The Plantsmen Nursery celebrates sweet 16

When Dan Segal attended Great Neck North High School on Long Island, New York, he played soccer and lacrosse and was interested in writing and his social life.

Developing a love for plants was definitely not on Segal’s radar, yet he is celebrating what he affectionately referred to as The Plantsmen Nursery’s “sweet 16 anniversary.”

Segal purchased Plantsmen in 2006 and has worked to “grow” it ever since.

Soon after his high school graduation, Segal moved to the Ithaca area with his parents, Sam and Alice, and his sister, Vicky, as Sam was employed by Cornell University.

Dan enrolled at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York, in 1986 to study English literature, thinking he would become a teacher.

“With my dad’s academic background, it just seemed normal to go to college,” Dan said. “And English seemed like a good fit for my interest. I had zero interest in horticulture then.”

Dan earned his bachelor’s degree from Hamilton but was “looking for something new,” so he followed some friends to California, where he landed a job doing landscaping at The Tahoe C Company the first night he hit town.

“I met a total stranger at a pizza shop,” Dan said. “And when I mentioned I was looking for work, he told me about the job. I showed up there the next morning and was hired on the spot.”

Dan loved the work instantly and worked there for two years before moving to Sonoma County on the California coast to escape the snow he thought he’d left behind in New York.

Over the course of the next few years, Dan worked at a flower farm and a golf course in the Redwood Forest before what he wanted to do with his life was clear — working with native plants.

“I started cold-calling native plant nurseries in the Sonoma area and got a job with North Coast Native Nursery,” Dan said. “I learned how to grow plants from seed, collect seed and do planting on job sites for environmental restorations.”

That was in 1993, and by 1995, Dan had met his wife, Sarah, and also decided to pursue his master’s degree.

Dan attended the University of California, Davis, to study biogeography, completed all his coursework and turned in his thesis, but when he was told he had to rewrite his thesis, he said he “didn’t want to,” so he never got his degree.

“It honestly didn’t matter to me,” Dan said. “I had already been offered a job as manager back at North Coast, so I did that for the next two years.”

In 1998, Dan and Sarah were married in the UC Davis arboretum, where Dan had worked during his graduate school days.

By 2000, Dan and Sarah knew their first son, Aaron, was soon to be born, so they began to give serious thought to where they wanted to raise their children. They concluded that they wanted to be somewhere near family and where Dan could find a job as a long-term manager of a native plant nursery.

Dan got busy cold calling once again, and it just so happened that Pinelands Nursery in Columbus, New Jersey, was in the market to hire its very first manager. Dan got the job.

“We moved in 2001 when Aaron was just 6 months old,” Dan said. “Pinelands was a nice, family-owned, professionally run nursery yet the biggest of its kind in the Northeast.”

Dan said his job was fun but also came with a lot of stress for the next five years he worked there.

“The stress just never went away,” Dan said. “We were serving big commercial projects and had to fulfill contracts on time. Sometimes, we had to have half a million plants ready on deadline.”

In 2003, their daughter, Sophia, was born, and their second son, Charlie, followed in 2005. It was then when they decided to raise their family in the country — and not in New Jersey!

“Oddly enough, I happened to interview a guy for a job at Pinelands who had The Plantsmen Nursery in Groton, New York, as his work experience,” Dan said. “He told me he thought it might be for sale, so I decided to call and ask.”

Ironically, Dan and Sarah had been talking about possibly owning their own nursery, but they never dreamed it could be possible.

“So, I called,” Dan said. “By fall of 2005, we had made a verbal agreement for me to buy it, and on May 26, 2006, I closed the deal.”

At first, Dan had been commuting on weekends from New Jersey and doing as much as he could, and even once they moved here, he was on his own for quite a while.

“Of course, the kids helped out as they grew,” Dan said. “And it was great getting them outside. Now, today, for the sweet 16 year, I have 16 employees, and one of them is my son, Charlie.”

Plants and employees are not the only things that have grown for Dan.

“The business has grown more than 10-fold revenue wise,” Dan said. “And three employees have been with me more than 10 years.”

Along with another landscaper, Dan founded and annually hosts the Ithaca Native Landscape Symposium, an accredited two-day event for landscape architects and nonprofessional plant enthusiasts.

Dan said there are usually 150 people from all over New York and Pennsylvania who attend and that it is one of three of the largest native plant symposiums in the Northeast.

“It started because we wanted to help people appreciate native plants and learn more about them locally,” Dan said. “And it’s been going for 14 years now.”

Dan only has January free for strategic planning in the winter. The rest of the year is filled with planting in the greenhouses beginning in mid-February, and they are busy with landscaping right up until mid-December.

“In the past two years, we grew two to three times more plants than ever before,” Dan said. “I still remember local people I talked to when I first started who said it might not work here. I am so grateful that people have welcomed and embraced it. Every day, I feel lucky and glad to have a stable business with loyal customers.”

The Plantsmen Nursery, 482 Peruville Rd., is open every day — 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sunday. The website is plantsmen.com.

Groton on the Inside appears every week in Tompkins Weekly. Submit story ideas to editorial@VizellaMedia.com or text or call Linda at (607) 227-4922.  

In brief: 
 
Vietnam Veterans Valor Tribute Ride 

The 14th Annual Vietnam Veterans Memorial Highway of Valor Tribute Ride will be held July 23.

This 100-mile, police-escorted ride along State Route 38 begins at 11 a.m. at Owego Free Academy on Sheldon Guile Boulevard in Owego, New York, and ends at the American Legion in Hannibal.

There are midway stops at the Groton American Legion Post 800 on Main Street for gas and food and to honor U.S. Marine Corps Medal of Honor recipient, 2nd Lt. Terrence (Terry) Graves at the Graves Memorial, and in Throop, New York, to honor U.S. Army Medal of Honor recipient, SP4 Robert F. Stryker.

Route 38 was given the distinct designation of “Highway of Valor” in 2009 by the government of New York state. The purpose of the ride is to draw attention to the highway that was named to honor both our fallen and living Vietnam veterans and to raise community awareness for those who willingly served our country during that particular conflict and all they endured in doing so.

All who would like to participate in the ride are welcome. It is free and open to the public for motorcycles, cars, trucks, planes and helicopters. Register between 8 and 10 a.m. the day of the ride. For additional information, contact Dan Baker, Chapter #17, the Blue Knights, at (607) 229-8153 or visit Cyberspokes.com.

Dog control reminder 

Dog control in the town and village of Groton is provided by Country Acres Pet Services, 5852 West Scott Rd., Homer. The shelter manager is Lindsay Andersen, with Assistant Manager Suzie Nalley.

Call (607) 749-2734 for lost pets, dog complaints, stray dogs, nuisance dogs, sick or injured strays or dangerous dogs. The emergency number is (607) 345-5115. Email info@countryacresanimalshelter.org for more information.

Country Acres is open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and 8 to 10 a.m. Saturday. Please consider adopting a pet from Country Acres.

Pool is open! 

The Groton Memorial Park Pool on Sykes Street is open for the season. Pool hours are noon to 1 p.m. for lap swim and 1 to 5 p.m. for open swim daily. For questions about the pool, call (607) 898-950.