Today we’d like to introduce you to Russ & Shannon Sloat.
Hi Russ & Shannon , we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
1983 my dad Jack Slivers( Shannon’s dad) bought a farm market that had been closed for a few years. We started with produce. Mounds of fresh fruits and veggies. My dad put everything he had into the business even sleeping in the back room after working all day selling produce then going downstate to buy more in the middle of the night. (That’s when the wholesale street markets were open back then)
I (Shannon) married Russ in 1988. My dad offered him partnership the same year.
My favorite part of the story comes next. We bought a few hanging basket to try our hand at selling them. The only heat in the market was in the little bathroom. So we hang them in the bathroom and when people came in I would run to the bathroom and bring it out to show them. They loved them 🙂 next thing you know we were buying and building greenhouses one after the other year after year til we stand at 20,000 sq ft of greenhouse today. My dad retired in 2003 with the help of our now growing children we expanded.
As the flowers began to sell more and more my husband Russ figured out how to grow from seed and slip. We put more greenhouses at our home and began the journey from buying from wholesalers to growing 99% of everything we sell.
We had a hard decision, we were running out of room to grow flowers so we let go of selling produce (fruits and veggies ) 2021 and repurposed the market into a greenhouse.
These days we start seed and slips in January each season. Opening the last of week April and closing the first week of July. Our now grown and married children with there children help us each season plus build there our businesses in the same Industry. Our son Dayne Sloat landscapes and our daughter Kacy VanDuinen grows custom flower orders for resorts and businesses. We love our community. We truly feel blessed to serve them.
Info:
We grow the baskets for downtown Cadillac and Lake City as well as a Young Life Camp in Lake City.
We sell annuals ,perennials, mulch , flowering shrubs and fruit trees
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Our parking lot was never big enough. being really really busy in the month of May makes parking hard but we have beautiful neighbors the Taphouse and Marty’s Pizza in Lake City that lets our customers park there as well..
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
Learning to put different flowers that coordinate well, and grow complementary to each other creating, combinations in planters was exciting.
I feel very blessed to be gifted in the ability to do that. The combination of my ability to do that, and my husband‘s ability to grow with amazing skill has created a product that people drive from very far to come get.
Networking and finding a mentor can have such a positive impact on one’s life and career. Any advice?
Through the years, we’ve had great people because we began buying from wholesalers. We knew a lot of great growers in the industry. They were very helpful and taught us a lot.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://lakesidelakecitymi.wixsite.com/website
- Facebook: Lakeside Produce and Greenhouse
