Balanced growth

Greg Blankenship's plant career started with growing and grafting dogwood trees as a teenager. Since then, his services have shifted several times to create a diversified horticulture business that is "beautifying Knoxville one planter at a time," according to his tagline.

Gregory's Greenhouse Productions, the business Blankenship founded in 1994, blends three different business models into one. The largest division is wholesale, which makes up about half of his business. Blankenship grows annuals, perennials, herbs, and vegetables to supply local nurseries and garden centers, in addition to contract growing for a couple of small landscapers.

To complement this business, while tapping into his experience in both landscaping and interior plant installation, Blankenship also offers commercial plant installations. Serving businesses, apartment complexes, and the entire city of Knoxville, Gregory's Greenhouse team changes out hundreds of colorful containers twice a year. Besides several tropical plants that have to be ordered in, Blankenship grows most of the varieties he installs across the city.

The third component of Blankenship's business comes from mobile retail sales, which account for about 10-15% of his revenue. Over a decade ago, he started selling plants out of the back of a pickup truck at local farmers markets. Now, he has two box trucks equipped with adjustable shelves and side panels that open up, serving as plant shops on wheels. In addition to farmers markets, Blankenship also partners with local coffee shops, apartment complexes, and other businesses to offer pop-up sales events.

Blankenship says this triple-business model gives him several options for selling the wide variety of plant material he grows, allowing him to tap into several different customer bases. "What you can't wholesale, you retail. What you can't retail, you wholesale. What you can't do either way, you install," he says. "You've got to have a lot of avenues. And if none of those work, there's always the compost pile."

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Photo by Francesco Gallarotti on Unsplash

Source: Greenhouse Management