User - NRoberts - G1 Blue Dahlia

So much for her worries about their adjustment to living in a new house with strangers. It appeared that most of the adjustments were going to be on her end.

She dressed more appropriately this time, in sturdy walking shoes that had already seen their share of mud, jeans with considerable wear, and a black sweater. With her briefcase in hand, she headed into the main entrance of the garden center.

The same woman was at the counter, but this time she was waiting on a customer. Stella noted a small dieffenbachia in a cherry-red pot and a quartet of lucky bamboo, tied with decorative hemp, already in

a shallow cardboard box.

A bag of stones and a square glass vase were waiting to be rung up.

Good.

"Is Roz around?" Stella asked.

"Oh..." Ruby gestured vaguely. "Somewhere or the other."

She nodded to the two-ways behind the counter. "Would she have one of those with her?"

The idea seemed to amuse Ruby. "I don't think so."

"Okay, I'll find her. That's so much fun," she said to the customer, with a gesture toward the bamboo. "Carefree and interesting. It's going to look great in that bowl."

"I was thinking about putting it on my bathroom counter. Something fun and pretty."

"Perfect. Terrific hostess gifts, too. More imaginative than the usual flowers."

"I hadn't thought of that. You know, maybe I'll get another set."

"You couldn't go wrong." She beamed a smile, then started out toward the greenhouses, congratulating herself as she went. She wasn't in any hurry to find Roz. This gave her a chance to poke around on her own, to check supplies, stock, displays, traffic patterns. And to make more notes.

She lingered in the propagation area, studying the progress of seedlings and cuttings, the type of stock plants, and their health.

It was nearly an hour before she made her way to the grafting area. She could hear music—the Corrs,

she thought—seeping out the door.

She peeked in. There were long tables lining both sides of the greenhouse, and two more shoved together to run down the center. It smelled of heat, vermiculite, and peat moss.

There were pots, some holding plants that had been or were being grafted. Clipboards hung from the edges of tables, much like hospital charts. A computer was shoved into a corner, its screen a pulse of colors that seemed to beat to the music.

Scalpels, knives, snippers, grafting tape and wax, and other tools of this part of the trade lay in trays.

She spotted Roz at the far end, standing behind a man on a stool. His shoulders were hunched as he worked. Roz's hands were on her hips.

"It can't take more than an hour, Harper. This place is as much yours as mine, and you need to meet

her, hear what she has to say."

"I will, I will, but damn it, I'm in the middle of things here. You're the one who wants her to manage,

so let her manage. I don't care."

"There's such a thing as manners." Exasperation rolled into the overheated air. "I'm just asking you to pretend, for an hour, to have a few."

The comment brought Stella's own words to her sons back to her mind. She couldn't stop the laugh, but did her best to conceal it with a cough as she walked down the narrow aisle.

"Sorry to interrupt I was just..." She stopped by a pot, studying the grafted stem and the new leaves.

"I can't quite make this one."

"Daphne." Roz's son spared her the briefest glance.

"Evergreen variety. And you've used a splice side-veneer graft."

He stopped, swiveled on his stool. His mother had stamped herself on his face—the same strong bones, rich eyes. His dark hair was considerably longer than hers, long enough that he tied it back with what looked to be a hunk of raffia. Like her, he was slim and seemed to have at least a yard of leg, and like

her he dressed carelessly in jeans pocked with rips and a soil-stained Memphis University sweatshirt.

"You know something about grafting?"

"Just the basics. I cleft-grafted a camellia once. It did very well. Generally I stick with cuttings.

I'm Stella. It's nice to meet you, Harper."

He rubbed his hand over his jeans before shaking hers. "Mom says you're going to organize us."

"That's the plan, and I hope it's not going to be too painful for any of us. What are you working on

here?" She stepped over to a line of pots covered with clean plastic bags held clear of the grafted plant

by four split stakes.

"Gypsophilia—baby's breath. I'm shooting for blue, as well as pink and white."

"Blue. My favorite color. I don't want to hold you up. I was hoping," she said to Roz, "we could find somewhere to go over some of my ideas."

"Back in the annual house. The office is hopeless. Harper?"

"All right, okay. Go ahead. I'll be there in five minutes."

"Harper."

"Okay, ten. But that's my final offer."

With a laugh, Roz gave him a light cuff on the back of the head. "Don't make me come back in here

and get you."

"Nag, nag, nag," he muttered, but with a grin.

Outside, Roz let out a sigh. "He plants himself in there, you have to jab a pitchfork in his ass to budge him. He's the only one of my boys who has an interest in the place. Austin's a reporter, works in

Atlanta. Mason's a doctor, or will be. He's doing his internship in Nashville."

"You must be proud."

"I am, but I don't see nearly enough of either of them. And here's Harper, practically under my feet,

and I have to hunt him like a dog to have a conversation."

Roz boosted herself onto one of the tables. "Well, what've you got?"

"He looks just like you."

"People say. I just see Harper. Your boys with David?"

"Couldn't pry them away with a crowbar." Stella opened her briefcase. "I typed up some notes."

Roz looked at the stack of papers and tried not to wince. "I'll say."

"And I've made some rough sketches of how we might change the layout to improve sales and highlight non-plant purchases. You have a prime location, excellent landscaping and signage, and a very appealing entrance."

"I hear a 'but' coming on."

"But..." Stella moistened her lips. "Your first-level retail area is somewhat disorganized. With some changes it would flow better into the secondary area and on through to your main plant facilities. Now,

a functional organizational plan—"

"A functional organizational plan. Oh, my God."

"Take it easy, this really won't hurt. What you need is a chain of responsibility for your functional area. That's sales, production, and propagation. Obviously you're a skilled propagator, but at this point you need me to head production and sales. If we increase the volume of sales as I've proposed here—"

"You did charts." There was a touch of wonder in Roz's voice. "And graphs. I'm ... suddenly afraid."

"You are not," Stella said with a laugh, then looked at Roz's face. "Okay, maybe a little. But if you look at this chart, you see the nursery manager—that's me—and you as you're in charge of everything. Forked out from that is your propagator—you and, I assume, Harper; production manager, me; and sales manager—still me. For now, anyway. You need to delegate and/or hire someone to be in charge of container and/or field production. This section here deals with staff, job descriptions and responsibilities."

"All right." On a little breath, Roz rubbed the back of her neck. "Before I give myself eyestrain reading all that, let me say that while I may consider hiring on more staff, Logan, my landscape designer, has a good handle on the field production at this point. I can continue to head up the container production. I didn't start this place to sit back and have others do all the work."

"Great. Then at some point I'd like to meet with Logan so we can coordinate our visions."