Greenhouse offers spring colors

Perennial plants a goal for the company next year casey@theheraldnewspapers.com Spring is in the air and residents and businesses are working diligently, sprucing and pruning their yards with all the colors that nature has to offer. For more than 60 years now, L.B. Spurgeon Greenhouses on Maryville Highway between Seymour and Maryville have made it their business to paint the town with their homegrown plants, flowers, shrubs, herbs, and all kinds of greenery. Spurgeon Greenhouses growers like Gary Stephens work year round nursing seedlings into maturity so that they, too, might one day turn the heads of folks cruising by the yard. “It’s about a three- to five-month process for some,” to go from seedlings to a healthy, sellable product, Stephens told The Herald. Others may spend more like six to eight months in the nursery before they’re distributed. “We also do some perennials too, which we’re already working on now for next year,” he said. Some are grown from seeds, some from tissue culture (cloning), and others from starter plants. Stephens explained how the plant’s container size makes all the difference in how large the plant will grow. “We probably do 30,000 hanging baskets during the spring — April, May, June, and into July. They’re one of the biggest things we do,” Stephens said. To celebrate the holidays, L.B. Spurgeon Greenhouses feature red, white and blue petunias in hanging baskets. Stephens said another holiday favorite they offer are “color bowls” with a mixture of flowers in one container: “Some people for Memorial Day will use these to decorate gravesites,” he said. The greenhouse also stocks full-grown mosquito plants which are natural mosquito repellents. L.B. Spurgeon Greenhouses has more than 100,000 square feet of plants in several different greenhouses. “We supply a lot of businesses like Ober Gatlinburg, Christmas Gardens, a bunch of hotels and places like that,” Stephens said. For more information on L.B. Spurgeon Greenhouses, call (865) 661-7373.