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Jul 21, 2023

Good Earth Garden Center in Colorado Springs to close

Ellie Reid shops for plants at Good Earth Garden Center on Wednesday. Good Earth Garden Center, a business that thrived for 49 years in Colorado Springs, will shut its doors permanently at the end of

Ellie Reid shops for plants at Good Earth Garden Center on Wednesday.

Good Earth Garden Center, a business that thrived for 49 years in Colorado Springs, will shut its doors permanently at the end of the summer.

Shop owner Wayne Fisher decided it was time to pull the plug on his long time business after discovering the store’s property, a plot less than an acre blending into a row of houses at 1330 N. Walnut St. around the corner from Uintah Street on the west side of the Interstate 25 exit, would need a $23,000 upgrade to the site’s backflow system in order to meet state water requirements after a winter freeze cracked a pipe and damaged the system last winter.

While Fisher, 75, intended to retire, the timing of the costly upgrade accelerated his departure and him listing the property for sale.

Jessica Lawler, an employee at Good Earth Garden Center, waters plants Wednesday.

“I had promised them (his employees) two years ago that I’d try to go to 50 years” Fisher said. “It’s rare that somebody starts a business and it’s still there 50 years later, but with the circumstances ... I just couldn’t do it.”

Fisher, a self-described hippie, began his business in 1974 as Good Earth Greenery on Tejon Street in a storefront that later housed Wooglin's Deli & Café near Colorado College where the campus' hockey stadium, Ed Robson Arena, now sits.

As the business grew, Fisher pivoted the name to Good Earth Botanic Gardens and moved the shop to a location on West Colorado Avenue across from Safeway. He then added a second location near South Academy Boulevard that focused on landscaping before shutting both and moving to the Walnut Street spot in 1998 where Green Earth Garden Center has stayed ever since.

During the pandemic Fisher said his shop had a “financially terrific” time with a 25% increase in sales as people got out of their homes and into their gardens. By 2022 some of the gardening craze had tapered off, while Fisher said he wasn’t struggling financially the timing of a $23,000 upgrade before his imminent retirement would not be prudent.

Fisher’s retirement was also driven by the desire to be with family, he said.

“My grandchildren need me,” Fisher said, recalling when his granddaughters recently asked him, “‘Poppie, are you going to be taking us to school again this year?’ And that’s when all of a sudden it hit me, that I’m their father figure now.”

Fisher announced the store’s 25% “retirement sale” to customers via email at noon Monday, within 10 minutes customers were showing up in response to the email, Fisher said. Tuesday morning a line formed outside the door 30 minutes before the shop opened.

“Guess we'll help them liquidate their inventory,” Facebook user Thomas A. Grossman commented in response to a post about the shop’s retirement sale. “A sad trip for sure.”

Dozens of other Facebook users commented with sentiments such as “we love that store” and “where do we go now” filled the comment section.

“There’s been a lot of tears including mine and the employees,” Fisher said. “And after 50 years you’re like an institution.”

But tears have been difficult for the store’s assistant general manager, Amanda Stoke, to muster.

“I haven’t had the space to let that really happen,” Stoke said as her voice broke.

“The numbness takes back over and then I can function.”

For Stoke, who has spent most of her career working with Fisher starting as a teenager, the end of Good Earth Garden Center feels surreal after 19 years of employment.

“No one worked harder than that man and he deserves to retire ... we all love him,” Stoke said. “I love that man like a dad ... he’s a good man and he’s been a great employer.”

Fisher, who would hire as many as 30 summer workers, said the shutdown of Good Earth Garden Center was disruptive to the lives of his seven full-time, year-round employees and that they would receive “healthy” severance packages and unemployment benefits when the store closes.

“We had a good run,” Fisher said. “And we had a lot of good people running with us.”

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