March 1994 Carroll Gardens perennial mail-order catalogue
March 1994 Carroll Gardens perennial mail-order catalogue Carroll Gardens 444 East Main Street, Westminster, Carroll County Maryland 21157 Labels and keywords: plants, horticulture, perennials, mail-order catalogue, Carroll Gardens was once an important part of the history of the business of agriculture in Carroll County December 31, 2014 by Kevin E. Dayhoff http://kevindayhoffwestgov-net.blogspot.com/2015/01/carroll-gardens-was-once-important-part.html I recently came across a box of old plant catalogues, invoices and papers from the years I made a living as a nursery stock farmer, 1974 to 1999. I raised perennials, shrubs and trees. To further make ends meet, I also did landscape design and contracting and property management. It kept me very busy for 25 years. I’ve now been retired from farming for over fifteen years and I still miss it. I worked for Pasquale Donofrio at Carroll Gardens in the late 1960s. I loved working there. I also enjoyed working with Alan Summers beginning in 1984, when he purchased the business. It was great to take my landscape design customers there to pick out plants. Mr. Summers was a wealth of knowledge and worked tirelessly to make Carroll Gardens weather the changes in the market and the economy. The plant mail-order business that Carroll Gardens did so well, was a natural outgrowth of the mercantilist economy that made Carroll County Maryland an agricultural and economic powerhouse for over a hundred years after the American Civil War in the early 1860s. The unfinished goods were brought to Westminster and Carroll County and exchanged for finished goods. This resulted in accumulated capital that was leveraged into public infrastructure, factories plant and equipment, manufacturing, agri-business and a great quality of life for Carroll County citizens. The mail-order plant business was a great economic model that we see today repeated in the internet – on an even more global scale. Carroll Gardens did it well. I retired as a nursery stock farmer– perennial grower in 1994. Changes in the business compressed profit margins and the increases in doing business and difficulties in the regulatory climate, especially in Maryland, simply made it too difficult to continue. Or at least, I was certainly not smart enough to adapt. Carroll Gardens was once an important part of the history of the business of agriculture in Carroll County - that will no doubt fade into history and it makes me sad...
