THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, September 7, 1996 TAG: 9609070191
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY WENDY GROSSMAN, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 107 lines
In her pink canvas high tops, 7-year-old Brittany Prater runs straight from the front door of The Weekend Gardener to the bird stream. Squatting before it, she swirls her fingers in the running water, then pats her wet hands on river rocks, bird feeders, wind chimes and flower pots.
The Weekend Gardener is a garden accessory franchise opened by Walter and Sharon Ewell last November. Located in Chesapeake's Crossways Shopping Center, it's the third Tidewater-based franchise with the possibility of going national.
``We sell everything from dirt to fine art,'' Sharon Ewell says, wearing dark-green rubber garden shoes shaped like wooden dutch clogs, mossy overalls, and a fuscia smile. She's surrounded by hand-thrown pots, candles, shovels and bat houses.
Novelty garden items are her favorites. Like Zoo Doo, a little boxes of manure compressed into ``animal crappers.'' She's got lotions made especially for gardeners - the apricot shell sloughs off the roughness of calluses. And a section of videos and starter kits for children's gardens.
Her No. 1 seller is the paintings of egrets and cranes she's got on the walls.
Customers like Tammy Prater, who's looking at heart-shaped topiaries, mill around the store for hours just picking things up. Prater's been to the store a couple of times, but she hasn't bought anything yet. Other customers go home with armloads.
``We had a lady that came in here today and bought a $500 teak bench and a $300 bird feeder to go in her yard,'' Walter Ewell says. ``Your average person isn't going to drop that kinda dollars in a single sale - we try to cater to that kind of customer.''
The store's average sale is $50.
And business is doing fine. Recent polls show that half of America's adults are gardeners, making it the nation's leading hobby.
The Ewells opened the store purely as a business. They wanted to build a franchise - not just a homey sanctuary for creating fancy gardens.
Both of their daughters out of college, the couple hunted for a business they could open together. With Sharon's 12 years teaching high school art and Walter's 20 years experience in building franchises, the Ewells set to work. It's not like the two had a passion for gardening.
Walter Ewell used to cut his parents lawn and trim his mother's roses. And Sharon Ewell picked tomatoes in her grandmother's garden in Louisiana.
``My mother and grandmother won awards for their yards,'' she says. ``Between my grandmother and my mother, they probably had a whole catalog of flowers.''
The Ewells lived for 15 years in Virginia Beach with a yard full of sand, so until they bought their new home in Smithfield two years ago, they didn't garden.
``We don't pretend to be experts,'' Sharon Ewell says. ``This is a garden accessory store, not a nursery. I learn from my customers.''
That's why they named the store ``The Weekend Gardener,'' Walter Ewell says.
``They're typically not an expert, it's just something that they do on weekends,'' he says. ``We thought the name was down to earth. It's what our customer is.''
And what they're becoming.
Walter Ewell's arms are sunburnt against his blue polo because he was laying pachysandra, a flowering ground plant, in his yard Sunday afternoon.
The Weekend Gardener is the third franchise originating in the Tidewater area with the potential to go national. The others were Econo Lodges of America and Jackson Hewitt Tax Service. Walter Ewell was in charge of both franchises in their formative years, he says.
About five years ago a guy called him while he was the Franchise Director for Ben Franklin Retail Stores, the nation's second oldest franchise company, and asked if he carried decorative garden supplies. The answer was no. But it was a real good idea, he thought.
Walter Ewell looked in Dallas, Atlanta and Philadelphia. He could't find anything like The Weekend Gardener. But he did see that the ``green industry'' boasts $25 billion in retail sales and is growing 10 percent each year.
He wanted in.
``There's a huge trend in the decorative end of the garden world,'' Walter Ewell says. ``Nobody really has established a national chain of garden center stores. It doesn't exist.''
So he went to work.
``I saw this thing as a combination of a trend in the market place and niche that was being served,'' he says.
They designed the garden and bird supply store with the idea of franchising. The store has open ceilings, marbleized floors and uniform canopies.
``When you look at a McDonald's it has a standardized look to it,'' Walter Ewell says. ``They had the golden arches and we have the green-and-white canopies.''
The first franchise was bought in May by a man who taught school with Sharon Ewell, and will open in Williamsburg this spring. Another is opening in Virginia Beach. And one more's set to open in Dothan, Ala.
The Ewells hope to help train, set up and open eight franchises in the next year. In five years they hope to have 50 to 70 stores.
The Ewells' plans include opening another store either in Ghent or Hilltop that Liz Church, Sharon's daughter, will run.
Sharon folds a moon-shaped incense burner in green tissue paper. A woman's getting it for her niece, who looks at it every time she comes in. Sharon slips it into a brown bag and ties on mini garden rake. The cash register rings. And the woman walks out the door. ILLUSTRATION: Color photos by V.W. VAUGHAN photos
Sharon Ewell, 51, owns and operates The Weekend Gardener in
Chesapeake with her husband, Walter. The store offers ``upscale,
hard-to-find accessories for the garden and gardener,'' Ewell said. by CNB