‘I love this business and I love our customers’: Gordon’s Garden Center owner reflects on tenure

Since becoming owner of Gordon’s Garden Center in 2001, Kellie Petersen has experienced plenty of adversity, including downsizing the business and facing the difficulties presented by the 2008 recession.

But through it all, she’s maintained her core values of serving and providing the Yelm community with a beautiful variety of flowers and an assortment of vegetables.

Petersen originally began working at Gordon’s Garden Center in 1995 as a cashier. Through hard work and determination, she quickly climbed the ladder to earn promotions to office manager and eventually general manager of the garden store.

“I eventually said, ‘when you’re ready to sell, I’ll buy the store, because I love it.’ Around 1997, Gordon’s bought the property across the street and developed it. We were 3 acres of garden center, and then 2008 hit,” Peterson said. “That was a problem for everybody, and so I sold the 2 acres across the street and we were 1 acre here. It was still beautiful, but also still a challenge.”

In order to survive the Great Recession, Petersen said Gordon’s once again had to reduce overhead, even after selling its 2 acres of property across the street. With their backs against the wall due to the recession, a new partnership between Gordon’s Garden Center and Yelm Food Co-op emerged and quickly provided stability for the two businesses.

“It was a beautiful marriage. I started leasing to them, and during that year it was a rough year because the city was working out their regulations, and we had a rough spring in 2012. We were installing the Yelm Food Co-op, but the Yelm city regulations wouldn’t allow us to be in the same building at the same time. From April to June, which is my big season, we had to evacuate the building. But it turned out they were incorrect, so we were allowed to go back into the building.

“That happened, but I’m like Popeye with the spinach and we recovered. It just took a while,” Petersen continued. “I love this business and I love our customers. I love this industry. For the most part, we try to help people create paradise in their backyard. You can grow your own food. You can save so much money from growing your own food.”

The owner hopes that the community views Gordon’s Garden Center as a business they can go to while attempting to build their own landscaping paradise at their home. Petersen noted the garden center has dealt with some of the same growers for decades and decades, and that she even travels to Oregon to hand pick which flowers will be included in her baskets at the business.

“Gordon had dealt with them for years before that, because that’s how I learned. I learned from Gordon. I love these growers,” Petersen said. “We build up. We have to stock up, but we have to anticipate, so it’s really an interesting thing. We have to assume and anticipate the traffic we’re going to get. It’s difficult at times, but we just have to assume that they’re going to be here. What I’m talking about is the external. We don’t know what the external economy is going to dictate, but we want to prepare for people to be excited for spring, and that no matter what the economy is doing, people still want to have their joy at home.”

She said Gordon’s Garden Center is focused on helping people grow their own food and make their gardens beautiful. She said 99% of the customers at her business shop there because “they love what they’re doing in their gardens.”
“Every year, we hire young people who are intent on moving and grooving and helping our customers. We hire young people to help our community in that way. We also have people like Carol (Langley) who have been here for years and years, and she’s amazing.”

Langley, an 81-year-old Yelm resident and associate of Gordon’s Garden Center for over 25 years, has seen both Yelm and Gordon’s evolve and change over her years of employment in the local business.

“There’s a lot of growth going on out here in Yelm, that’s for sure. It definitely creates some issues with the traffic,” Langley said. “Gordon’s has actually downsized some, but we still get all the plants and downsize in the wintertime, but stock right back up in the spring. We have some nice varieties too.”

Langley, a Yelm resident since 1998, said she likes the area but enjoyed it a little more “when it wasn’t so crowded.” During her shifts at Gordon’s, customers can catch her doing a variety of tasks indoors and outdoors — but she’ll always prioritize the customers over any task at hand.

“My No. 1 priority is helping customers. Then I put plants away and that type of stuff. I water the plants, but most importantly I make sure that the customers are helped,” Langley said. “I enjoy it all.”

At 81 years of age, Langley said she enjoys coming to work for her shifts at Gordon’s Garden Center.

“It’s very pleasant. It’s very nice to work here. We have real nice customers come in, and it’s just a very nice environment,” Langley said. “Gardening is one of my passions. Being around all of these beautiful flowers is very nice.”