For Wyoming Greenhouse Operators, Spring Starts When The Snow Is Deep

LANDER — The snow was falling and temperatures were below zero when Griff Sprout began planting the seeds for his greenhouse nursery in Lander, Wyoming.

“Our spring starts early,” Sprout said. “The first of January is basically when our real seeding starts.”

​They begin small with Sprout and his team of gardeners opening one greenhouse with rows of small seedling trays. As these grow, they are transplanted into bigger containers and more greenhouses are open.

By February, the second greenhouse is open and by the second week of March, the plants have grown so much that all 15 of his greenhouses are full of seedlings.

“We want something that's magical for people to come to,” Sprout said. “We have long winters in Wyoming and when they come out here and see a lot of different things growing, it can excite people.”

The family owned Sprout’s Greenhouse offers some of the largest variety of plants in Wyoming with nearly 2,000 different selections that are exclusively grown for the Cowboy State’s unique climate.

The business has been around nearly 50 years, and the family was destined for a life in growing plants with the last name of Sprout.

With only a basic understanding of what it took to grow plants even on a small scale, the greenhouse has grown from humble beginnings to become the largest in Fremont County.

Planting The Seeds Of A Legacy

The Sprouts Greenhouse was founded in 1978 by Charlie and Lynn Sprout when they decided to give country living a try.

The couple had met at a chicken judging as young teenagers and were married by 1968. They had grown tired of “big city living” in Lander and moved their family of five to a run-down property between Lander and Hudson.

Their new home featured an indoor outhouse, piles of junk and a large half-burned down building which had been the original train depot for Lander.

Over time, this property was transformed into an oasis of flowers, trees, shrubs and vegetables that draws aspiring gardeners and landscapers.

The journey to their commercial greenhouse was not direct. Needing to supplement his teaching salary, Charlie was spraying weeds for the county and Lynn grew a “Truck Garden.” The first plants they sold were extra seedlings grown in Styrofoam cups.

The couple came by their first greenhouse almost by accident. Charlie was helping to build a greenhouse for extra money, but the man was unable to pay him for the work. Instead, he gave Charlie the greenhouse as payment.

Over the next few years, Charlie collected old greenhouses and rebuilt them on the property. The small family business grew and is now run by their son, Griff. 

“I didn't want anything to do with it when I was in high school,” Griff Sprout admitted. “But after going into college then coming back and working in the summers, I started falling in love with the business.”

The family was self-taught horticulturist and much of what they learned about growing plants in Wyoming has been nearly fifty years of trial and error.

“It's just a lot of past failures,” Griff said. “It's about determining tomato varieties that we grow or whatever unique thing that we're growing and asking ourselves if it is something that can actually live here.”

Wyoming Grown And Tough

The Sprouts Greenhouse is home to an estimated 2,000 varieties of plants that the family has determined will grow best in Wyoming. Each greenhouse they have is slightly unique, geared to whichever plant it houses.

They grow their own annuals and perennials from seed and rooted cuttings beginning with columbines and delphiniums in December.

The advantage to growing their own plants is that theirs are acclimated to the environment already and they don’t have to worry about issues in shipping.

“The dirty little secret in the plant business is something called growth regulators,” Griff said. “Any box store plant is usually always sprayed with growth regulators to keep plants from stretching during shipping. But what that does is when you plant it out in a landscape, it still doesn't grow.”

Sprout recently moved his perennials outside so that when customers take them home, the plants are ready to be put into the ground.

“It is just a process of hardening the plant off so that when it actually gets planted, it's going to not have this crazy stress going on it,” he said. “ It's instead going to thrive in the environment.”

Sprout admits that with propane costs and labor, it would be cheaper to buy their seedlings from a bigger company but when they buy from someone else, they cannot control their varieties.

“We want these certain varieties because these are the ones we know are good for our region,” he said. “I would never want to be in a business where we weren't a grower on our stuff.”

Mapping Out The Plants

Since Sprout is growing upward of 2,000 varieties of plants, he draws out maps on a computer to allocate them the space each plant will need to flourish.

“We create big maps ahead of time of where everything is going to go on it,” Sprout said. “It's very intentional for us to want to overwhelm people in a good way with variety and selections of plants that actually grow in Wyoming.”

Since certain plants will need more light and space, Sprout is aware of the different parts of the greenhouses such as where the hotspots and colder spots are.

“Some plants need a lot more air movement running through and other plants that don't really care about that,” he said.

Even after nearly 50 years of business, Sprout is continuing to look for ways to improve. This year, he is growing his own shrubs which, up until now, he bought finished from others growers.

“We're growing all our own shrubs and roses ourselves from small, rooted cuttings that we started way early,” he said. “We were wanting certain varieties that are hard to find and are trying to control costs to consumers and still create a better overall product.”

With frost still threatening much of Wyoming, Sprout recommends to start prepping your beds now. The good news is that now is also a good time to plant most of Wyoming’s perennials since they are naturally frost resistance.  

“You want to plant when it's on a warming trend,” he said. “That will naturally harden stuff out. If it gets a lot colder, they'll be used to being outside and be fine.”

For Griff Sprout, the joy of his greenhouse is watching his plants grow and sharing that love with his community.

Jackie Dorothy can be reached at jackie@cowboystatedaily.com.