Dalton, GA |
Nestled in the hills of Northwest Georgia, Fiddleheads Garden Center is more than just a business—it’s the result of a lifelong love for plants, first nurtured by a grandmother’s hands and now blossomed into a full-grown dream for owner Sam Brown.
“I started at the age of three with my grandmother planting in the yard,” recalls Brown. “I clearly remember planting marigolds. She cultivated that seed in me to have a joy of plants from an early age. I continually planted and experienced the soil and just various aspects of the landscape with her. That led to my joy of gardening.”
That early passion eventually led Brown into a career in landscape architecture. But in 2011, after losing his job due to the downturn in the economy, he took a leap of faith—and Fiddleheads Garden Center was born.
“We started small. The space we’re in now wasn’t part of the garden center at the time—it was a bicycle store,” Brown says. “We began growing a lot of annuals, perennials, shrubs, trees, pottery—then over time, we kept adding and expanding.”
In the beginning, most of the inventory was grown in-house. At the height of that phase, Brown and his team were growing over 100,000 plants for spring and another 30,000 for fall. But as retail demand increased, that growing space had to give way to sales floor expansion.
“As the business grew, we needed more space for retail,” Brown explains. “So the grow space kept getting reduced. Now, we do our best to bring in as many plants as we can from growers in Georgia. If not, we try to bring them in from the local Southeast. But our priority is Georgia growers, and that’s been important to us from the very beginning.”
Though the business has evolved, Brown says what has remained constant is his love for what he does—and the people he gets to share it with.
“No day is the same. Every day is different and always interesting,” he says. “When I was in the design field, a lot of days felt the same. But now, I get to be outside, I get variety. And beyond that, it’s definitely the people—whether it’s customers we connect and bond with or the growers we get to know. To be a part of that makes every day enjoyable.”
By: John Holcomb