Our Story

How it started.
My mom and dad started Sharkey's Floral & Greenhouses in small town Crivitz, WI back in 1967. They started modestly with a few dozen roses for their first Mother's Day and grew the business over the next 35 years adding in greenhouses in two locations and successfully accomplishing the American Dream of the small entrepreneur. I was able to grow up in a small family business that taught me hard work, respect and a passion for quality and service. My parents taught me a lot (and still do) about what it takes to be in business. In 2001 they sold the family business to a local and retired.

Our turn.

My wife, Amy and I bought the floral and greenhouses in 2007 after it had gone into bankruptcy. It was a long shot from my job as a design engineer with 10 years in the toy industry, but I grew up in the business...how hard could it be? We started from scratch again as the business had perished under poor management (not my family) and the only thing left was some dilapidated buildings. Weeds in the greenhouses stretched to the ceiling and a foot of water sat in the basement of the main building. It was a rough start.

But, with help from family and friends we got everything cleaned up and business started right away as locals came back to the name they knew.

Our greenhouse products caught everybody's attention. People traveled long distances to buy from us and over the years we built a steady base of customers whose first concern was quality. We became known for our huge hanging baskets and everybody kept asking what the secret was.

Starting a fertilizer business.

We had always mixed our own blend formula fertilizer. We were never satisfied with the results of other fertilizers, so we kept tinkering until we had the results that made people stop and stare at our flowers. Our customers kept asking if they could buy our special fertilizer, so at some point we started bagging and selling it. We started with little baggies that made 19 gallons. We kept selling out and it was a non-stop job to mix up batches of fertilizer in a five gallon bucket.

We realized that we weren't the only ones looking for a better fertilizer. Our customers told others about our secret fertilizer and word of mouth made us "that place with the great fertilizer."

We never could have predicted that our little "side" fertilizer business would grow into our primary business. We have our customers and their passion for beautiful flowers to thank for that.