BY J.J. HARRIER
Frontiersman
 J.J. HARRIER/ Frontiersman Alpine Garden Nursery owner Jaime Rodriguez labels his seeded plants outside his garden in Palmer. |
Starting a simple rock garden is work enough, but cultivating a gardening business takes a thumb a different shade of green.
It's the first year for Alpine Garden Nursery in Palmer, located off of Hyer Road, and work is definitely a four letter word.
Rodriguez, along with his self-described “gardeners in crime” Karen Covey and Beth Amberg, have quickly established the premium garden of rock and perennials in the Mat-Su Valley.
Rodriguez moved to Palmer in 1994 from Anchorage after answering an ad in the paper that read, “Room and board in exchange for light housekeeping and errands.”
What he didn't know was that he would end up caring for a 76-year-old stroke victim who was immobile and suffering from neglect at the hands of her previous caretaker.
“It was a 24/7 job,” Rodriguez said. “I had become a certified nurse at the time and had thought about home health care, so here was my chance.”
Working with “Tinker,” as the elderly woman was nicknamed, was fulfilling for Rodriguez, but friends began noticing he was tiring.
“A friend of mine suggested I volunteer at the Palmer Visitor's Center gardens to get some relief,” he said. “And so I did. Things started happening for me then.”
Rodriguez began working more and more hours at the visitor's center after Tinker went to live in a nursing home. Before he knew it, he was a full-time gardener.
“I would do the gardening in the summer and home health care in the winter, which is how I more or less made my living.”
Rodriguez worked diligently at the Palmer Visitor's Center, eventually selling his own plant creations at garden club events. After developing a trusted client base and selling enough plants to actually make a profit, Rodriguez realized he could start his own business.
“I had no idea that if you sell over $500 of crop plants that you qualify as a farmer here,” he laughed. “So I am officially a farmer, I guess.”
Rodriguez said he's always had it in his mind that he was going to open his own nursery, a thought he'd been entertaining since he was 11 years old.
He had helped out at a Minnesota bonsai tree shop when he was 15, learning the basics of seasonal plants and how they grow. In the Valley, he joined local gardening clubs: The Alaska Botanic Garden, The Alaska Rock Garden Society, The North American Rock Garden Society, The Valley Garden Club, The Willow Garden Club and The Alaska Wildflower Society.
Rodriguez also has an encyclopedic memory for the Latin names of plants.
Taking this knowledge and experience, he began round-tabling ideas with Karen Covey, his gardening partner at the visitor's center. Once the idea was presented, Covey jumped on board with both feet. Her son built a modest but effective greenhouse outside Rodriguez's home with scrap lumber and plant production was soon underway.
The garden that was eventually created is full of perennials, rock garden plants, seasonal flowers of all colors and exotic richness.
Alpine Garden Nursery also has a large variety of specialty plants, featuring Alaska native and water plants.
Rodriguez saw a need for his specialty plants after several nurseries began closing around the Valley.
“There's a large, open niche in the nursery industry,” Rodriguez said. “Most of the stock we have are grown from seed and not shipped up to Alaska in plant form. That makes a huge difference.”
Rodriguez pointed out that many of his plants can be grown well into September and some while the snow is beginning to fall.
His liguria stenocephala, or yellow rockets, blossom along the greenhouse walls outside his home. Mixed in with them are rows of paeonia veitchii, a delightful herbaceous border peony with slightly nodding magenta pink blooms. There are pink livingston daisies, a hot and dry preferred plant, next to yellow gazanias.
Then there are the irises - sibirica, blue flags, yellow flags and dwarf bearded - creating a rainbow of living beauty.
“Everything doesn't have to be uniformed when it comes to growing your own plants,” Rodriguez said.
Alpine Garden Nursery is also full of rock garden plants, which are typically tiny, stubborn, but long-lived, additions to a garden. There are 50 to 100 kinds growing at the garden that bloom in early April, right after a long winter underground.
“They inspire you early on,” Rodriguez said. “Karen's motto is ‘plant now for next year's glory.' That kind of says it, really.”
Business has been around the clock for Rodriguez and his staff as they prepare for the winter ahead and next year's glory.
Plans are being made for a hypertufa trough making class and the upcoming Alaska State Fair, where Rodriguez has been the superintendent for the cut flower exhibit since 1998.
With all the work he's been doing on his garden business and other perennial projects, Rodriguez doesn't seem to mind that he has little time to do other things for the summer. He gets to experience the joy of others' love for gardening and creating something beautiful.
“We have the plants with the wow factor,” he said. “When you go and establish these plants in your garden, people will run across the street yelling, ‘Wow, what is that?' We grow plants we feel should be in every Alaska Garden.”
For more information on the Alpine Garden Nursery and hours of operation, contact Jaime Rodriguez at 357-2747 or visit www.thealpinegardennursery.com.
Contact J.J. Harrier at 352-2269 or valleylife@frontiersman.com.
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