By Catherine Levasseur
Sept. 22, 2018
In the next couple of weeks, Country Gardens Nursery will have over 35 thousand pumpkins available for sale.
The family business relies on loyal customers instead of heavy advertising campaigns.
“We’re a neat little secret place to come to,” McDaniel said. “We have a lot of wow factors.”
Located at the Agricenter of Memphis, the nursery sales a wide variety of pumpkins, seasonal flowers, and novelties all of different sizes, sorts, shapes and colors. John McDaniel, the owner, has been in the business for over 30 years with his wife Laurie.
McDaniel caters to his clientele by offering a wide variety of pumpkins and bringing in new generically modified and cross-pollinated species every now and then.
“We want to offer more than just your typical, basic looking pumpkin,” McDaniel said.
The nursery is family oriented. Employees are family members or family friends, and the main clientele this time of the year is families and children getting ready for Halloween.
Bridget Rast, a family friend, has been working at the nursery for over seven years. She says this time of the year is a special.
“We will have little vignettes set up for family to take pictures,” Rast said. “We have families coming every year that we saw the kids grow up”.
Susan Thomas, a mother of three from Cordova, Tennessee, comes to the pumpkin patch every year with her children. She said visiting the nursery before Halloween to pick out pumpkins to carve has become a family tradition.
“My children love it,” Thomas said. “At first they would pick the traditional orange pumpkins, but now they try to find to most funny looking one.”
McDaniel said his family is very blessed to do what they do for a living and sell thing people love and are looking forward to purchase.
You Will Fall for Pumpkins from Catherine Levasseur on Vimeo.
Catherine Levasseur 