Carroll Gardens a quaint and slightly ragged cinder-block garden center at the end of a dirt road in Westminster, is closing at the end of this month after having been a resource for gardeners since the 1930s.
Alan Summers, who has owned Carroll Gardens since 1984 and hosted a garden talk show on WCBM-AM for nearly as long, announced his decision Saturday on the show, stunning customers and disappointing longtime employees who had hoped against hope for a reprieve.
Though Carroll Gardens is having a very good season, last summer was the worst in memory and the debt has finally overwhelmed Summers, he said.
"I'd love to have someone take over," said Summers, whose call-in radio show is ending as well because he doesn't have the money to pay for the air time.
"I love plants. I guess I am just not a very good businessman," said Summers, who has worked 80- and 90-hour weeks in season without a salary for years.
Loyal customers were shocked when the electronic message board on Main Street - by far the most modern element on the aging property - announced the store was closing: "25 percent off everything."
"I am just so sorry," said Lynn Smith of Reisterstown. Both her voice and Summers' broke softly. "I have been coming here for 10 years. The reason is the knowledge here."
Summers' family was in the plant business in Long Island, but he took a long time to return to his roots, as it were, and purchase Carroll Gardens after retiring early from a business career.
"Maybe not the best financial decision I ever made," he said. "But once this stuff gets into your blood. ... Working with the customers was the best part."
What Summers has is a great variety of plants and an even greater store of knowledge about how to care for them. What he does not have, and what many small independents do not have, are the resources to ride out tough economic times that are just beginning to turn around, in this industry at least.
"The armchair psychologist might tell you that in these tough times, people are going to make small indulgent purchases to lift their spirits, and plants are a way to do this," said Jonathan Bardzik, director of marketing and industry relations for American Nursery & Landscape Association.
"And there is anecdotal evidence that people are saying, 'Well, I can't travel and I can't buy a new car, but I can fix up my backyard.' "
