Business Briefing: Queer nursery co-owner plants new roots
In the coastal community of Pescadero a roughly seven-acre parcel recently was acquired by Delano Nursery where it plans to expand its business and grow more of the plants it sells rather than importing them from overseas.
It is just one of the ways the queer co-owned wholesale nursery is planting new roots as it marks its 100th anniversary this month.
The San Mateo County property comes with six units of farm labor housing and a 140,000 square foot greenhouse. It dwarfs Delano's 12,000 square foot greenhouse it has been operating out of for several decades in Daly City. "We just got the keys on Thursday last week," co-owner Lauren Borden told the Bay Area Reporter during an interview January 7 at the nursery's Peninsula location. "We plan to start off with a service for other plant shop owners to rent space from us where they can have their plants there, and we will take care of them for them and provide repotting services.
They can either keep their more delicate, more expensive plants there or have some extra space for their plants if they don't have space in their shop." Borden, 29, envisions adding additional greenhouse space and maybe more dwelling units at the new property since agricultural sector workers find themselves priced out of the Bay Area's sky-high housing and rental markets.
