One day last Spring, my friend Chris called and said, "Hey Jane, my business partner Jeff and I just bought a nursery. They already had Texas Best Lawn Service and adding a Nursery seemed a practical thing to do, when clients wanted to add a few new pIants, and/or trees to their yards. I want you to go down there and transform it". Really, I am thinking, can I make that happen!!. Well, as it turns out, I decided it was something I could do and along the way it was quite a learning experience and quite fun. It was a challenge, on a budget for a brand new company and I felt like I had to see where I could take it. The first thing that had to happen was to clean up the property. The guys had taken over a nursery that had sat idle for several years and there was a lot of initial cleanup. Of course, I had some help to move all the big stuff around.

We power washed, we scrubbed and we called in an expert on Koi ponds (Mr. Garrett Ozment of Port Neches, TX owner of Koi Ponds of Southeast Texas) and got that started. We wanted a destination place for people to come and shop for plants and perhaps to sit and enjoy the Koi.

There were a lot of maintenance issues, electrical, open wiring, sprinkler timers and plugs all over the nursery that didn't work and were potentially dangerous. At that time, I had also been working on a "city business beautification" project in Port Neches and a friend mentioned that the City of Nederland was doing a similar program, through it's Nederland Economic Development. A "beautification" project, for business owners to fix up the outside of their businesses, was underway. Unbeknownst to the new owners, I visited the NEDC to find out what funds were available. I identified what needed to be fixed, got the trades people's bids, took pictures, wrote the verbiage to support my findings and submitted it to the NEDC. I called Chris and asked him to meet me at their office. While we sat and **** reviewed the package, I was a bit anxious. After a few minutes I asked if I could address any questions she might have and she said no. Then she said it was the best, most professional package they had ever received for a business project. Humm, my buttons were popping and as a result, the Nursesry was awarded a 5 figure amount to proceed with our beautification transformation. Woohoo!

So all the electrical got fixed, the watering system got fixed, we got new signage for both the building and both corners, as well as funds to paint the building and a few outside structures that did not have vines growing through the lattice.

We moved plants, scrubbed concrete, rearranged pottery and re-landscaped the Highway frontage, fixed the waterfall on the highway side and watched while the sparkling Koi pond came to life. It is beautiful. Along the way, we hired new people to help with sales and run crews for landscaping.

We hope you will stop buy, choose a few of the beautiful plants, trees or some gorgeous pottery to enhance your yard and home. And be sure to see how the Koi are growing. And by the way, they all have names, thanks to our star sales lady, Ms. Michelle Crister. Great work!