The Story of the Start of Growing Weidners' Gardens
Year One 1973 "

How would you like a nice big patch of Tuberous Begonias?"

Little did I know that big patch did not mean 25 or so for the shade garden. The nice big patch was twenty five thousand tuberous begonias and the customers were going to dig their own!
Absolutely insane! We'd played around at being retired for a few years after we sold Buena Park Greenhouses in 1968. That was a wholesale foliage plant business that Bob had started in 1947 in Buena Park before he even met me, Evelyn. It had grown and thrived, moved twice and was finally moved down here to Encinitas. It was too big, too many headaches and there was never a chance for any of those fun travel trips we longed to make. We finally sold it in 1969 and embarked upon the glorious leisure experiment. That didn't last long.

By 1971 we'd bought another piece of land and Bob, my husband, had built four greenhouses; He said it was only enough to grow a few plants for friends in the business and help pay for the nice new piece of land at the corner of Piraeus and Normandy in Encinitas.
"Don't worry," he promised, "we'll never get any bigger,"
Well.......that only lasted a short while. Bob came home one night and asked me how I would like a nice big patch of Tuberous Begonias.

He knew that I loved those gorgeous giant flowered begonias.
I had even belonged to the Begonia Society when I was only 16. In fact, one year I was Queen of the Begonia Show in Long Beach. (Of course I was the only person in the group under 45.) Anyway he knew I was still hooked.
I thought he was thinking of 25 or so for our shade garden, so I happily said, "I'd love it. Thank you!" He smiled and said "good, I just ordered 25,000 begonias for you."
When I got back up off the floor, he explained the idea. He reminded me that I loved tuberous begonias, the climate here was perfect and he thought people shouldn't have to travel all the way to Santa Cruz to see a big show of tuberous begonia flowers. In addition we had the extra land. He would plant them in raised beds as little seedlings and then the customers would dig their own plants in bloom and ready to go right into their gardens. I thought that was the craziest idea I'd ever heard, even crazier than the ‘Cut Your Own Christmas Tree' idea he'd had when we lived in Brea up in Orange County. That was before there were ‘Cut Your Own' tree farms all over the place. I had quickly talked him out of that hare-brained scheme!

Now he wanted ‘Dig Your Own Begonias'. "It won't work, they'll die if people try to transplant them" I said. "Not at all," he assured me. "They have lots of small fibrous roots that allow them to be transplanted easily." In fact, they had already done this in Santa Cruz, In the past. There they had young men to dig for the customers.

Here it would be different...
Bob's Statement: "I've worked hard all my life and if we go back into business, by golly, the customer is going to do the work." This was going to be a fun idea and since we would close at the end of the season it would still give us plenty of time to travel. [We still close and I still travel]. I also suggested we start small, maybe 500 plants see if they would sell. But no, he had to have a big show!
Well, he didn't really convince me but after I had begged, pleaded, cried and prayed and he still was going to do this foolish thing, I finally gave up. Bob was of German descent and if any of you are married to a German, you know that when a German makes up his stubborn mind, God herself couldn't change it.


The begonias were ordered, the shade cloth structure went up and we were on our way.

(My Big Unspoken Fear All That Spring.) My husband was very well known among other nurserymen, not famous, but certainly very respected. Twenty Five-Thousand begonias! What if they didn't sell and we had 23,422 left over. Everyone would laugh at us behind our backs. I could just hear it, "Did you hear about Bob Weidner's crazy idea?" But I was determined to do my part. I printed up a little flyer that said ‘Visit the Begonia Gardens' etc.

I wasn't going to spend lots of money on a real sign so I carefully took our little Saber saw and cut out giant letters. I fastened them to two wires out in front where you could see them from the freeway.
It said ‘Free Flower Show, Dig Your Own Begonias'. Looking back now I have to wonder why I was so frugal. But you have to remember that I grew up in a little retail growing nursery, first in Three Rivers, California and then in North Long Beach. They call little nurseries like that, ‘Mama and Papa Nurseries' because they are so small that Mama and Papa & the kids are all the help there is. I could remember some very lean times when I was in High School. I was a reasonably cute teenager then but I would come right from school and go to work. Don't get me wrong, I loved it. But I never took any money because there was just enough to pay the bills.
My big memory was of some of the hot summer days when I was afraid that no one would come in and we would have a zero for the day's sales. (Please remember to buy from those wonderful small nurseries in the middle of the summer). It was never that bad, but we came close some days.
When Bob talked about 25,000 begonias all I could see was selling seven or eight plants a day and all those begonias left over. One day before we opened as I was attempting to be enthusiastic, I remarked that this might really work. Maybe someday we'll even sell $100.00 a day. Bob was wonderful! He was older and wiser and kept on reassuring me that he didn't care how many were left. All I had to do was enjoy them and sell what I could and let him worry about the rest.
Well that's what we did. We put up the sign, I had a card table, an umbrella and the famous cigar box. [I also had a great tan that year!]
I put an ad in the newspaper and we opened for the first day, July 5, 1973.

