Bonnie Plants intends on taking a small, brown plot of land in Silver Springs and turning it green.
The company that supplies plants to nurseries and big-box stores like Wal-Mart and Lowe's nationwide is building a new growing center on 40 acres of land near the Silver Springs Conservation Camp.
The 43,000 square feet of greenhouses will be able to supply 50 percent more product than the company currently sells in Northern Nevada, according to station manager Andrew Clinkenbeard.
Clinkenbeard explained the unique approach that the company takes. Instead of selling its potted flowers and vegetable plants to the stores, Bonnie Plants keeps ownership of the plants that you see in your local store until the customer buys it.
"We don't just dump product on a store and tell them it's theirs, they take care of it," Clinkenbeard said. "Nurseries have lost a lot of money on that kind of arrangement. We bring in a product that is of high quality, because you want that customer to have the highest quality product to take home."
For the last seven years that Bonnie Plants has served the Northern Nevada area, it has had to ship in plants from California and Idaho, meaning they spent up to three days in transit. But setting up a growing center in this area, it cuts that time down to less than one day, meaning the plants are healthier when they hit store shelves.
Clinkenbeard also said that the local growing center will allow them to grow plants more suited to this climate, and that the people here want to buy.
The effort to bring the growing station here has taken two years, Clinkenbeard said. At first, they thought they found the perfect property near Wabuska, south of Silver Springs.
"That would have been an excellent, excellent location, because with the geothermal you can do things like heat greenhouses and do stuff a lot more efficiently and environmentally friendly," Clinkenbeard said. "But the water was far too high in boron, which isn't bad for people or other things, but for some varieties of plants it makes it difficult for them to grow. We wouldn't have been able to produce a high-quality product there."
Instead, they found better water available near Silver Springs on land owned by John Holmes. Bonnie Plants has a lease-to-purchase option on the property.
The company is scheduled to break ground next week on the first phase of greenhouses. A second phase that would add another 40,000 square feet, will be built later depending on demand. Clinkenbeard said the property is more than big enough to supply the entire area and more.
"California was feeding us for years and years, and we may start feeding California at some point," he said.
Clinkenbeard said that Rob Hooper at Northern Nevada Development Authority, and Lyon County Manager Dennis Stark are assisting them in getting their permits and paperwork in order.
"They have been very, very accommodating to help us get this project rolled out," he said.