Papa Geno's Herb Farm & Prairie Perennials, Ltd. are small, family-owned businesses located in Lancaster County, Nebraska. Papa Geno's is not a name made up by some corporate PR flack to make us sound quaint. When my kids and grandkids gave me a hard time about the (somewhat pompous) original name of this business several years ago, I invited them to come up with a better one, and "Papa Geno's Herb Garden" was their choice. (The kids and grandkids call me “Papa Geno”.) About the same time, the business had grown enough for me to ask my “silent” partner Sharon Rose to quit her day job and join me in the plant business. A few years ago when we bought a small farm, we changed the name to Papa Geno’s Herb Farm to reflect that growth. And now we have sold the original farm, bought a larger one to handle the ever-growing business, and - we hope – provide homes for Sharon and her fiancée and my wife Dorrie and me. (As well as a pleasant place to visit for our numerous progeny.)

Ten years ago, I rented a couple hundred square feet in a friend’s greenhouse, and sold a few thousand dollars worth of herb plants to gardeners in Lincoln, NE. The following year, I leased half a greenhouse, and then an entire greenhouse, and then another, and then I built one, etc, etc. Along the we gradually shifted our focus from local retail to mail order and now to the Internet. Right now we have four large greenhouses, a huge barn for shipping, and we’re remodeling a horse barn into offices. We’ve also been “lining out” thousands of hostas, iris, daylilies, peonies and other flowering perennials, both as propagation stock and to supply our new bare root business. We hope in Spring 2004 to be able to operate a modest retail presence at our new farm. (Zoning restrictions have prevented us from doing retail for the past five years.)

Sharon’s role is primarily that of bookkeeper & operations manager, but we both do anything that needs to be done. Sheila (Sharon’s fiancee’s daughter) is our greenhouse production manager, Carrie is the order manager as well as helping me with the website. Debbie (Sharon’s daughter) handles most of the gift orders and helps out in the greenhouses and shipping barn. Dale is mainly a “plants person” but he – like everyone else here – helps with the shipping during busy seasons. My eldest son Patrick has helped out during shipping season ever since we started shipping plants. Tulo, Max and Levi (Shihtzus) and Zack (Border Collie) are our official greeters and watchdogs. At the moment, we have three greenhouse mousers and barnguards – Jack, SixToes and Minus.

Interested in working here? If you have special horticultural skills or training, and would like to join this motley crew, e-mail me at papageno@papagenos.com.

What we grow and ship
We grow more than 300 herb cultivars, several hundred varieties of potted perennials, who knows how many bare root perennials, 130 varieties of scented geraniums and as many heirloom and gourmet veggie seedlings as we can manage. We sell 200 + varieties of seeds from Renee’s Garden Seeds as well as Dutch Bulbs from Van Bourgondien and great garden tools from A.M.Leonard. Our best selling items, however, have been our lavender gift items.

What others think of us.

Our products have been featured by Shepherd's Garden Seeds, White Flower Farm, Gardener's Supply Company, Dutch Gardens, Jung’s Seeds, Gardener’s Eden, Smith & Hawken and Plow and Hearth catalogs. Among major national magazines, Better Homes and Gardens, Traditional Home, Country Gardens, Garden Shed, Woman's Day, Midwest Living, Perennials and Garden Escape (partial listing) magazines have featured our products extensively. We were the sole source provider of herbs, scented geraniums and veggies for Garden.com and supply products for a number of other gardening websites, such as National Gardening Organization, Garden Shed (Better Homes & Gardens Interactive) and PlantAmerica.

We even gotten some significant notice from Inc magazine (of all places!) http://www.inc.com/magazine/20000515/19001-print.html and the New York Times. At least two case studies have been written about our little business, including the one at the end of this link. http://www.foodmap.unl.edu/report_files/PapaGenos2.pdf

We are confident that we know how to grow and ship potted and bare root plants. We have shipped hundreds of thousands of them to date and don’t expect to slow down anytime soon.