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Fairbanks woman knows greenhouse business from root to bloom

July 6, 2011

Marmian Grimes

Nancy Tarnai
907-474-5042
7/6/2011


For nearly two decades Helen McLean has been up to her elbows in the rich soil at Risse Greenhouse and she wouldn’t change a thing.

When she joined the Risse staff in 1992 she had just completed the master gardener course and thought she knew everything about growing vegetables and flowers. “I learned a whole lot more,” McLean said. “I absorbed everything I could from Lee (Risse). He was really, really good about sharing his knowledge.”

One of the key things McLean latched onto was making do with what you have instead of running to the store to buy a part. “I learned how to improvise,” she said. In the beginning of her tenure, McLean followed Lee Risse, the founder of the company, into boiler rooms, bleeding vapor locks out of the circulation system. “I was right under his elbow most of the time,” McLean said.

Even though the technical aspects were important to learn from Risse, McLean said the most crucial thing was customer service.

Born in Fairbanks, McLean grew up at her family’s hunting lodge at Summit Lake, near Paxson. She was building a house, raising children and landscaping her yard when she lucked into a position at Risse’s. “I love my job,” McLean said firmly. “I love being able to go from seed catalogs to happy customers.”

One of her duties is to stay abreast of current trends in the plant world by reading Sunset magazine and Martha Stewart Living. “People see things in the magazines and they want it here,” she said. “Every plant has a different growing need and we have to learn what the habits are as far as soil, fertilizer and light.”

McLean also enjoys staging the items for sale in the 18 Risse greenhouses. She uses bold colors and eye-catching arrangements to draw attention to products. But there is one Risse staple that needs no gimmicks—the potting soil. “We just make really good potting soil,” McLean said. The secret is in the composting; the company philosophy is to compost everything. “People bring yard waste and manure and we add sand and peat and straw,” McLean said. “We’ve worked on the recipe.”

Strolling to the back of the property to eye the huge compost heap on a recent rainy day, McLean became visibly excited about the steam escaping from the pile, indicating the warmth inside the mound. “It’s so beautiful,” she fairly crowed.

Risse’s sells 11,000 bags of potting soil each year and is now offering an organic variety too. McLean is trying it out at home this season and is pleased with the results. “A lot of people who work here are gardeners,” she said. “We test the soil and the plants so when people ask questions we can tell them from our experience the successes and non-successes.”

That she doesn’t mind going to work in her own garden after a hard day at Risse’s is testimony to McLean’s dedication. At home she concentrates on perennials and heirloom varieties of vegetables. She particularly loves dahlias and begonias. Her advice is to keep them in a shady area, don’t overwater and make sure they get enough nitrogen.

Risse’s got its start back in the 1950s when Lee and Greta Risse made their home at six-mile Chena Hot Springs Road. Legend has it that Lee tired of tasteless tomatoes and decided to grow his own. Everything blossomed from there and when he passed away, his children, Glen Risse and Carolyn Bloom, took over the business. They rely heavily on McLean and their other employees to help operate the business as Risse is employed by the borough and Bloom resides in Anchorage. McLean likes the family atmosphere of her workplace and the connectedness the 25 employees share.

McLean has served as general manager in the past, as well as worked in transplanting, soil production and special orders. She is also quite skilled at running the Bobcat and bag sealer.

A new direction for the company has been getting involved in mining reclamation projects. Kinross True North contracted with Risse’s to grow black spruce, white spruce, alder and birch seedlings for a mining site that needs to be reclaimed. The Risse’s staff harvested cones for seeds and planted 30,000 seedlings that will soon be planted on 30-plus acres north of Fairbanks.

“It’s a new turn,” McLean said, “But you have to diversify to keep the business going.”

Contact info:

907-488-6973
981 Risse Road


This column is provided as a service by the UAF School of Natural Resources and Agricultural Sciences and the Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station. Nancy Tarnai is the school and station’s public information officer.