The Tekoa Chamber of Commerce is proud of its businesses. Farms, industrial, brick and mortar, home-based, service-oriented, organizations … we’ve got it all. To celebrate our hard working businesses, we will be visiting with several of them each month. This week, we got to look into the life of two of Tekoa’s true treasures, Seeds, Inc. and Plants of the Wild.
Seeds, Inc. is a processor of Kentucky Bluegrass and contracts with farmers in the area to grow and harvest bluegrass seed. The seed is then cleaned and processed and sold all over the world. Plants of the Wild is a nursery that specializes in plants native to the Inland Northwest to be planted on restoration and landscape projects throughout the Pacific Northwest. Both businesses are primarily wholesale, but they do provide retail sales through their website. The businesses are owned by a local farm family, Paul, Jane and Ross Dashiell.
Q. What is a favorite recent project?
A.We love working on local projects so we can see our baby plants and seed grow up to be “adults”. We work on many large projects throughout the Pacific Northwest, but when we have a local one, it is fun to watch it evolve. Next week we will be supplying 3600 plants for a restoration project on the new Bigelow Gulch road construction project in Spokane. We are excited to see our plants heal the scars of a road construction project.
Q. How has the Pandemic affected your business?
A. Seeds, Inc. and Plants of the Wild were fortunate during this crazy year with the covid pandemic. We are an agriculture business and were deemed essential, so our employees had less of an impact than others in the community. The turf grass seed industry has been hit pretty hard with the slow-down of construction, sports fields, etc. This has had an impact on the seed company sales. Our nursery and retail seed sales are usually open to the public for walk-in service, but because of the pandemic we have shut down our walk-in sales. We are offering delivery or curbside pickup and customers can place orders online at www.shop.plantsofthewild.com or call our office at (509) 284-2848.
Q. Even though it’s been a tough year, what has been a highlight?
A. We have actually seen a large increase in online orders since the shut downs occurred in March. Customers are doing more home landscape projects and improvements while staying at home, and they have time to do some online shopping for those projects. We are very grateful for this increase in business and gain of new customers.
Q. What encouragement do you have for businesses during this time?
A. There is always a way to put a positive spin on a difficult time. Sometimes this is challenging, but it can always be done. During times like this it is important to look at the good around us. We have all slowed down a bit … had a bit more family time (sometimes maybe too much😊) and had time to appreciate what we had before all of the changes that have occurred this year. Don’t be afraid to think out of the box and look for alternatives to the usual way of doing business. Appreciate what you have and look forward to the positive that will come from all of this craziness.
