Greenhouse owners can relax before mum season

DARMSTADT, Ind. (AP) - With most of the spring's flowers and plants long gone, the slow-down at Rexing's Blumenhaus was expected and even welcomed by Becky Rexing. It was a chance to relax and catch her breath before the mum growing season hit.

"We opened April 11th," Rexing said of the business she and her husband, Todd, have run for the past two years. All 14 of the Blumenhaus greenhouses were full with 1,000 ferns, 25,000 geraniums and various annuals when the selling began.

As of Thursday, less than a quarter of one greenhouse held plants and the house next to it was nearly empty. The other twelve houses sat devoid of everything but wooden slat tables, gravel walkways and some sparse weeds. "That's how quickly we went through everything," she said.

Once a full-time teacher, Becky Rexing decided to grow mums with her husband in a side lot of their Haubstadt, Indiana home.

"We started the mums for our kids' college funds," she said. When the opportunity to purchase the Darmstadt, Indiana business arose they embraced it. Rexing still does substitute teaching, but she is a full-time nurserywoman these days. Even in the winter.

"If there's snow on the ground, we'll be all bundled up and when we get in the greenhouse, then we're down to t-shirts and shorts while we're planting. It gets that warm. Its like a personal tanning bed in these greenhouses," she laughed. "We go through a lot of sunscreen."

"We'll close up this week because I have mums coming. I order in the cuttings that are two inches tall," Rexing said. "We'll start planting those and it will take us about 10 days."

The Rexings start with 20,000 mums and sell them between the end of August and the beginning of October.

"That's when we'll start the ferns," Rexing said. "We'll water them and take care of them until the end of January."

When February rolls around, 25,000 geraniums get their starts.

"And then its the hanging baskets and annuals from late February to the beginning of March and we'll be ready for spring again. There's year-round work here, but we're open for retail just in the spring and in the fall."

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Source: Evansville Courier & Press, http://bit.ly/1syeysQ

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Information from: Evansville Courier & Press, http://www.courierpress.com