On the first Saturday of the fall, Drew Collins moves about rows of native perennial plants aligned in a portion of a community park in his East Cobb neighborhood.
As customers browse nearly 200 species of plants—from Black-Eyed Susans to Yarrow “Peter Cottontails” and many others in between—the 14-year-old answers questions and helps place items on wagons.
What’s called “Drew’s Plant Sale” are the semi-annual fruits of his labor growing and tending to a sprawling nursery in the back yard of his home in Fox Hills, an enterprise that has expanded due to word-of-mouth referrals and making connections with local garden clubs.
(Here’s a list of what was available for last weekend’s sale.)
While Drew has been around the plant world all his life—his father David is a long-time horticulturalist at Fernbank Science Center—the freshman at Fellowship Christian School in Roswell is gaining valuable experience as he earns money for college.
“It was something to do and it was pretty fun,” Drew explains about getting serious about plant-raising that started at the age of nine, with a few basic herbs.
His father saw something more, and they parlayed it into a local business venture.
For the last four years they have held sales in April and September; on Saturday, more than 1,500 plants were on display.
“I told him, ‘If we’re going to do this, let’s have some goals,’ ” David Collins said. First up was raising enough money from the initial sales to purchase a truck to transport the plants.
They started with 500 plants sold at their home, but two years ago required more room. The Fox Hills park comprises seven acres along Sope Creek where homes were demolished after the area was declared to be in a flood plain.
This year Drew grew more than 2,000 plants, and next year the aim is to double that. David Collins didn’t want to divulge dollar figures from the sales, but said that “we’re two-and-a-half years ahead” of where they thought they would be financially.
Drew is self-funding the business with proceeds from past sales, and has been making presentations to community groups, including the Sope Creek Garden Club.
The work is physically challenging. Setting up for the sale took several days, and David Collins said the biggest issue is that they’re running out of room in their backyard nursery, which includes a greenhouse for unsold plants.
While the teen is soft-spoken and shy, his father sees him growing in many ways in having to deal with the public.
In his years as an educator, David Collins sees young people struggling to communicate with others, especially adults. Giving teens the confidence during what for many of them is an awkward time in their lives is invaluable.
Drew hasn’t started thinking about where he might go to college, and for now he says he relishes learning and growing with every stage as his business develops.
“I don’t know if Drew will go into this” professionally, his father said. “But there are so many life lessons that he is learning from this.”
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