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Meet our Family of Local Producers & Growers: Sunborne Nursery

Home | Gardening | Meet our Family of Local Producers & Growers: Sunborne Nursery
We source our locally grown houseplants from many growers — one absolute favorite is Sunborne Nursery, owned and operated by Dan & Candice, along with their son Eli. In business since 1975, they grow indoor plants and succulents and are working on expanding by building another greenhouse for additional propagating and growing. Our buyers at Sloat Garden Center often visit to hand pick plants for their stores.

 

hanging basketsAbout Sunborne:

Sunborne Nursery started not as a nursery, but as a chicken ranch in the mid 1970’s. One day a delivery driver suggested they convert the 50,000 square feet of vacant chicken houses on Dan’s family chicken ranch into greenhouses. It sounded like a reasonable idea, except Dan and his family knew nothing about growing plants.

As a start, Dan enrolled in the Horticulture Department at San Luis Obispo and took some courses with Dr. Noble. During one of the class trips to Gallup and Stribling Orchids of Santa Barbara, Dan had a chance meeting with the president of the foliage division. Not knowing any better, Dan told him about the vacant chicken houses and asked him what opportunities he saw for starting a nursery. He said there was a shortage of tropical foliage propagation material and suggested that Dan go into producing rooted cuttings. He went on to offer stock plants. Dan jumped at the offer and Sunborne Nursery was born.

Since a majority of the cuttings and finished stock plants were initially sold in the San Francisco Bay Area, Dan and Candice decided to move the nursery to San Francisco in 1989. In 1991, the business evolved from a growing operation to the wholesale distribution company that it is today. While Dan is primarily responsible for sales and purchasing, Eli manages the day to day operations, and Candice, whose background is in art, plays an important part in the aesthetics and design of Sunborne. Together, they have found their calling in the beauty and environmentally enriching qualities of the tropical plant world.

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