Longtime East Troy greenhouse carved out a niche selling plants
By Tracy Ouellette
Editor
Next year, many area gardeners are going to have to find a new greenhouse to supply them with their plants. Gerry Urbaniak, owner of Gerry’s Geenhouse in East Troy, is closing up shop at the end of the growing season and won’t be reopening in 2016.
Urbaniak, who is 73, has been providing bedding plants for the community since 1982 and said it’s time to wrap things up.
“I need to listen to what my body is telling me,” she said.
But the decision wasn’t an easy one because she will miss the customers she’s come to know so well over the decades.
“You get to know the people who come back, you hear their hardships when they come in to buy flowers,” Urbaniak said.
And she’s had the chance to help bring them joy.
“When they pick their flowers out they’re so happy,” she said. “It picks up their spirit.”
Urbaniak said it all started more than 40 years ago when she wanted to save some money on the bedding plants she was buying for her own use.
“My mother-in-law and I would spend so much money on flowers,” she said with a laugh. “When I started going to greenhouses and looking around at what they had I came home and told my husband, Mel, ‘I think I can do this.’
“So he built me a little lean-to.”
That was 1976 and Urbaniak said it just took off from there.
“At first it was just for family and friends, but then it grew and I had so much stuff and another greenhouse and I was going out to the 7 Mile Fair and selling.”
By 1982, she stopped hauling her wares to the fair and was selling out of the business she created on Highway N in East Troy.
Urbaniak said she never felt threatened by the garden centers at the big box stores and didn’t think they affected her bottom line.
“I figure there’s plenty for everybody,” she said. “It comes down to quality vs. price and I think my prices are in the ballpark, but I don’t really compare.”
Gerry and Mel Urbaniak also own the Palmyra True Value, which their daughter Chris runs for them, and they have a stand at the hardware store for the plants.
“She takes fresh flowers out there every day,” Urbaniak said.
She said she couldn’t have done it without the help of her husband, who maintains the greenhouses and equipment for her, and longtime employee Cheryl Mysliwski.
“I couldn’t do it without Cheryl,” she said. “She does all the heavy lifting, organizing and planning.”
Mysliwski has worked at the greenhouse for 12 seasons, but “I shopped here for 10 years before that,” she said.
Urbaniak said Mysliwski has kept track of what they do from year to year and she relied heavily on her when it came time to set things up each year and what to plant. Mysliwski also makes all the decorative pots and baskets for the greenhouse and handles promotion for the business.
“She takes care of all of it,” Gerry said.
While many of the plants at the green house are purchased transplants, Urbaniak starts many of her plants from seedlings and had a special touch when it comes to growing geraniums, Mysliwski said.
“It’s where she shines,” she said.
Urbaniak said the geraniums were her “babies” and she doesn’t let anyone else touch them.
“It’s a full-time job,” she said. “It’s what I do all day long when I’m not helping customers. I straighten them, pick off the dead blooms and make them look nice.”
Urbaniak said she will continue to grow flowers for herself and is keeping one of the smaller greenhouses, but will liquidate the rest of her equipment.
“I can’t stand to go into another greenhouse,” she said.
She also said that she didn’t consider selling the business “because then I would have to leave town.”
She said she’s looking forward to retirement, but acknowledged it would be a big change for her. “But it will be for the good.”
Gerry’s Greenhouse is at N7947 Highway N in East Troy. The greenhouse is open daily from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. until the end of the growing season. For more information, call (262) 642-5946.
