Date: Wednesday, February 15, 2006  

Resource: Daily Herald

CATHY ALLRED - North County Staff
While Ed and Valerie Platt serve an LDS mission in Brazil -- tending to needs there, some of their children and in-laws are tending to the family-run nursery.

The Platts began their business at 535 N. State St. in Lindon with 1.5 acres of land in 1992 with six to seven full-time employees.

Today it covers 10 acres and the staff has grown to 15 to 20 full-time employees with 25 seasonal workers.

Tending is not a passive verb for the Platt progeny.

While their parents are gone, the kids and staff are building a barn, constructing a Web site at www.lindennursery.com and growing some of their best products in several greenhouses.

"It's full steam ahead in the greenhouses," said Ben Platt, who is the wholesale manager at Linden Nursery. "We're trying to get ready for spring."

He is working on a new barn for storage and an employee break room. His sister, Becka Platt manages the older barn, called The Barn, and its retail customers. She was prepared for Valentine's Day with the store's Boyds Bears, candles, gazing balls, wind chimes and gift certificates.

Both Ben and Becka Platt said they remember their first job at the business. For Ben Platt it was pulling weeds at age 15, and Becka Platt got to sweep the floors and dust the shelves.

"At 21 -- I think that is when I actually became productive," Ben Platt said smiling.

His department provides trees for both Pleasant Grove and Lindon cities, the landscaping for Discovery Park, for several developers in Utah County and other municipalities.

Working at the nursery has been educational for him. Ben Platt sports a 4-inch faint scar on his arm that he said he got while unloading trees from a semi when he was 23 or so.

"A tree branch scraped me," he said adding in working with trees, shrubs and other fauna, he has learned without opposition, things can't grow well, including himself.

"There are deep and profound truths to be found (here)," he said of nursery work. "In order for a tree to grow sturdy and strong and long lasting, it has to be exposed to opposition."

He said if he were to plant a tree in a sheltered corner and then years later expose it to a strong wind, it would fall over. But if a tree was exposed to wind as it grew, it would send down roots to become stronger.

The same is true with snap dragons, he said they need opposition because they will not flower as well in a controlled, "safe," environment. After they have grown to sufficient size they are taken outside the greenhouses into the cold.

He said this way the flowers become thicker, fuller and more profuse.

People also need opposition to grow and everyday dicipline is necessary, he said.

"The simple daily maintenance things that need to be done to allow (plants) to grow with grafting, pruning, dunging -- the same thing it is with us," Platt said. "We are expected to do everyday the little things like prayer, going to church ... If not, we won't bear fruit."

Customers can see the fruits of the Platt family labor at Linden Nursery Monday through Saturday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. The spring hours begin in March with the nursery open until 6 p.m.