Two: Imminent Change
I opened the Grass Menagerie doors on July 5th, 1975. The huge paned windows faced east and south and the sunshine poured in. Greenery filled every nook and cranny. My own Emerald City. I was wonderstruck, in a sort of space/time warp, sometimes feeling like an escape artist but certainly not like an entrepreneur.
Memories of my father’s business stirred. When he returned from WWII, he started a printing business. My parents had five children and as kids we all worked in the print shop at one time or another. There was a certain mystique about it, a child’s pride in being part of a family endeavor. I’m sure Dad’s employees didn’t sign up for babysitting but to me, they were like a second family.
After dinner, Dad would ask, “Anybody want to drive down to the shop with me and make sure the lights are out?”
Or on Saturday morning, “Who wants to go to the post office with me?”
He was tending his business, making sure it was okay, just like it had a life of its own. Was it nature or nurture that four of his children became business owners?
Dad’s business grew at a pony clip. He constantly needed more space for a new offset press or a fancy folding machine. His father, my Grandpa Miller, was a brick mason. He came to town every couple of years to add a room or tear down a wall. It was chaotic; deliveries and cinderblocks dodging each other, the racket of the Heidelberg Press competing with the churn of the cement mixer. There were times when you couldn’t get in or out of the doors.
In growing my business, I had a similar sense of nurturing or caretaking. Sometimes I’d drive by at night to make sure the gate was locked. To an outsider, the growth probably seemed haphazard, sporadically adding a new greenhouse or demolishing a building over years. It happened when an opportunity arose.
In the midst of all my confusion, Dad would call, “Lorraine, are you busy?”
“Yes, Dad,” I’d answer. “Really busy.”
He’d pause for a second and then ask, “Yeah, but are you making any money?”
Therein lies the rub!
I felt an urgency to learn everything I could about plants. I took a deep dive into horticulture and ornamental plant books. I discovered the Bible of tropical plants, the Exotica by Alfred Byrd Graf. It’s a pictorial encyclopedia just shy of 2,000 pages, weighing in at 5.5 lbs. Every plant has a photograph, a description, habitat information and care instructions. With the aid of the Exotica, I attached a handwritten card to each plant giving its name and care requirements. (Sadly, the Exotica is out of print today and difficult to find).
I read Thalassa Cruso’s Making Things Grow: A Practical Guide for the Indoor Gardener. There were few pictures, but advice that made common sense. She explained why you shouldn’t get water on the leaves of an African Violet or what to do about the dilemma of a shrinking root ball. I was curious to, about the history of houseplants, given that in the wild, tropical plants don’t grow in containers. I wondered who and how plants or seeds were collected and how it was established they could even live in a pot. Turns out, archeologists have found evidence of container gardening dating back to 5,000 B.C. All I had to do was reintroduce them to the modern world. I wasn’t into Botanical Latin, medicinal or herbal plants, the health benefits of houseplants, soil, insects, pesticides, fertilizer, cactus or photosynthesis. Not yet.
I liked helping customers. People often came in with a preconceived notion of the plant they wanted or where they wanted to put it, whether on a tabletop or on the floor, tall or bushy, hanging or crawling. Others just wanted a plant that grabbed them, something beautiful or interesting. My job was to help them find it and give care instructions. Buying a houseplant is not like mindlessly dashing into the grocery store for a gallon of milk. Buying a houseplant is a sensory, soulful thing, a ‘be here now’ moment. It should be stress-free. I wanted my customers to be successful growing plants and I wanted them to have a fun experience shopping for it. I wanted them to come back.
I desperately needed bookkeeping skills. I took advantage of a program offered by the Small Business Administration called SCORE - Service Corps of Retired Executives. My 75-year-old mentor was a woman from New Jersey, now retired to Salt Lake City, whose life’s work had been the comptroller of a large nuts and bolts factory. (Keep in mind, computers were a thing of the future). Mrs. Worth rode the bus to my shop every other week. She brought me a 14 Column Ledger and showed me how to label the horizontal and vertical columns, enter totals and double check my numbers. I called her ‘Mrs. ToThePenny.’ After all, a misplaced decimal could be the difference between a dime and a dollar—or more! She insisted on a sharp #2 pencil. She taught me to distrust the column heading ‘Miscellaneous.’ forcing me to think deliberating about where to assign expenses.’ She taught me everything I needed to know, at least for the time being. I didn’t suffer the common problems of boredom or procrastination with bookkeeping. At the end of the month, I studied the column totals like they were a scoreboard or a prophecy.
I suppose some business-savvy person might have looked at my numbers, patted me on the head and walked away with a sigh. But I wasn’t walking. I was running, cramming to be an entrepreneur. Besides learning about plants and the rudiments of bookkeeping, I had to be an advertising agent, janitor, buyer, sales force, delivery driver and complaint department. I was gasping at a fantasy? Can I shape my own destiny? At the very least, have a hand in it?
Near the end of the Grass Menagerie’s third year, I received a certified letter from the Salt Lake Board of Education. The junior high next to the shop was being demolished and rebuilt. The home of the Grass Menagerie was being taken through Eminent Domain.* I had 6 months to get out.
*Eminent Domain: “the power of a government entity to take private property for a public use without the owner’s consent, conditioned upon payment of just compensation.”