Nearly six months after Hurricane Helene hit Western North Carolina, Bill Jones can still remember driving up to his business, Carolina Native Nursery, like it was yesterday.
My wife and I got in the car and drove up here. It took three different routes to finally get here. When we were still a mile and a half from the shop, thousands of black pots were lying out in one of our neighbor's fields. So, it was a sign that things were probably not going well at the nursery. When we finally made it here, after about an hour and a half, our trout stream that joins the property, usually about 10 feet wide, was a hundred yards wide, five feet deep. It looked like the Colorado River.
Carolina Native Nursery was founded 22 years ago and is a high-quality, independent garden center that grows native plants for the wholesale industry. Bill says the native plants growing at the center benefit the local ecosystem; birds, bees, and butterflies; plus, they attract retail clients nationwide. It's home to hundreds of variations of plants and locally grown Azelia, which take about three full years to bring to market from seed to maturity. Most were wiped out; Bill estimates he lost a quarter of a million plants in the storm. Still, his first thoughts in the days after Helene hit were all about his employees, his people as he calls them. After three days of phone calls to ensure his people were safe and accounted for, two questions crystalized: how would Carolina Native Nursery open again, and when?
Those questions were answered when Lowe's announced that it would launch the Lowe's Western North Carolina Small Business Recovery Fund. The $2.5 million fund, supported by LISC, distributed much-needed grants to small businesses in the company’s home state, supporting local business development organizations in advancing their work to help companies navigate disaster relief aid. It was perfect timing for Bill Jones.
"There was a gap between when the storm happened and when our crop insurance came in. It was very important for us to keep our key people on and employed and to get the supplies that we needed to rebuild. The help from Lowe's really was one of the instrumental things that allowed us to keep people on to keep our mojo going. Man, it was important to have all that support. It just made us realize that Lowe's is important to the North Carolina community."
Keeping those key people on allowed Bill to dig in and re-open the nursery at a record pace. Today, Carolina Native Nursery is back open for business, and while the planting and harvesting schedule may have taken a hit during Helene, Bill and his team are hopeful for the many blooms ahead.
