New member

[Dan5602896]

Business: Fontana's Flowers and Greenhouses, Inc.
Location: Woonsocket, RI
Type of Business: Retail flowers

About Me: We purchased the business from my sweety's parents in 1998. They had it for 46 years and had purchased it from the original owners. We have 2 Lord and Burnham houses of 50' and one hoop house. But the main business is cut flowers. This is a second business for me. I do the admin stuff and maintenance/repairs.

It is very competitive with 2 other shops on the street, 2 super markets plus Lowe's and Walmart all within 1/2 mile.

Dan Becker

 

[lori042499]

another new englander, Welcome to flowerchat....

 

[Tracy D'Amico]

welcome!

tracy

 

[Connie]

What kinds of plants do you grow in your greenhouses?

 

[Dan5602896]

We are not doing any growing from scratch anymore. Mostly because my father in law is 75 yrs old, fuel costs and they were rather run down. So I've had to re-configure this aspect of the business. In between doing a lot of repair, we finish off hangers for spring. I purchase finished, our poinsettias. We don't do much with lilies anymore. We then get into all the stuff for spring gardening. For Valentines day the main house is used as a stagging area for the deliveries.

I'm hoping to get one of the houses finished with a new glazing this summer and maybe try finishing the poinsettia's and doing some geraniums. With the mild winters and a revamped heating system it's looking more feasible. My other thought is to lease the houses out once they are both repaired. The biggest issue is the Lowe's and Walmart up the road. We just had a large family owned garden shop close (10 full time employees swelling in the planting season) after 35 years.