Eva Ward (left) and Sam Ward holding a large 5-dollar BerkShare
By Katy Sparks
The younger generation of Ward’s Nursery is certainly putting their own stamp on this venerable fixture of downtown Great Barrington. They believe strongly in community engagement through educational programs, cultivating a strong resources page on their website Wards Nursery Resources and being on site every day to interact with their customers.
KS: From your perspectives, what’s been going on with the early spring weather? Is it really colder this spring than in years past or does it just feel that way?
EW: I definitely think we all can have a short-term memory in terms of weather patterns. Sam and I have been an integral part of running this business for the past 7 years and weather has become a real focus of ours. To us, the weather pattern seems to be warmer for sure, but we are seeing some more extreme cold periods. And this past season we had a real New England winter!
SW: During the last few weeks people have wanted to buy and plant tomato plants, but we were holding back on their availability because the soil has been too cold for them. By contrast, last spring at this same time the tomato plants were ready to go in the ground. So, thinking about and anticipating the weather is a big part of our job as well as keeping an eye out for our customers. EW: Right. We put out signage to inform our customers which vegetable plants are “heat loving” to alert everyone when it might still bee a little iffy to plant them outdoors.
KS: It’s great that you are both so available on site to guide those of us who aren’t such seasoned gardeners! We’re sitting right now in the greenhouse or hoop house. Tell me about what’s in here and the plan for it in the coming months.
EW: The hoop house holds the annuals that we grew ourselves and are staging here until we have more room for them in our retail space. We start warming up the hoop houses in February for growing these plants and it’s basically empty by the end of June. Then we use the spaces for other things like educational classes, hands-on workshops and flower arranging and creating winter bird feeders. SW: We often bring in local professionals who work with Wards to share their knowledge and expertise. There’s an invasives-control class that we do in the spring, a class on pruning your fruit trees and works shops on seed and herb starting. We have every demographic represented in our classes. When school kids have projects involving plants, we love to be a resource for them. We’ve also had boy scouts volunteer with us and in return we donate plants for their projects, and they get credits they need.
KS: You mentioned that you’ve only been running the family business for about 7 years. What were each of you doing professionally before that?
EW: I studied business administration in school and was previously in the chocolate truffle wholesaling business in Vermont. I don’t have any formal horticultural training, but both of our fathers taught us a lot when we were growing up. When they were looking to retire in 2018/19 from operating the day to day business we were both interesting in coming back to this community.
SW: Before then, I was working for Wayfair in Boston when it grew from 900 to 18,000 employees so it was a very interesting time to witness that kind of growth. I worked in the operations department and managed inventories, fulfillment rates and production forecasting.
KS: Now that you’re back here applying your business acumen to the plant world what do you see as trends in this particular business?
EW: We see that native plants are the big thing which is fantastic. Planting native species has been trending for a while and we’re seeing it become more and more important to our customers, so we offer a really wide selection of native plants and create a lot of online resources on our website about what they need to thrive.
KS: Do you have any plans for expanding the Wards brand beyond this location?
EW: We don’t have plans for other retail locations, but we do have a wholesale location where we serve the needs of landscape contractors. This Great Barrington location fits our retail needs really well.
SW: We enjoy spending almost all our time on the grounds here from April through the fall. Being present on site is really valuable to us and to our customers.
KS: And tell me about your relationship with BerkShares?
EW: We love being a part of the local currency that stays here in the local business community. The owner of The Bistro Box comes to Wards to spend some of her BerkShares and we love that camaraderie. And every time we train a new cashier it is fun to introduce them to this uniquely local currency. We have BerkShares in every cash drawer so whatever line you get in, you can use them easily.
SW: Every customer that we are exchanging BerkShares with is advocating for our community. And we really appreciate that.
