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MEMBER PROFILE 



urseys 



GOOD DESIGN 

 A4AKES GREAT A/IARKETING 



For nearly twenty summers, be- 

 ginning In the 1950s, Dave 

 Bursey's parents operated a 

 farm stand alongside Route 101 in 

 Wilton. Dave's father grew veg- 

 etables; Dave's mother sold what 

 her husband had grown, along with 

 some produce from other farms. 



Throughout most of the seven- 

 ties, the structure — basically a 

 20x40 shell — remained unused. 

 Then, in 1978, Dave and his wife 

 Julie bought it. They rented it out 

 for two years, then went into busi- 

 ness for themselves. 



They began in the earlier for- 

 mat — vegetables, bedding plants in 

 spring; geraniums; mums until the 

 first of November, lulie ran the 

 stand; Dave, assistant manager of a 

 Milford hardware stort. grew croDS 



during evenings and weekends. 

 The customers were local or 

 people driving through — "a lot of 

 one-timers." 



But "it wasn't paying us to grow 

 vegetables," so field-grown cut 

 flowers — asters, snaps, glads, dahl- 

 ias — became their crop. This was 

 the first shift toward the luxury 

 trade. Black plastic controlled 

 weeds and held soil heat; the sedi- 

 ment of the old bed of Souhegan 

 River produced good crops. 



Then, in 1985, "the whole thing 

 was bulldozed," a concrete founda- 

 tion was poured "before Thanksgiv- 

 ing, before the ground froze," and 

 the frame put up in lanuary. Dave 

 quit his job at the hardware store 

 and finished the 20x40 insulated, 

 enclosed structure (with cupola) in 

 time to open that spring. The 

 business had become year-round. 

 (The colors were chosen then — grey 

 cedar shakes for the walls — and 

 magenta lettering for the logo 

 ("There was lots of green plants 

 and gray shingles," Dave says, "and 

 we needed something bright. The 

 customers really commented on 

 it — it gave us an identity.") 



Along with fresh produce. The 

 Burseys began stocking other food 

 products — juices, bread, natural 

 chips: "We didn't plan much — we 

 just kept expanding." But the 

 three specialty areas — plants, pro- 

 duce, and natural foods, were in 

 place. 



Customers kept asking for more, 

 so Dave decided to build an addi- 

 tion that would give the room he 

 needed. He knew he wanted "a 

 more open space that was light 

 and bright," but he liked the idea 

 of maintaining nooks and special 

 areas. He made a lot of sketches, 

 but had an architect draw up the 

 final plans. ("It needed to look 

 professional.") 



In 1990, "We expanded to the 

 max — Wilton requires that you de- 

 velop no more than 75% of your 

 lot — we developed 74%." (This in- 

 cludes parking for 22 cars.) 



The 30x60 addition is post-and- 

 beam locally cut natural pine — the 

 cross beams are 18-feet high, the 



20 



The Plantsman 



