For Cindy McFadden of Joliet, shopping at Siegel’s Cottonwood Farm garden center in Crest Hill is as easy as pie.

That’s because McFadden said she discovered the garden center after her brother-in-law served an “awesome” caramel apple walnut pie one holiday, which he’d bought from Siegel’s Cottonwood Farm on Weber Road.

So when McFadden went to Siegel’s to buy more pie, she discovered Nana’s Flower & Garden Center, where the flowers were “so bright, so vibrant,” she said.

“I went in for the pie and came out with a car full of flowers,” McFadden said.

Siegel’s Cottonwood Farm recently closed its garden center after 35 years, and Nancy Kuhajda, Illinois Extension horticulture educator serving Grundy, Kankakee, and Will counties, is sad to see it close.

Kihajda said Siegel’s garden center carried more unusual plants not typically found locally, such as scented geraniums, more than 20 varieties.

“Some smelled like roses, some smelled like cloves and some even smelled like Old Spice aftershave. And some smelled like lemons,” Kuhajda said.

“Mabel Grey has an intense lemon scent, and I got that plant from them. When I took off some of the leaves and crinkled them in front of the vacuum, the whole house smelled like lemon,” she said.

Kuhajda said Siegel’s also carried black cherry and pineapple tomatoes as well as the garden peach tomato that “actually grows with a little fuzz on its skin.”

Siegel’s garden center also sold a “well-priced selection of less common perennials,” Kuhajda said.

“People would go there for their events and pies and not realize they had plants,” Kuhajda said. “And some of those were plants you’ll have to go really far to find now, like the north suburbs.”

Kaity Siegel, manager of the fourth-generation farm, said the decision wasn’t quick or easy.

“We’d talked about it for a few years – ‘Oh, we probably won’t do it’ - and then we did. ‘OK then next year we won’t open’ – and then we did," Siegel said.

Siegel said the garden center was “the baby” of her mother Susan Siegel, and that Susan Siegel wanted to spend more time with her grandchildren. Unfortunately, no one else shares Susan Siegel’s expertise, Kaity Siegel said.

“We love our customers. It was a really hard decision,” Siegel said, adding that their customers were the “heart and soul” of the garden center.

“But the world has really changed since it opened,” Siegel said.

Kuhajda said people often don’t realize how “difficult and labor-intensive it is to keep plants going when you’re selling them” as plants can dry out very quickly.

“If you don’t keep them well-hydrated and pick off the dead flowers, they won’t be as saleable,” Kuhajda said. “Once you get a living thing, you can’t take a day off. It’s an everyday assignment.”

Competition has also intensified since Siegel’s opened the garden center.

“It’s hard for small family businesses to keep afloat when a big box store is across the street from you,” Siegel said.

Kuhajda said people sometimes prefer buying plants at large retail stores because the plants are already mature and potted. Then again, not everyone is aware of small business options for their plants and flowers, she added.

“This might make people realize that when you make that little investigation locally, you’ll see what you have in your own backyard,” Kuhajda said.

Once McFadden found the garden center, she returned each year for her flowers, even as Siegel’s flowers cost more than their counterparts at superstores.

But Siegel’s flowers “looked so healthy” and “just flourished when I had them in my yard,” McFadden said.

“And I got so many compliments on them,” she said.

Still, small businesses typically can’t keep up with large businesses in terms of advertising budgets, full marketing teams and large volume pricing, Kuhajda said.

“When you’re the one watering the plants and deciding the prices, do you really have the time and the skills to get out there and do the marketing, too?” she said.

However, small businesses often can and do cater to customer preferences.

“Customers have a different feeling when they walk into your business,” Siegel said. “How they’re treated – it’s a different experience.”

McFadden said her brother-in-law passed away in January and now Siegel’s has closed its garden center. So McFadden won’t be picking up pie or flowers, a double loss, she said.

“I’m devastated,” she said. “I know things change. And I know I’ll be going back there. A girlfriend I know loves their pumpkin rolls – and she doesn’t like anyone else’s. So I have to go there for her. But it won’t be the same.”

Although Nana’s Flower & Garden Center is closed, the flowers aren’t completely gone.

“She is still getting all the plants she can because she still wants to have flowers at the farm,” Siegel said. “She wants to make sure the farm looks as beautiful as possible.”