A Morning on The Farm

The Flower Bin is all about buying local, whether it is supplies or products.  Around the year 2000, The Flower Bin and Garden Center brought buying local to a whole new level....we decided to buy a farm and started growing all of our own plants!
This morning, a new employee at the store headed out to our Growing Range in Platteville  for a tour, and we thought maybe you would want to take a peek at our facility as well!  So take a look out our 20 acre Growing Range that grows most of the goodies that you will be taking home this spring!

To start on our little tour of The Growing Range, here are some of the people that make it all happen!  From left to right: Darren the Growing Range Manager, Ann the Perennials Manager and Miguel a Grower.

 The picture on the left shows several of ten different hoop houses and the main growing house.  The picture on the right shows one of the perennial areas.  The poles shown in this picture are used to hold up shade cloth and are a new addition to our ever growing farm.

Here, these two employees are running the soil machine.  This machine assists in filling all of our empty pots with quality potting soil. This is the same potting soil you can buy in our store.

Several more employees carefully plant young seedlings.  They are currently getting both annuals and perennials potted up for the growing season.  We get these plants in many stages; some we grow from seed, some from small plugs and some are propagated.

On the left we are showing off our new concrete sidewalk that goes between the greenhouses.  You can also see the road is well graveled, as it was recently upgraded and reworked.  We are constantly trying to develop and improve our Growing Range. The middle picture shows the tractor parked by some of our overwintering perennials.  The right shows you our shipment of pots waiting to be filled with plants of all kinds.

We all know you can't have a proper farm without some animals hanging around!

On the left are our neighbor's miniature horses that get to enjoy a view of our ever changing greenhouses.  Below, the resident pup Roxy decides whatever is under the shelf, is much more interesting then getting her picture taken.

So there you have it, a quick tour of The Growing Range!  We love bringing you local products that we grow ourselves!  We are constantly expanding and changing things around at The Growing Range to bring you even more selection and variety.

Thanks!

Fairy Gardens

Unique fairy gardens are popping up all over The Flower Bin Garden Center and Nursery, as Corinna, Jeanette and Megan design these niche container gardens!  You can come in and pick out a fairy garden one of these talented women made or you can pick from our ample supplies and make one yourself!

Here, on the left, is a bird bath fairy garden that Corinna created.  It features a gorgeous pink flowering maple, vibrant coleus and sedum.  Of course, like any good garden there is a gnome welcoming you.

Megan is in the process of planting up a fairy garden

Now that you have a taste of what they look like, take a peak at some of the supplies we have to offer to make your own!

We have an entire kiosk full of items to personalize your fairy garden.  There are of course fairies, miniature garden tools and watering cans, animal figurines, miniature picnic tables and Adirondack chairs, and small arbors just to name a few things. In addition to this we will soon be getting in a whole bunch of new fairy garden supplies that we have never before carried!  We are pretty excited for that as well.

We carry a lot of accents you can use for your fairy garden.  We carry numerous types of gravel, rock, glass stones, polished stones and sand.  We also carry both live and artificial moss that creates a perfect fairy garden setting.

One exciting type of moss we carry, is a bag full of live moss!  It includes three different types of moss: sheet moss, cushion moss and broom moss.  Take it out of the bag, place it on soil, water it and it will green up in no time!  It is gorgeous for fairy gardens or for moss gardens.

Megan showing off a small chunk of the Live Moss before
it has been watered.

The Live Moss plants we carry

So come in today and check out what we have to offer for making a unique fairy garden!  Our staff would be happy to give you tips and advice on the best way to create and maintain a great fairy garden.