Vet's Wholesale Nursery has fought back from changing markets, chemical Benlate problems and a flood to become one of Central Florida's premier suppliers of nursery materials. Vet's president Donald Bailey tells us how dedication, persistence and time made a difference.

Q. For a starter, tell us the interesting story of how Vet's originated.
A. My Dad [Robert Bailey] came out of World War II as a veteran. He started in the worm business in Tampa, and at that time it was called Vet's Worm Firm in the late 1940s. He grew worms and sold worm castings as soil for people growing plants, then started using the soil to grow his own plants. Then that evolved into the nursery. He started out in annuals and grew them until 1961. He sold both to the retailer and to the wholesaler until that time, when we went out of the retail business and went strictly wholesale.

Q. What crops do you grow now?
A. We're still heavy in azaleas, and we do a lot of groundcovers and camellias, and we do roses in the spring. Camellias are still a big crop for us, but not like before our Benlate [contamination] disaster. I'm still two to three years behind. But I'm getting there.

Q. What was the effect of Benlate on your nursery?
A. I had problems twice. The first time was in 1988, then in '90 we had it again. That time, I was shut down close to two years.

Q. When did it flood?
A. That was in 1988. In September. We've got manmade dikes here, and they broke after torrential rains. It never shut us down, and we cleaned it up in two months so that you'd never have known it happened. I've been fortunate in that I've got a lot of good people here.

Q. So it hurt you for next spring's sales?
A. Yes, it took away spring sales. I just couldn't catch up in a lot of categories. And when you take that, then the Benlate the next year, and it hasn't been an easy road. But we're still here.

Q. You have been known for excellent camellias. What's the status on them?
A. We're keeping our camellias, and we're trying to build them back up. We made mistakes at first, trying to get them back in a hurry. People wanted our product before they were ready. Now, we are growing them out as 2-gallons to 7-gallons and they will be ready in the fall.

Q. What precautions do you now take?
A. We buy a bag [of a product], not a case. We do a lot of experimenting, and make sure everything is going to do well. Even today, as I was telling my son, when somebody comes by with a new fertilizer or a new chemical, you don't buy 2 tons, you buy two bags. You experiment with it; it might take you a year, but you make sure it works. You have to remember that the salesman is there to sell. You don't have to buy. That's the motto I have.

Q. What is the direction of the market in your area today, and what changes have you had to make when you came back?
A. It's such a guess, and it varies so much. I grow a lot of groundcovers; I grow a lot of azaleas. We're still selling azaleas strong [in midsummer]. But before the shutdown we were strong in azaleas; at one time 70 percent of our nursery was in azaleas, and now we're coming back. We had to diversify to get the market back, but now because we are diversified we're able to squeeze back and not grow as many different things. We can now grow what's been good for us in greater quantity, instead of getting into some weird stuff that's hard to grow, that you sell for a nickel. We now sell to chains, so we had to diversify, and we still are diversified, but not as much.

Q. Has it been difficult to deal with chains?
A. It was very hard for us for the first two or three years. Then we began to show them that we stand behind [our product], that we tag, that we do it right. I still have some competitors who don't and some of them are not with them [the chains] anymore. I kept telling my guys that we are going to do it right; that we are going to tag right; that it's going to cost the company a little bit more money but we're in this thing for the long haul.

Q. You must have good employees.
A. You can say that. John Carter [the nursery manager], well, I don't know what I would do without him.

Q. Looking back, how did you survive?
A. You have to be innovative, and you've got to diversify and make changes and go with the trends. You can't be hard-headed about that. You lose money that way. Lots of things. We were one of the first nurseries in the area to use plastic pots. We have salesmen on the road, which we didn't have for a long time. We were one of the first to put color picture tags on all of our plants; we did that before the chains came along. You've also got to create a market. So many people in our industry have not done that. I've seen people put in a 20- or 30-acre nursery, but they forget one thing: They have no market. That's probably the biggest problem in this business. They'll work hard for years then don't have anybody to sell to; they forgot to tell anybody they were selling plants. I've seen that happen so many times in this industry, and they go out of business. You can't have all your plants ready, then try to create a market.

© 1998 Branch-Smith Publishing