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Eight free gardening workshops to be held at Bayshore Garden Center

5 min read
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Andrea Galabinski Bayshore Garden Center team members Cinda Layton, Ken Ellam and Jan Johnson. Not pictured are Joe Scott and Gary Kruger.
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Andrea Galabinski A kitty named Kitty likes to lounge around in front of center's gazebo.

Local residents can learn how to “Go Native,” start a butterfly garden or “Fill Your Yard With Fruit” at one of the eight free gardening workshops now planned for Bayshore Garden Center.

Owners Jan Johnson and Joe Scott, along with their staff, are looking forward to the weekly workshops, to be held every Saturday from July 11 to Aug. 29, all from 9 to 10:30 a.m.

The popular center carries thousands of plants in hundreds of different varieties, and is known for friendly and knowledgeable service. Many locals say they pass the chain stores and some go out of their way to go there. “We even have a lot of customers from Cape Coral,” said Johnson.

She said she was inspired to do the classes after attending workshops at the local Educational Concerns for Hunger Organization’s North Fort Myers-based Global Farm. Her team has come up with a variety of Florida-friendly gardening topics.

Johnson gave a brief description of each class. The list includes:

n Go Native/Florida Friendly Landscape, Saturday, July 11

“Our first class will be Florida Friendly Landscape – it’s less use of water and fertilizer. Florida Friendly is planting plants that will sustain themselves through our changing environments,” she said.

n Butterfly Gardens, Sat., July 18

“That’s specifically nectar food source and larval food source plants,” she said.

n Fill Your Yard With Fruit Trees, Saturday, July 25

“The purpose of this is being able to walk out and pick something off your tree and eat it – year-round,” she said.

n Lower Your Electric Bill With Shade, Saturday, Aug. 1

“This is very timely because we’re in the heat of the summer and Mother Nature is helping you out with the rainy season to get your trees started,” she said.

n Do It Yourself Terracing – Your Canal or Waterfront Home, Saturday, Aug. 8

“The main reason to terrace your waterfront home is to reduce the excessive fertilizer run-off into our canals, which leads to our river and at the end to our estuaries,” she said.

n Correct Fertilizer, Saturday, Aug. 15

The new fertilizer laws made Johnson want to add this topic.

“Lee County has passed the ordinance of no fertilizer containing nitrogen or phosphorus from June 1 to Sept. 30, our natural rainy season,” she said. “This will be a class on alternatives for fertilizing your lawn and landscaping through these months. It’s very important, again the main result is saving our estuaries.”

n Birds in the Garden, Saturday, Aug. 22

“Along with the snowbirds coming back down, we will be getting our migrating birds like buntings, gold finches, warblers and hummingbirds,” she said. “Planting the correct plants and flowers will be topics and different types of feeders and water. They’ve got to have water.”

n Preparing your SWFL Vegetable Garden, Saturday, Aug. 29

“Our gardening time here is literally October through April, so the end of August is when you want to prepare the ground, prepare your area for your vegetable garden,” she said.

If you have any questions, visit bayshoregardencenter.com or call the center.

Johnson also talked about her background, team and partner Joe Scott.

“We’ve owned the business since 2000,” she said. “The garden center itself had been here 23 years at that time. I used to sell to them when I was at a wholesale nursery. I was a grower.”

She said she learned that owners Art and Joy Kaiser wanted to retire and move to Tennessee.

“Now they are happy as clams,” Johnson said. “They were wonderful.”

She said she’s always loved gardening and plants, something she inherited from her family.

“I came by it naturally through my grandmother and Aunt Dolly,” she said. “My grandmother had a small orange grove and was an orchid grower. Hart Road is just west of us, and that was my Aunt Dolly and Uncle Roger Hart. I used to catch the bus right there. I grew up here.”

She said she didn’t plan on being a business owner.

“It was kind of funny. I was working at Home Depot in the gardening department, I thought I’d be a lifer,” she said. “My partner, Joe Scott, had a very successful bait and tackle shop in Orlando and sold out and then took a year off to decide what to do next. He was also working at Home Depot in the tool department when we met. We got talking at the trash compactor and that’s how it started. Bayshore Garden Center had been for sale for years, we just decided to buy it.”

She’s very happy with that fateful decision.

She and Scott became business partners and then became partner-partners in life.

“We got married three years ago,” she said. “July 4 is our anniversary. It was only day we were closed.”

Both work there full-time.

“It’s always been so interesting to me, it’s always changing,” she said. “It had been a hobby but now there are new challenges, there are so many ways you can go with gardening and it keeps me close to nature.”

She talked about her important staff members.

“Customers can talk to any one of our qualified staff,” she said. “Ken Ellam, who came to us from Scrivners Garden Center, is very knowledgeable. Cinda Layton has also been in the nursery business all her working career. She’s very knowledagble and friendly.”

She also noted Gary Kruger as an important part of the team.

And then there’s Radar, her Welsh Corgi, who greets all the customers. “Some people just stop by to see him,” she said.

Bayshore Garden Center is located three miles west of I-75 or one-mile east of Business 41, at 5870 Bayshore Road. The number is 543-1443.