Green thumb at Greystone

By Forest Olson

Sun contributor

For many area businesses, July and August are the year’s busiest months, and the weeks leading up to that period are merely preparation for the coming tourist rush. Not so at Greystone Gardens, located on Manning Road, off M-22 south of Empire.

For owners Tom Brodhagen and Kate Presnell, owning a greenhouse is a year-round job, and one that peaks in May. “Personal and family life are put on hold from February through the end of May, when we are tied down to our greenhouses,” says Kate.

Even during the winter they are busy ordering plants and preparing Greystone Gardens for the coming spring. The payoff from their hard work is a full spectrum of annuals, perennials and hanging baskets that are waiting to be purchased and planted in your garden.

Tom is a third-generation agriculturist who learned the business from his late grandfather Ken Morris, who owned West Winds Orchards and Nursery. “Grandpa got both my uncle and myself into growing plants. We wouldn’t have known what to do without him,” he explains, added that his grandparents had a big influence on his life.

Tom fondly remembers summers during his childhood when he helped his grandparents sell corn at the West Wind farm. He recalls days when “cars were lined up down M-22 waiting for sweet corn, 10 ears to a bag.”

Kate adds that, at the time West Winds was featured in AAA Magazine as having the “best sweet corn”. Tom’s grandmother Lucille Morris also attracted folks to her fruit stand, where she sold jams and cookies. “She made these famous sugar cookies. They were spice-filled molasses cookies that made people drive for miles,” Kate remembers.

But Lucille’s love of flowers was the spark that started the family’s plant nursery, which the Morris couple ran until their late 80s. The National Park Service eventually gained control over the part of the Morris farm that was once West Winds — and included it in the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

“My grandparents were getting older, and the Park taking over was a relief in many ways,” remembers Tom, who laughs when he recalls his grandfather’s first encounter with the Park.

“I was visiting my grandparents when (Park employees) first came in. They were surveying on the back of the farm. Grandpa ran for his double-barreled, 10-gauge (shotgun), hopped in his pickup truck and ran them off his land from behind the barrel!” (Tom emphasizes that he’s grateful the Lakeshore was established in order preserve the pristine land to his west.)

Tom and Kate remember Ken Morris as having a good sense of humor, being independent, resourceful, and an original “do-it-yourselfer”. He must have loved the color “burnt yellow,” because if he had a farm building to paint, that was the color he always chose. Tom summarizes, “anything my grandpa did … he did his own way.”

Today, at Greystone Gardens, the couple often uses some of the benches passed down from Tom’s grandfather. They agree that owning a nursery and growing plants has taught them valuable life lessons. “The biggest lesson we’ve learned is patience,” says Kate. “There is no such thing as an instant garden.”

“Some plants take one-three years to be fully grown,” adds Tom.

Patience is a difficult lesson to learn in our “fast-fix … do-it-yourself” modern culture, but taking the time to prepare your soil and waiting until the risk of spring frost is over will greatly improve the health of your plants.

Tom encourages local residents to skip the topsoil and focus on compost. Topsoil contains 50 percent sand, and most of the soil in our region is nutrient-poor sand, he explains. Tom and Kate can also offer advice for what to grow in the shade and what plants will repel a fearless local deer population. Coleus, Inpatients, Begonias and Bug Bane are among the plants that are tolerant of shade.

Most odorous plants repel deer — our area’s worst enemy to plants. Kate encourages customers to place an odor-producing plant such as lavender next to a plant, such as hostas, which attracts deer.

Greystone Gardens is an avid supporter of the Leelanau Nature Conservancy. On the customer level, what sets this business apart from other nurseries, according to Tom and Kate, is the care and knowledge they put into growing the best plants available.

Greystone Gardens is located at 9875 Manning Rd. off M-22 south of Empire, and open Monday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. and 11-4 on Sunday. Call the nursery at (231) 326-5855.