Farming Flowers: Gretchen Wollert finds growing success with Pleasant Valley Greenhouse 

Mike and Gretchen Wollert settled in the lowlands of Goshen County over three decades ago after leaving southeast Colorado in pursuit of better opportunities.

Gretchen, an English and history major, taught in the Goshen County School District, while Mike offered services stacking square bales for alfalfa farmers in the area. 

“My husband started stacking hay about 20 to 25 years ago, and it just kind of took off,” Gretchen shares. “There weren’t a lot of square-bale stackers in the area, so my husband filled the need and really helped out all of the farmers who were raising alfalfa.” 

Another big opportunity came shortly after the turn of the century, when the couple purchased a quarter-section and started farming full time. They planted their own alfalfa and added a herd of 200 mother cows to the mix. 

In 2007, yet another opportunity was presented to the Wollerts, and they purchased the McKeehan Greenhouse.

“In its heyday, it was an awesome place, but it had become run down and the customers dwindled,” Gretchen explains. “We bought the property with the greenhouses on it. We had to do a lot of fix up, but we jumped right in.” 

A local hotspot 

The Wollerts opened the doors of Pleasant Valley Greenhouse for the first time at the beginning of the 2008 season and have been supplying Goshen County’s seasonal, horticultural needs for the last 15 years. 

Today, Mike handles all of the day-to-day operations on their farm while Gretchen runs the greenhouse, where she “farms flowers” as she likes to call it. 

Home to eight greenhouses total, Pleasant Valley is open seasonally from the end of March through the end of June, offering everything from flowers and vegetable plants to trees and shrubs and everything in between.  

“I’ve tried to go year-round, but the population of the area just isn’t big enough, so we really focus on the spring and summer growing season,” Gretchen says. 

Although this is only a relatively short time, during the three months it is open, Pleasant Valley Greenhouse has become a bustling local hotspot, drawing customers across Goshen County and beyond – with some even making the drive from Cheyenne, Douglas and Nebraska. 

“It’s a business the area has really embraced,” Gretchen says. “There is another large greenhouse in Goshen County, and we are able to give each other some friendly competition. My greenhouse is not big enough to supply the whole county, so we work together in a way, with enough competition to keep our prices low.”

A growing success

Over the course of time, and primarily through word of mouth, Gretchen’s customer base has only continued to grow, something she attributes to Pleasant Valley’s unique selection. 

“We didn’t used to sell out of everything, but as we’ve built up our customer base and as word has gotten around, more people are coming from a further distance away,” she shares. 

“We have a lot of customers who heard from us by word of mouth, and they like to shop here because we are not a big box store,” she continues. “We have a lot more to offer than a Walmart or Home Depot.” 

Some of the more popular items at Pleasant Valley include a wide selection of specialty annuals and unique varieties of tomatoes, peppers and herbs which can only be found at select locations.

Gretchen notes Pleasant Valley’s crowd favorite are the huge selection of hanging baskets she puts together with different combinations of wave petunias she plants from seed and other plants sourced from a wholesale greenhouse in Colorado. 

“We put together at least 400 hanging baskets every season, and we have sold out of them for the past four years,” she states. 

A year-round commitment 

Although Pleasant Valley Greenhouse is only open to the public for a quarter of the year, Gretchen stays busy year-round preparing for the busy season. 

She notes around 70 percent of the plants offered at Pleasant Valley are outsourced from wholesale greenhouses in Colorado, while she grows the other 30 percent herself from seed. 

“In the fall I have to order from the four wholesale greenhouses down in Colorado that I source a lot of my material from,” she explains. “They have specialty annuals and other things I cannot grow from seed.”

Gretchen is currently busy planting these seeds, which she will carefully nurture for the next few months. 

“Right now, I am busy planting seeds, then I will have to transplant,” she says. “In March, I will make my trip to Colorado to get a trailer load of boxes and flats of little bitty plants to bring back to the greenhouse. Then I will take care of them until customers start to show up in April.”

In addition to hiring a handful of seasonal employees when Pleasant Valley’s doors are open in the spring, Gretchen notes she has also received a lot of help from her and Mike’s four daughters, her best friend Bernadine and other friends who help sporadically when they need some “soil therapy.” 

“My daughters are all grown and gone. They are now off living in Wyoming. Three of them are married, and we are expecting our fifth grandchild this month,” Gretchen notes.

A force in the community

In addition to the wide and popular selection offered at Pleasant Valley, Gretchen has found other ways to be a force in her community. 

Gretchen has hosted wreath making workshops during the holidays and various youth groups and children’s outreach programs throughout the year. 

“Two years ago, I put on a workshop through the conservation district on straw bale gardening, which was fun,” she says. “We had community members sign up for the class, we went through everything it takes to have a straw bale garden and they each went home with their own.” 

Gretchen has also hosted a number of community-based talks and demonstrations on everything from creating a patio planter to the basics of fertilizing. 

“It’s just sporadic, nothing absolute,” she admits. “I go do things when I am requested, and we can also organize things at the greenhouse.” 

Pleasant Valley Greenhouse is currently closed for the season but will reopen at the end of March. For more information, call 307-532-4769 or stop by when their doors open at 4308 U.S. Hwy 26/85, Torrington, WY 82240. 

Hannah Bugas is the managing editor of the Wyoming Livestock Roundup. Send comments on this article to roundup@wylr.net.