March 4 , 2021
Changing How We Grow: Barton Springs Nursery
“ When we get home , we ’re die to get dirty!”Just twenty-four hour period after the smashing freeze of 2021 , I overheard this enthusiastic announcement when a little girl handed tidy sum of colorful pansies to her mum . I ’d dropped byBarton Springs Nurseryto grab some telecasting for a conversation I ’d record with Bernardine and Conrad Bering a few week ago . The protective row cover had been roll back on this spring - like day . Bernardine and Conrad have cultivated a lot of nurseryman since they opened Barton Springs Nursery ( BSN ) in 1986 with the motto “ turn plant for Travis County in Travis County . ”I’m one of them ! It ’s where I bought my first mountain laurel and first rock rise ( Pavonia lasiopetala ) back when find native plants was as hard as nailing a COVID vaccinum these days!As a nurseryman , I headed in new philosophical steering thanks to them , and so has CTG . Since Conrad prefers to be behind the plant , rather than a photographic camera ( my preference , too ) , we ’ve hooked up with theirknowledgeable team for always insightful CTG segments .
SO , it was a veridical dainty to join both Bernardine and Conrad behind the webcam beforeSnowvid 2021 blanketed us with snowand impart uswith freezing - dried plants . When I asked Conrad about one of their bragging glasshouse traumas , it was 1989 when low gear dipped to 4 ° and roads were close due to meth for days . “ We were in our family in Clarksville and so I walked to the nursery . . . I was just acquire suitcase of mulch and putting them around plant . And that was really stressful intellection we ’re going out of business . ” he said .
Red yucca were immobilize self-coloured . But when they unthaw out , there was n’t a mark on them ! ( So you ’re good to go with yours this twelvemonth , including late cultivarHesperaloe parviflora‘Brakelights’).In 1986 , they started BSN on Sterzing Street , just off Barton Springs Road near Chuy’s . Rather than trying to pull plants outside their stove to shape in our territory and weather , they promoted pick for succeeder through drouth , temperature swings , and deer . Conrad began propagating water system resourceful plant like native Turk ’s cap that hold out just about anything . They also committed to growing for wildlife . The Sterzing location came with a worrisome month - to - month letting , so Bernardine landed a Small Business Administration loan to bribe the Bee Caves Road location in 1991 . place to Griffin ’s Western Wear in the 70s and a former riding stable , it take lots of workplace to change by reversal it into a garden nerve center venue . Thanks to Bernardine and Conrad for all their historic pictures !
Conrad ’s former life in the building and remodeling manufacture come in ready to hand . He ’d cast aside that after catch how land was raze of valuable plants . “ I do n’t need this to be my bequest , just destruct nature . I started watch the whole miracle of plants growing and it was a lot of play , ” he said . His brother - in - law Michael Shoup , founder of theAntique Rose Emporium , was collecting aboriginal plants(along with heirloom roses)and remark that Austin was enthusiastic about them . With Michael ’s mentorship and Bernardine ’s farsightedness , creativity , management , and organisational skills , the Berings opened the new locating to great enthusiasm . “Before we were able to open , customers had heard we had moved over there and that we had really extend out of money . I was down to care two people that would say ‘ Pay me when you’re able to , ’ but client came in and it was just so encouraging , ” Conrad recollect .
Bernadine added , “ Conrad would be over there run , and we ’d have some of our customers make out over and say ‘ I need to give you money . What can I buy?’”Their daughter grew up at the glasshouse , play alongside their do work parent , and eventually work out at BSN.Always bringing fun to work with them , too , Bernardine unionise events that push their educational mission . “But Conrad also likes to grow . In fact , I think if there ’s a part of the baby’s room that he enjoy best , it ’s the ontogenesis and that ’s been true from the beginning . He go out into the Mrs. Henry Wood and collects seminal fluid and occupy cuttings and brings them back , ” Bernardine said . For many year , Nick Ulrich and Hermilio Mundo Cabrera joined Conrad in propagating every possible plant life they could . Now , Hermilio ’s girl has joined the flora creation team . From turn edibles to houseplants , Bernardine noted , “ There ’s just a awe for the earth that nurseryman have . ”In 2020 , Bernardine and Conrad decided to sell the nursery to William ( Willy ) Glenn , greenhouse manager for six class , and a client on CTG many time ! Conrad know how teamwork is behind any business success , so Amy Hovis , owner ofEden Garden Design , and Greg Thomas joined Willy as carbon monoxide - owner . Already , Amy ’s conception power was on web site , so it ’s a very organic step!Right off the bat , February threw the new owners a whopper of a freeze . Thanks to the long - full term dedicated and hardworking team at their sides , they muster up this curve ball , yet another in a pandemic yr . Conrad ’s not lie on his plant laurel , though . For 17 years , he and his team propagate industrial plant in east Austin at Barton Springs Wholesale . Now , they ’ve constitute their 18 - 1/2 acresBering agriculturalist @973 Farm , where Conrad ’s work just as hard as ever , though Bernardine claims that he ’s really “ never work a daytime in his life!”“I can get dirty and go out there and stay around and wear myself out and it ’s a attack , ” he pronounce .
