Plant fascination

Throughout her 44-year greenhouse career, Carol Calloway has watched Fairview Greenhouses & Garden Center expand and evolve. Over time, she’s grown right along with the business.

“They had a little Quonset hut that was full of primula, and I thought that was just the most beautiful sight, like little Easter eggs,” she says. “I’ve been here ever since.”

Greenhouse career progression

Calloway’s first job at Fairview was transplanting marigold seedlings, back when the greenhouse was predominantly a wholesale operation. She spent several years working as general greenhouse labor before becoming assistant manager.

“We used to get on our hands and knees,” she says, “and hand-weed and hand-water everything.” Since then, Fairview has added automated irrigation tubes to the growing tables, but “we still do a tremendous amount of hand watering,” Calloway says.

As the city of Raleigh sprawled into the suburbs, becoming one of the fastest-growing cities in the U.S., Fairview expanded to keep up with the population boom. “Raleigh used to be a sleepy state government town, and the area has become a boomtown,” Calloway says. “This area that was basically farmland became upscale subdivisions, so in 1988, they decided to build a small garden center.”

By the late ’90s, Fairview had shifted almost entirely from wholesale to retail, and by 2004, the family built a brand-new retail garden center to accommodate more customers. Around that time, Calloway became growing greenhouse manager, overseeing all the growing.

Passing the torch

Today, Calloway oversees about 62,000 square feet of greenhouse production space where she grows ornamental crops like geraniums, pansies, petunias and poinsettias.

“We grow well over 500 cultivars,” including 99 varieties of pansies, Calloway says. “We like a lot of variety.”

Calloway is responsible for ordering plant cuttings and plugs as well as pots, soil, chemicals and other supplies. She also manages wholesale orders of poinsettias and Easter lilies for local churches, fundraisers and plantscapers. “Most of our poinsettia customers, we’ve had for years and years,” she says. “I feel like they’re my friends, but I’ve never even seen them.”

Every week during the spring, Calloway creates planting lists to help her team of 10 employees stay on track with the growing schedule. Recently, she documented her job duties day-to-day and month-to-month to help prepare her replacements, assistant growers Chance Smith and Carmen Hernandez, who are training to take over various aspects of her job when she retires.

“I want to not only teach them, but [learn not] to dismiss the things they say. I have to think, the way they’re going to do it might be the right way,” she says. For example, Calloway typically uses high-lime soil for geraniums, begonias and impatiens, and low-lime soil for calibrachoas, petunias, and other plants that prefer lower pH. “I’ll show them how to do that, but they may decide to get regular soil,” she says. “That’s up to them. I think it’s good to have new voices.”

Leaving a plant legacy

Working in a retail greenhouse has been a blessing for Calloway because she gets to see customers’ faces light up when they walk into a lush production space in bloom — triggering the same reaction she had 44 years ago when she stepped inside.

“People really enjoy coming in here, and a lot of people are astounded that we actually grow our own material,” Calloway says. “Particularly during COVID, people would say, ‘Thank you for having this Garden of Eden.’ People like to be connected to the growing and get to see where it comes from. It amazes me how happy plants make people.”

Despite the hard work and hot summers she’s spent in the greenhouse throughout her career, Calloway is still fascinated by plants and the passion they spark in people.

“It’s not a job, but a lifestyle,” she says. “In the end, you will have participated in creating beauty and joy for people. It may not be the highest-paying profession in the world, but there is a lot of joy in it.”