July 25, 2011

Garden Paradise

Maryott’s Gardens is a daylily farm, owned by Mr. William Maryott and Mrs. Marilyn Maryott.  They live in Watsonville, which is near Santa Cruz.  Mr. Maryott has been running this business for the past 38 years. He started in 1973 with bearded iris but has only sold daylilies for the past 16 years.  Mom has been part of the business for 30 years, more or less. Even though being a business owner is hard work, they also said, “We love what we do. This is the best retirement hobby business anyone could have. When we had an on site display garden, we really enjoyed all the people who came to the garden year after year.  It was tiring but rewarding”.   Maryott’s Gardens employs one seasonal part-time person who assists with digging up the plants.

The business began when Mr. Maryott read a book on flower breeding. He got excited and wanted to try it himself.  It led to a successful business.  Maryott’s Gardens sells daylilies only via the Internet.  Daylilies are perennial flowers which bloom only for one day, but there are many buds on the stem, which means the flowers seem to last a long time.  The flowers come in many shades of (but not limited to) pink, yellow, peach, and white, orange, purple.  Some daylilies have long narrow petals.  Others have petals that are heavily ruffled and the petals are closer together. 

The business is seasonal.  Daylily plants may only be shipped during the three months of the summer, which for the Maryotts is the busiest time of the year.  Digging up the plants and replanting the many new ones takes up to another month in the fall.  The winter months and early spring are taken up with caring for the plants. Watering, weeding, fertilizing, and marketing for the next years also occur during the winter.
Mr. Maryott likes to create new flowers.  It’s a creative challenge trying to make something that no one else has ever made.  He makes over one thousand new flowers each year, but saves only a few for sale to the public.  Dad takes pollen from one daylily flower and applies it to stigma of another flower.  Later if the pollination was successful seeds will form.  Then the seeds are planted.  When these plants bloom, Dad evaluates them and discards the ugly ones.

The biggest challenge for this type of business is marketing.  The Maryott’s must convince customers that they should buy their daylilies from Maryott’s Gardens.  This year they decided to reduce the price on 200 variety plants. It worked so well that many of their customers placed orders each week in order to receive the special price. Mrs. Maryott’s role is to make sure the orders from their website are ready for the digging sequence.  She also takes care of all financial aspects of the business.  The best part of the business for Mrs. Maryott is talking to the customers on the phone or corresponding with them by email.  Their customers come from all parts of the U.S.  This year they even had customers from Belgium and Russia.
The biggest difficulty with the Maryott’s flower business is that there is a lot of physical work, and during their busy season, there is no time off. The shipping season is very hectic.  They can’t take any time off June through September.  However, they live where they work, so there is no commute, which is a very nice and convenient.  Mr. Maryott told a story about a customer who came to the sales counter and asked for three Latin Lovers (name of an iris).  Mr. Maryott said to her, “Wouldn’t one be enough?” If you want to make your own garden, why don’t you try and buy some flowering plants.  Who knows, some day you may start your own successful business. To inquire or buy flowers for your garden, just go to www.daylilygarden.net.

4 comments:

Anne Louise said...

very amazing!!!

Pinx said...

wow! lovely flowers and they are not the common type... thanks for dropping by my blog! have a lovely day!

lina@happy family said...

Unique shapes and colors, right?

Cacai M. said...

Hi Anney, those are very nice flowers! I love flowers and I guess you too! Cool!

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