Andrea DeLong - Amaya , Director of Horticulture , Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower CenterConrad and Bernardine were very supportive of us building our noesis base , their onsite generation and focus on sell native plants drew me to their nursery In particular . I learned various generation technique which allowed us to go different thing that wholesalers were n’t offering including many aboriginal species we collected . I even learned how to apply a nail gun when they were remodeling the old house that is now their garden workshop ! I think back being so impressed with Conrad ’s power to identify leafless tree diagram in winter . I desire to turn everything he knew . I want to learn everything he knew about plants . I in truth value the education I produce from working with the Berings at BSN . They really launched my horticultural calling . And reminiscing has been a good admonisher of how fundamentally influential that experience was for me .
Colleen Belk , former BSN manager for 17 yearsWorking at BSN was one of the most important parts of my living . Bernadine ( 8 months pregnant ) interviewed me on the stairs . Conrad called that night and offered me the job and ask when I could start , and I said tomorrow , a leap day . From that item on I was the happiest person ever . I believed in what Conrad and Bernadine created . Bernadine learn me so much after I became handler . Conrad and I shared the enthusiasm of finding new plants to trade to client . He taught me all about multiplication and today I ’m busy doing my own in my greenhouse . Exact same set up . Linda I could go on and on . I just ca nt express the how much I lie with BSN and everyone ever involved with it . I always evidence Conrad that I will always operate for him . The most crucial employee that worked with me was Mae Sanchez . She made my job so much better . Ok that ’s enough I ’m getting sentimental .
From Mae Sanchez , BSN handler for years and now at Garden - VilleThey created an environs for lasting friendship to form . They give people chance to learn and launch their own careers . In the fleeceable industry . They showed that a husband and wife can scarper a successful business together and have no one in prison house for murder . And if you were passing favourable and uncoerced to jump in freeze water at 7:00 AM they taught you how to ski . I could n’t reckon my life without them .
Robert Leeper , landscape designerConrad and Bernardine gave me one of my first Book of Job in the Austin arena and was a great training to what really goes grows here in Austin . And more significantly , a passion for using aboriginal flora . They were at the forefront of a drift to embrace and advertize the use of regional native works . That other influence still go on in my landscape painting designs today beyond all the wonderful knowledge I have gained . I ’m so grateful to Conrad and Bernardine and all the mass there for build that community we belong to . I ’m just as glad to walk in there today as is on the first twenty-four hours on the caper . That says a lot about the business they have build .
Patrick Kirwin , landscape painting designerConrad and Bernadine democratized gardening by allow everyone to be able-bodied to buy plants of all sizing So if you could not get a 5 - gallon plant you could render a 4 ” container . Or even bribe something little to try , whether it was native or nonnative . They were also very good about new plants and producing them .
Charlotte Boyle , recollective - term part fourth dimension team memberIn the early daytime as the business was growing Bernardine told me they did not require to get too big and lose the power to provide the best customer service . And you have that . I finger BSN present the musical theme of xeriscape to regular gardener with Conrad ’s priority on native and well adapted plants . I remember one season , many years ago , he develop with child Book of Numbers of four - nerve daisy , and that was before it was wide useable . Conrad and Bernadine have done an amazing job of bulge out and growing up wonderful business . And I ’m happy to have been a part of it . They now are my respectable friends .
Please send me your store to llehmusvirta@klru.org and I ’ll append them here !
There ’s lots more to their story , so look on now !
Thanks for terminate by ! Linda
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