, she didn’t show it. She was more or less, ‘okay, that should work.'
I needed roughly $75,000 to buy the backyard and build two more greenhouses.
I’d saved about 1/3 of that. I think it’s safe to say that no bank would loan anyone money, regardless of gender, to buy a backyard. Not without a survey, a lien, or a life insurance policy. Something! Some kind of collateral. I was still making mortgage payments on the little house, so that wasn’t a usable asset.
I calculated the value of my childhood stamp collection and sorted through my coin jar in search of a 1912 buffalo nickel or a rare penny. Nothing.
Then my friends Elaine and Jack, who helped me so much in the past, came to see me. ‘What’s this?’ Elaine and Jack don’t ‘visit.’ And she’s dressed up, not dressed to stand at the potting bench. He’s holding a bottle of champagne. What’s going on?
Then, knock me over with a feather, they offered to loan me $50,000 to buy the gallery’s backyard. They loaned me all that money on my signature, nothing more.
The generosity of these two women and the leap of faith Gloria and Elaine took with me, made it possible for Cactus Growers of Utah to become Cactus and Tropicals. I am grateful.
All systems were GO for two more greenhouses. Another flatbed of Stuppy greenhouse parts would soon be on the way. I learned an important lesson while placing my order. If you want multiple greenhouses and want to walk upright between them, as opposed to crawling on your hands and knees, it’s necessary to have 8’ sidewalls, not 4’ like the cactus house. You have to be a seer, too. Put on your Swami bonnet and look far into the future. Is it possible that someday even more greenhouses will be required?
What’s the future of a chinchilla shed? What about the gallery?
The critical pipe for walking upright and adding more greenhouses is called a “Y” yoke. It is attached to the top of each post. The bow (curved pipe) slips on to one side of the “Y.” When you add the next greenhouse, its bows slip onto the other side of the Y. A drain gutter is laid in between. With “Y” yokes on the outside posts, you can add hoops on both sides forever, as long as you have the land. Feeling a little emboldened with big dreams, we sited the new greenhouses with the possibility that two more might someday be added to the south. We used a Y yoke on the north side too, in case the cactus house would have to be replaced. The lesson? Always install “Y” yokes.
Greenhouse construction was about to begin. The fall weather was dry and warm, perfect for digging post holes. Kirk was away, so another dear friend helped me. Stuart Gelb. The One and Only.
Stu and I have been friends since 1966. We met as VISTA volunteers in the War on Poverty. (Volunteers in Service to America) and served in Eastern North Carolina.
The program is now known as Americorps. We were citified white kids, me from Salt Lake City, Stu from Roselle Park, New Jersey. Neither one of us had ever seen poverty. We’d never encountered people who didn’t look like us. We’d never had our sole purpose to be just to help others. We thought we were going to change the world. Stu was perfect for the job. He seemed without ego and at ease with everyone. He was soft spoken yet wore his values, not just on his sleeve, but on his entire wardrobe, a solid block of seriousness and sincerity. In addition, he was a nice Jewish boy and my father was Jewish. That added some glue. We bonded right away.
In 1983, Stu lived with his wife and daughter in Denver. He was an independent contractor, so he was able to fit his work schedule at home around the greenhouse construction. He came to Salt Lake for 2 months and lived in the little house with me. He had a cozy space in a bedroom in the basement. He was my cook and contractor. Actually, I introduced him as my houseboy. Until now, the 7-11 across the street had been my refrigerator, but with Stu in the house, there were hot meals for dinner.
With the power pole out of the way and the corners sited, we dug the post holes. 46 this time, just as deep as the last.
Thankfully, no briquets were required to thaw the ground and we had a gas-powered auger, but with the house and billboard in front, a cement truck couldn’t wiggle its way through. Stu made several trips to the lumber yard in his small pickup, coming back with as many 80-pound bags of quikcrete as the truck weight limit would allow. He mixed it in a wheelbarrow and shoveled it into the hole by hand. It took a day to fill 4 or 5 post holes, and thus over a week to get them all set. He was a perfectionist about it with level and string-line. He’d stand me in the front of a row of posts and ask, “How many posts do you see?” I’d say “one.” He’d say, “Good. That’s all you’re supposed to see.” He said that if they were off, even 1/8,” all the added pieces would get further off. It’s called skewwhiff.
Next, the bows and purlins and Y yokes. These bolt together fairly quickly and there’s plenty of random help.
Next, the bows and purlins and Y yokes.
These bolt together fairly quickly and there’s plenty of random help.
Me, my delivery driver, and a young kid named Rob Larkin who couldn’t stay away, even though he was destined to become a leader in the Larkin Mortuary Company. He loves plants. He loves winter-hardy palms.
On November 7th, the day was gray but warm. We put on the poly roofs. Everyone needed to be on hand. Even my mother. There have been many advancements in greenhouse materials since we built the cactus house four years earlier. Thank heavens, the plastic was pre-tinted and didn’t require that I paint myself.
