A Little about Countryside and how it came to be
Countryside Nursery has been in business since 2006. We are still growing our business. We started out as a small vegetable and annual flower nursery, to make available to our friends and neighbors, plants at reasonable prices, and we will continue to do this, but we are now venturing into the propagation side of this business. This is where I have been putting my energy and am proud to say that I got into this business because of Mike McGroarty. Mike has been in the nursery business for many years and has graciously reached out to help others interested in starting their own backyard nursery. Mike shows you how to create a backyard nursery without a lot of acreage and you don't need to be an expert gardener. Mike has developed a Backyard Growers Board and anyone interested can join that board for a small fee. I am so very grateful to Mike and to all the other members of that board. They are always there when you have a question and everyone is so supportive of each other. I am proud to be member of Mike McGroarty's Backyard Nursery. It has provided me with the opportunity to dream big and know that I can retire one day and have something that will provide an income as long as I am willing to put a little work into it now. If you are interested in gardening and have been thinking about starting your own nursery please visit Mike's website at www.freeplants.com. You can't go wrong.
More about Countryside
We installed our misting system last spring (2008) and it worked beautifully. I do believe that the misting system does make a difference between a cutting actually rooting or not. I took cuttings from my Variegated Weigela, Black Knight Butterfly bush, Viburnum Cranberry Bush, Winston Churchill Aster, Crape Myrtle, Tango and Minuet Weigela and Euonymus Emerald n' Gold and the majority of them rooted and are now in the growing beds. We will have some nice plants for spring sales. We have Double Violet Hibiscus, Crape Myrtle, White Flowering Dogwood, Chinese Dogwood, and Japanese Red Maples to name a few and the new plants that we just got (see top of page for list).
Updated 5-21-09
New grandbaby is doing great. She is so beautiful. Ok, so I am bias. We have changed our minds about the greenhouse. I do want to put one back up and hope we can do it by the fall. We are very excited that summer has finally arrived in Michigan. It sounds like a beautiful Memorial Weekend in store for us as well. Plants are looking pretty good and I hope we see some of you this weekend.
About Us
We are just ordinary country folks. We have lived all our lives in the beautiful state of Michigan. We own 5 acres of land in the country and this is where our nursery is. We have 6 children (all grown) between us and 6 grandchildren. Don retired from General Motors in 2001 and did not look back once or regret that decision. Don has always had a green thumb when it came to our vegetable garden so I thought that a small nursery would give him something to do during the spring and summer and give me a goal to work toward for my retirement . My regular job is Education Coordinator for the state organization of Hospice. It is a very rewarding job, but my goal is to retire from this job and pursue the nursery business full time.
I have set a goal for myself to be able to do this in 5 years.
We hope you have enjoyed getting to know us a little and we encourage you to come back as I will be posting more photos of our propagation beds, plants, sharing ideas and listing more plants for sale as things begin to progress along.
Again, thank you for stopping in and I look forward to hearing from you if you have questions or suggestions on gardening or adding to this website. If you have a gardening website and you would like us to add your link to our website please feel free to contact us.
Thank you, Don & Natalie Brocieus
