LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — Spring is in the air, but before we can really get outside to plant, the greenhouses at Wallitsch Gardens are where the magic happens. Some plants have been growing there for months before being put out for sale.
"A lot of the greenhouses we have, we grow our annual plants here,"Â said Jeff Wallitsch, of Wallitsch Gardens. "Those are flowers or plants that you have to plant every year."
The garden center has a total of 10 greenhouses, where everything starts as a seed or a rooted plug form.
"We have a really cool, what we call the dirt machine. Where all of our trays and all of our pots are filled out," Wallitsch said. "We transplant the flowers and then we bring them down here to the greenhouses to water, fertilize, to grow."
Inside the greenhouses, it can range from 65 to 75 degrees depending on what’s being grown.
"Typically with growing, since we do start in the beginning of February, we need some heat for them since they can’t take the cold weather," Wallitsch said.
Wallitsch grows a wide variety, including geraniums, petunias, verbenas, vegetables, salvias, angelonias and lantana.
"I joke that we're a lantana farm because we have a whole greenhouse full of those," Wallitsch said.
Tried, true and tested. You get a good dose of nature and nostalgia at the garden center. His grandparents started Wallitsch Gardens 80 years ago.
"I still feel my grandparents are here and I see them and hear them every day just through the plants and through the greenhouses and just what they have built," Wallitsch said.
And pretty soon, all the little plants in the greenhouses will be ready for you to take home.
"Usually by mid-April is when we'll start to put a lot of our annual flowers out. Some may be a little earlier because they can take some cooler weather. But we'll definitely have everything out by Derby so you can come and plant all of your flowers."
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