Up Close and Personal
with Sugar Creek Plant Manager Roxanne Cronin

My earliest memories of gardening go back to when I was 6 or 7 years old, helping my mother plant marigolds in our yard.  We always had a bucket of water to drench the roots of each six-pack cell before we planted it.  I remember when I talked my mother into buying a few scaevolas (blue fan flower).  I was probably 9 or 10, and it was such a delight.  We planted them in a really hot spot, not knowing what they would do, and they were gorgeous. I love that sense of discovery, of learning a new plant, and feeling like "I did it!" 

My father always grew tomatoes.  Growing up in Webster, with huge trees, we would rake all the leaves into the garden and put a few on a compost pile as well.  Every year my father would till the garden and I would go out there with him, sit on the swing and watch him.  Eventually I learned how to use the tiller and was able to "get behind the wheel." I grew up on homegrown tomatoes -- my mother would make fried green tomatoes in the fall with the tomatoes that weren't going to ripen before the first frost.

My father and I also grew roses.  He loves fragrant flowers, so we got Peace, Mr. Lincoln, Double Delight, Tiffany, First Prize, and Tropicana -- to this day still my favorite rose.  I also had a few rabbits and I would put their manure on the roses – and they loved it!  My father loves peonies too. 

I think my favorite part of gardening is flower arranging.  I remember as a kid, trying to find creative ways to arrange magnolia flowers and peonies in bowls of water or with quince and mock orange.

When I tell people I work at Sugar Creek, they say "I love that place!  It must be nice to work with all the plants."  And it is.  I get to see the newest and latest horticultural introductions and some of the rare ones, too.  I get to commune with what I love best on a daily basis.  It is also a tremendous opportunity to be part of a growing and successful business.  I am constantly learning.  Not only about plants, but also about what it takes to keep a company strong and profitable.

Sugar Creek has provided me and my coworkers opportunities outside the nursery, too, such as participating in seminars, teaching continuing education classes, and providing small-scale landscape design and consultation.  I also enjoy talking with our customers.  I can't think of another industry with a customer-base as good as ours.

The good stuff
Favorite annual: Salvias, flowering vines such as hyacinth bean vine and black-eyed susan vine

Favorite perennial: Salvias, penstemons, digitalis, baptisias, thermopsis, and thalictrum -- basically anything tall and spikey

Favorite tree: Magnolia

Favorite shrub: Hydrangea paniculata

Number of years at Sugar Creek:  I started in 1999.

Greatest gardening accomplishment: My container garden when I lived in Maplewood a few years ago.

Biggest gardening goof: I built this awesome cold frame and started a whole bunch of seeds--hyacinth bean, three different types of annual salvias and other annual vines.  They were absolutely gorgeous little plants that I had painstakingly babied for weeks.  I put them out in the cold frame to start hardening them off.  One day I left too early in the morning to be able to crack the cold frame open or bring the plants in.  By 10 a.m. it was 60 degrees outside and probably 100+ in the cold frame.  All my beautiful little plants got fried.  I even have pictures of the plants – I was so proud!

Advice to beginners: Read a book on basic perennial gardening or vegetable gardening or whatever you're interested in -- go to the library, they have tons of books.  Take walks around neighborhoods in Webster, Kirkwood, or where ever you live to see “real” gardens.  By watching what works with other gardeners who have lives outside of gardening, you can see what the best plants are.

Advice to professionals: Read books, take classes, and avoid overwhelming customers with too much info.  Our customers really don't care how much we know, they just want a beautiful garden and the right plant or plant advice.