Time to move on: Nichols Greenhouse closing after 41 years

DIXON – Just below a small hill in southwest Dixon sits a storefront-style sign at the top of Nichols Greenhouse, where a favorite local flower source has stood for more than 40 years. Soon, though, customers will have to find someplace else: Owners Terry and Bonnie are on the verge of retirement.

At the end of this month, Terry, 72, will put the finishing touches on a 41-year career in the flower business, a stint that has included being the official provider of Dixon’s signature pink petunias.

He has weathered changes within the industry, but one thing has remained the same: the clients.

“We appreciate our faithful and loyal customers,” Bonnie said as she sat at a table in the front section of the greenhouse, red poinsettias glowing in rows less than 20 feet behind her.

“They’ve helped to make us successful because they keep coming back. Those are the people that we’ll really, really miss.”

Even though they might see some customers only in the spring, they’re like family, she said.

After studying architectural drafting at a school in Rockford, Terry did graphic arts in the Navy for 4 years. He was 21 when he joined. After he separated from the military, he stayed in the Washington, D.C., area for a few years and worked in landscaping.

Through that work, he planted trees and laid all the sod at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, including ivy that at one point stretched across its roof, he said.

He bought the greenhouse at 1228 W. Fourth St. in 1973.

A local gift

Shortly after the assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan in 1981, Terry and some friends took white cascade petunias to the White House – by car – and were met by the president’s press secretary, who had agreed to take them, he said.

The flowers were planted along a pool on the White House grounds, and in the solarium, under the supervision of the head gardener.

“We wanted to take them out [from Dixon] and present them to him,” Terry said, although he and his friends didn’t get a chance to meet the president that time.

“He couldn’t come out. … The day that we got there was a Tuesday, and that was the first day that he came back to work after being shot.”

Terry and his crew also took over a Dixon Garden Club jacket with “Dutch” on it, and a big cowboy hat.

The next year, Terry and company did it again, but this time drove right up to the White House front doors and unloaded a set of petunias as security with dogs came to inspect each flower.

“They sniffed every one of them,” Terry said with a chuckle.

After the dogs got done, the group was escorted to another area on the grounds in the back, where ambassadors usually are met.

“We did get a glance of Reagan this time,” he said. The president didn’t come over to talk to them, but they saw him walking down a corridor outside the White House.

The third and fourth years they didn’t make the drive, and instead ordered petunias from a Washington-area greenhouse and had them sent to the White House.

Moving on

Nichols Greenhouse specializes in retail and wholesale arrangements, including grave warmers, which is a niche market in the Sauk Valley, Terry said.

Out-of-state customers with standing orders are getting letters to let them know the service won’t be available next year.

“We’re trying to get the word out,” Bonnie said.

Customers are finding out by word-of-mouth that the greenhouse won’t be open much longer. Although almost all are sad to see it close, customers are happy for the couple.

Selling the business has been an uphill battle because the few that show interest might not know anything about it, how it functions or how the plants grow, he said.

“To them it has to be pretty scary … not doing this before,” Terry said. “We have one person that wants to buy it so bad, and she’s got the money, but she doesn’t have the help to do it.”

Nichols Greenhouse has been on sale for 2 years, and Terry is down to $150,000 for everything, including the eight greenhouses in the back, he said.

If the greenhouse doesn’t sell, he’ll keep the business and the land, and maybe put them on the market later, he said.

The greenhouse also provides petunias for the city; those orders will still make it through for next year. But the number is down from the 20,000 to 30,000 petunias, at a cost of $14,000, the city used to buy, he said.

He and Bonnie are looking forward to retirement and plan to travel to Arizona, where they have family, and to the East Coast, which Terry hasn’t seen in a long time.

Digging into the family tree through genealogy will be his next task.

“You just have to move on,” Terry said.