The garden center of Debs Greenhouse will officially open in April, but during the winter months Debbie will sell hanging baskets and planters online. She is the only one in the province that is selling plants this way.

6,900 square foot greenhouse in Morinville, with 1440 square foot retail area
Greenhouse
Late August, Debbie, her husband and four kids moved into their new home, which is the former location of Freds Flowers. They will continue their business in a 7,000 square foot greenhouse, where they will start growing the bedding plants, vegetable transplants, shrubs and threes. These plants will be sold in their garden center at the property next spring.
"We are all moved in now, lots of unpacking to do, the only plants we had left to bring are some succulents. It will take a while to get settled in. Fortunately, we did not have to adjust the greenhouse that much. Freds Flowers was growing bedding plants too and other than some regular maintenance the greenhouse is ready to go."
"We made the decision to move for a few reasons, the biggest deciding factor was actually an issue we had with our permits. Over the years standards have changed, as a result, we were required to make major upgrades to our greenhouses in Yellowhead County to continue to retail, or build a new retail area. For a long time we have thought about moving our kids into bigger schools and we made the decision. It didn't make sense to us to upgrade or expand our operation in that rural location. So we moved closer to the big city! This greenhouse we bought is a great retail area, it was built in 2008 and is just minutes out of the town of Morinville, 10 Minutes from St. Albert (population of 60,000) and 20 minutes to Edmonton. There are only a few greenhouses for sale in the province when we were looking, this one was the only one we were interested in, and it just happens to be only 4 miles away from a good friend and fellow Grower, Michiel Verheul of High Q Greenhouses. He showed it to us this spring and there you have it."

The greenhouse was not completely filled at the end of August.
"The location has less square feet acreage of greenhouse than we've had in Yellowhead county, which was 9,000 square foot, but we are working on the permits to add a 3,000 square feet hoop house. We may or may not be permitted to add more greenhouses now, all developments here along the highway corridor must be approved by Alberta transportation, we are working with them for approval, but it might not be granted without an upgrade to our intersection, which we are not in a position to pay for," says Foisy. "Either way we are very excited for our new location and looking forward to Spring 2017."
Online shop
Even though the preparations for the next spring season will take a while, Foisy will not sit on her hands. In the coming months, she will launch Fall Classes with hands on activities for all age groups and will open her online shop again. "From November to June, we will start selling hanging baskets and planters online again. The customers can choose from a selected amount of combinations which will be ready Spring pick-up. We are the only one doing this in the Province and it gives us a cash flow during the off season", says Foisy. Another advantage of selling plants online is that it enables Foisy to sell her plants for higher prices. "By preordering the plants online, the customer gets the privilege of getting what they want as they don't have to rely on what's available in the garden center when they decide to visit it in Spring. For this reason, they are also willing to pay more for their hanging baskets or planters."

Debbie Foisy holding one of her baskets that she made as a trial to try for 2017. Photo taken by Reg Faulkner Photography
Debbie created the webshop on her own and added photos of fixed plant combinations. "We always put combinations on the web which we know will work." And as she will start growing the ordered plants in February-March, she needs to keep a close eye to the amount of incoming orders. "If we reach the highest amount of orders that we can handle, we will take the shop offline."
Last year, she set up the online shop and it has proven to be a success. "The sales of the online shop accounted for 15 percent of our income and I think, if we could reserve more space by adding the 3,000 square foot greenhouse, this could be increased to 40 percent."
For more information
Debs Greenhouse
Debbie Foisy
Email: [email protected]
www.debsgreenhouse.com