The parking lot was where the begonias and impatiens hang now.
If you can remember parking there, you are part of a very select group of first timers. This is what that parking lot looks like in our open season. Begonias overhead and Impatiens in big circles on the ground. In other words we reversed the old song about paving over Paradise for a parking lot... We took a parking lot and turned it into Paradise.
Right from the beginning it was fun. We had then, and still have today, the most wonderful customers in the world.! They took our flyers and handed them out to friends and neighbors. They recommended us far and wide. [You all still do that and we still appreciate it.]
They asked how they could help and they had a wonderful time enjoying the begonias and digging up their favorites. That first year I had plenty of time and the area of the walkway into the field would get dug out quickly. In my free time I would wander the field and dig some really beautiful begonias and plant them in along the walkway. Soon some ladies would come, see those beauties and stop to dig them.
"My," they would exclaim, "these are really easy to dig, they come right up." I never told.
I kept track of the daily sales on a Home Federal calendar. . During that summer our good friend John Renaker gave me a lovely fuchsia basket. I hung it up and everyone wanted to buy it.
"Looks like I'll have to grow you some fuchsia baskets next year," Bob remarked. I took it home after a few weeks and hung it up where it promptly died from lack of water!
Before that first summer was over, someone had telephoned Sunset Magazine about us. Sunset came in, took pictures and the next year we had a nice story and a full color picture. When they came to take the pictures the Sunset reporter said, "Why didn't YOU call us?" that was my first lesson in doing some PR work to get free publicity.
That was the also the start of 30 plus wonderful years of nice customers, beautiful flowers, and the adventure of searching for and adding something new every season. If you would like to know how our providing a new plant every year led to the formation of the now international 'Proven Winners' plant marketing group I'll do that later and call it The Story #2. But for now that's another story for another time

In memory of Bob Weidner, the plant genius and loving husband and father of our four children. When you marry an older man you loose him sooner also. In 1988 after a short illness Bob passed away. All of you who have loved ones who were great or even wanna-be gardeners maybe Heaven really is like the Garden of Eden and all of our loved ones are happily keeping it beautiful.
Life goes on and I am eternally grateful for all of the teaching, coaching, nagging to make it better and yes, praises too that I received from Bob. I hope he is proud of both his daughter, Mary and me.
For everything there is a season. We are living in our season now and we all need to live each day to the very best that we can. God Bless. Evelyn

Pansies, Poinsettias, Cyclamen and more...

Where did they come from?

For that season the begonia field becomes somewhere around 18,000 dig your own pansies. No one digs before 9:30 on November 1. No one! You may come in at 8:30 and be ready to dig but no pansy moves til the bell rings! The other big crops are cyclamen and poinsettias.

Remember that little nursery by the side of the road in Three Rivers? My father always had a small field of pansies. We would dig them and put them into what was called a "peach basket" These were made of very thin wood and were used in the fruit stands to hold peaches or other fruit. they would just hold a dozen pansies with a bit of squeezing. They used to be called 'field grown' pansies. I loved those pansies and even would take them to school and peddle them to my fellow 2nd graders. We come full circle now but the customer digs their own. This allows us to get the maximum use of the begonia field space and field grown pansies develop extremely good root systems and become big beautiful plants that out perform any of the pansies that are squeezed into pots.
The poinsettias are a natural because that's the Holiday Season and getting your poinsettia fresh right from the greenhouse is sure to make them last better.

So what about the cyclamen? Cyclamen are one of the best winter blooming outdoor shade plants for Southern California. It is one of our major wholesale crops and rounds out our Mid-Winter Season come December 22 it's time to close the gates again, let the wholesale department get along without us and take a little extra vacation time. We'll see you again in March.

We have expanded to have some of Evelyn's favorite shrubs and a big section of perennials...In business it always fun to change and grow and that's what we try to do. Just in case you are reading this and have never been to see us. Here are some useful facts.

Seasons:
March 1 to Labor Day is the spring summer season 9:30 to 5 everyday except Tuesdays. Tuesday is Retail's Day off. Don't come I will be doing all sorts of errands and having fun.
Mid-winter Season is November 1 to December 22. 9:30 to 4:30. Closed Tuesdays.

695 Normandy Rd Encinitas CA 92024 Phone 760 436 2194 . sometimes if you call on a busy weekend the phone for retail rolls over to line 3 and you don't get an answer or a message. Try again in few minutes or just come...we're there. We could get one of those annoying answering systems, but then I would tempted to put all sorts of fun annoying messages on the thing. "Like "Please hold, Your call is very important to us" and then no one ever picks it up. I hate that!

Signed Evelyn and my daughter Mary who is such a wonderful part of this nursery.
Email is staff@weidners.com