Today we’d like to introduce you to Leah Grant
Leah, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
Grant’s Farm & Greenhouses started in 1978 when my parents bought the farm. They built it from the ground up into what it is today. In the early years they started with hogs and vegetable farming. My dad loved growing vegetables. When his supplier of vegetable plants became unreliable, he decided to start growing his own plants. Which turned into growing everything else customers wanted- Marigolds, Geraniums, etc. The demand for plants was great enough that they kept building greenhouses. As demand continued to grow, my parents bought another garden center ten minutes away from the farm. Then they started renting a store in a shopping center as well. At our busiest, we had three locations and we were a wholesale supplier to many garden centers around Cincinnati. Meanwhile my parents were also grain farming and growing vegetables to set up at multiple farmer’s markets.
I am the baby of the family and I went to Ohio University and studied accounting. While I grew up on the farm and was always somewhat involved, I never had a role for the farm. After college I worked for a big four accounting firm. I didn’t mind the job, the people I worked with were great, and working in audit I learned a lot about how businesses operate. However, it didn’t take long for me to realize I was not made for that type of work. I always knew my end goal was to take over Grant’s Farm. After a year and a half of working in accounting, I left and started working for my parents. It’s very different than an office job, but I knew exactly what I was getting into after watching my parents run the farm all my life. I am now going on year eight here at the farm, and I couldn’t be happier with my career choice.
Nowadays our greenhouse business has honed in on what we are best at and have “only” two locations: Grant’s Farm & Greenhouses and Grant’s Garden Center and focus solely on retail. We manage to stay busy year-round. We grow nearly all the plants that we sell, which we start growing in January and continue to plant through April, and then stay busy selling them in our garden centers throughout the spring and summer. In the fall we farm pumpkins and sell them in our stores along with the fall plants. In the winter we host a Christmas market with local vendors and sell Christmas trees while displaying our dad’s model train display. On the farming end, my brother operates the grain farm and has excelled in expanding the operation.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
If I make it to the end of each day and realize nothing went wrong, I catch myself thinking “that’s weird, what did I miss?” In any type of farming or horticulture environment, things are going wrong left and right. It’s just the nature of the business. You learn how to overcome, adapt, and find solutions quickly. Usually the problems are workable. Things like a greenhouse furnace going out in the middle of a cold night, equipment not starting, a lack of cash flow in the off season, or an employee not showing up to work are all things that happen now and again, but can be fixed. I try to keep a positive outlook on those fixable struggles because not everything can be fixed, like when my dad died in January 2024. He just turned 70 years old, had a heart attack, and didn’t even make it past the waiting area in the emergency room. In that moment I lost my dad, boss, and friend. While I had been responsible for most of the greenhouse operations for many years, my dad was still in charge of certain tasks. Things like electrical, plumbing, and working on the furnaces are things he oversaw that I had (and still have) no idea how to do. In the blink of an eye I became responsible for keeping 30 furnaces working all night throughout the winter months. Throughout this past year I’ve realized how important relationships are and having people you can trust to help you. While I would love to be able to do everything myself, it’s not realistic for the same person to know how to do every single thing that it requires to run a business from the accounting, social media, management, technology, legal, electrical, plumbing, etc. and do all those tasks well. I have a lot of people in my life who are here to help, and have been helping extra this past year, and I am eternally grateful for them. 2024 wasn’t an easy year, but we survived.
As you know, we’re big fans of Grant’s Greenhouses. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
Our business was built from the ground up, primarily on reputation. We haven’t done any traditional advertising in many years. Our main location is a farm on a one lane road in the middle of nowhere, and every spring our parking lot is lined with cars filling up their trunks. They come every year to shop through all of our greenhouses for annuals, perennials, and vegetable plants. I do not take having these loyal customers for granted. I am so thankful that they choose to come to our stores every year to buy their plants, and then tell their family, friends, and neighbors about us. We try to take care of our customers the best we can. Every year I order white Portulaca for my best friend’s mom. I already know when my second grade teacher walks through the doors she will be looking for Begonias and Mandevilla. When a customer asks for a specific variety of any annuals or vegetables, I will grow it for them if it’s possible. I love being a small enough business that I personally know so many of our customers, but big enough that we can grow most plants they want.
In recent years, we have started a wreath workshop part of the business. It started in 2019, when we had about 20 people come to make a Christmas wreath with us. As of last year we had around 600 people make a wreath between fall and Christmas. The workshops are truly a highlight of the year for me- I could not love hosting them any more. I am proud of how much people have enjoyed them, as evidenced by their return year after year and bringing their friends. This year we tested out a spring wreath workshop with dried flowers. It sold out in less than 24 hours and went so well, we are planning to start a cut flower part of the business to supply the workshop with dried flowers.
We also love the Christmas season. In 2024 we started a new Christmas tradition by selling our Christmas trees and doing our Christmas set up at our Grant’s Garden Center location for the first time. We have a lot of space at this location, so we added a whole Christmas market with local vendors. People who make everything from mittens, soap, bread, clothing, ornaments, and so much more were set up in our market. It was amazing to watch the community’s reaction and how excited customers were to shop. We always love to keep our store as local as possible, not because it’s trendy, but because the quality is the best. This is where we also set up our dad’s model train display for the community to enjoy. People have been viewing it every Christmas season for 40+ years.
We wouldn’t be able to sell the amount of plants we do, have our wreath workshops be so successful, or generate as much buzz about a new Christmas market without the brand that my parents established long ago. Our brand has always been our family and reputation. People know when they shop at our stores they are supporting a local hardworking farm family. They know if there is an issue that we will find solutions or be here to answer questions. I never realized how true this was until losing my dad last year. I constantly had customers telling me stories of things my dad did for them, how much they appreciated and respected him, and how much they miss him. I’m so lucky to have had parents who built this brand and this farm for me to continue. I look forward to being able to do this for the rest of my life, and am incredibly thankful I actually get to make a living doing what I love.
What sort of changes are you expecting over the next 5-10 years?
The horticulture industry went through a huge growth spurt it in 2020. The demand for plants skyrocketed as everyone was staying home. While not everyone who started gardening for the first time in 2020 continued to do so, a lot of them have. I think in the next 5-10 years we will continue to see new gardeners, especially with the easy access to garden information from content creators. It’s easier than ever to learn how to garden, and I think as the world becomes more reliant on technology people will have a craving to offset all of the time they spend online by getting their hands dirty and being in their gardens.
I also anticipate in person events to increase in attendance. With so much happening online, people just want to connect in person. I think that is one of the reasons our wreath workshops have done so well, and I think they will continue to see increased attendance. I am looking for even more ways to add in person events, as I think that will be a big trend in the upcoming years.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://grantsgreenhouses.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/grantsgreenhouses/
