San Jose’s Almaden Valley Nursery is a beehive full of activity. Although small in size, this retailer buzzes with a busy parking lot, daily incoming delivery trucks and knowledgeable worker bees, all of which keep inventory moving at an impressive rate.

“The small space is a tricky thing because we move about 15 to 20 percent of inventory every week here, and the majority of that is one-gallon perennial color and bedding color,” says owner Matt Lepow.

Well Stocked

Lepow credits his California location as one of the keys to his hot-off-the-presses inventory. “We have so many local growers that I can get a bedding plant shipment here almost every single day of the week in the spring,” he says. “I try not to have stuff dropped off here on Saturday or Sunday, but if I’m really getting chiseled away, we’ll have a truck here on a weekend morning to refill.”

While Lepow has an abundant selection of growers to choose from, he says it’s important to not buy from every single one of them. “I try to stick to my core group of vendors because it’s better to mean more to them than to mean nothing to a whole bunch of people,” the owner says. “I will never say ‘no’ to anyone, because you never know when you’re going to have that contract or special order emerge that only one grower grows.”

And because Lepow keeps a consistent business with his core group of growers, even Sunday delivery drops are rarely out of the question when needed.

After a busy weekend at Almaden Valley, Lepow’s Monday morning routine is all about getting his live goods inventory back to full capacity. “When I get in, I walk the property,” he says. “It’s an easy layout to walk through and everything has a home here. That’s one of the things we’re sticklers about, is that everything has a home so we can easily find the home.” Once the inventory is accounted for and orders are placed with vendors, the growers’ delivery trucks start to show up as early as Tuesday and as frequently as three times a week.

Local Natives

Colorful bedding and perennial goods are major sales drivers at Almaden Valley, but the retailer’s native plants program deserves some attention, too. One of Lepow’s veteran employees, Jim Citta, has been active in the native plant movement for 30 years. Lepow says Citta’s entire home garden is comprised of native plants.

Almaden Valley’s natives section is called the Collector’s Corner, and as Lepow explains it, the corner’s not just filled with California natives, but Australia and New Zealand natives, too. “They’re very similar to our climate, water-wise and drought tolerant,” he says.

Spurred on by the drought, Lepow saw customers becoming more aware of natives and decided to get involved with the Native Plants Society. Last year the nursery sponsored the society’s Go Native tour of area homes. Stops on the tour must have gardens made up of at least 80 percent native plants. The tour covers about 60 miles and is made up of 40 to 50 homes.

“As a sponsor, we come out to the tour and sell attendees native plants at one of the garden sites,” Lepow says. “We donate 20 percent of the plant sales to the California Native Plants Society.” This has been great exposure because they are getting in front of the avid gardeners interested in native plants. In addition, most retailers aren’t specializing in this category, which opens the door for Almaden Valley. Flyers passed out by the society read: “Almaden Valley Nursery is where you can go to get your California natives.”

This year the society asked the retailer back to sell plants and also sponsor two sites – one site being Almaden Valley employee Jim Citta’s garden. “A lot of the specimens in Jim’s gardens are more than 15 years old and that’s what a lot of people don’t get to see,” Lepow says. This year, close to 300 people went through Citta’s garden.

Grow Your Own

From good grower relationships to promoting native plants with an employee garden, Almaden Valley Nursery and Lepow are very resourceful. Another example of this is a plot of land recently acquired from a neighboring veterinary clinic, which it used for horses. “The grounds were just empty and beginning to get overrun by weeds,” Lepow says. “It was a maintenance issue, so I talked to the owner and got him to lease it to me for a decent price.” Today, that land is the start of a small growing facility with an irrigation line.

“We’ve always done some of our ornamental growing here, but again because of our size, it’s tough having stuff sitting around that I can’t sell right away, taking up valuable space for other things that I can just buy in,” he says. “But there is a value when you can grow it yourself – buy a bareroot tree for $12, put it in a 15-gallon bucket and eight months later sell it for $130.”

The new growing facility will also allow Lepow to grow things he can’t get his growers to produce. “Growers don’t want to grow stuff for me that’s probably a three-year crop, and I get that.” With the new growing space, Lepow knows he can dictate the price of what he grows because no one else is growing it.