How Yucca Do Survived The Move
by Wade Roitsch

After a lot of discussion, many announcements and one heck of a lot of work, I can with much joy and satisfaction say that Yucca Do Nursery has completed its monumental move. Though the actual move of the nursery's production stock took about 6 months (August to January), the process behind the move was much longer and multifaceted. Here's a little insight about the journey...

The move was a long and sometimes arduous task which at times felt like it would never come to an end. I thought this move would go down in history as the slowest move ever, except for maybe the move that the ancient Israelites made during their 40 year journey to their promised land.

Why move?

In the summer of 2006, I was evaluating my life and felt a little depressed. I wanted a change, and a move was the change I wanted. Events from the previous year, like the near miss of Hurricane Rita in September of 2005 and the resulting highway gridlock from the evacuation of Houston, and other things, helped me decide that I no longer wanted to live in near proximity to Houston. I spoke to Carl, the sole owner of Yucca Do, who was in Argentina at the time, about moving the nursery to the land closer to where my family lived in Central Texas.

He agreed. This decision, which seemed simple, initiated a rather complex chain of events necessary to ultimately get the nursery moved.

Out with the old

First we had to sell the property near Hempstead. Once it sold I then I had to find a new place to move both myself and Yucca Do. Finding a place that fits personal desires, budget constraints and practical needs is not always an easy task. The search took many months, and much thought and mental anguish about how to finance the dream. Finally, in the fall of 2007, a place was found near Giddings that I liked and which had many features that also fit the needs of Yucca Do.

The property closing was in early January, 2008. This accomplishment, at the time, seemed to be the hardest part. All we would need to do was purchase new greenhouses, have them erected, and move. Simple, right? Well, not so fast. First, the price of the greenhouses from our preferred manufacturer rose significantly compared to when we purchased our last house several years ago. The global economy was in an ultra boom, and the demand for metals from China and India made everything more expensive. To purchase the greenhouses meant it would take more time and money. Once we were finally able to purchase the houses, all we needed to do was find a contractor that would install them in a flash. Right?

How to build a greenhouses, slowly

It is amazing how a mixture of naiveté and optimism can delude one's mind, because 'simple and easy' seldom, if ever, materialize in a neat and pretty package. Once construction began, reality set in. Simple and easy were never seen again.

In every step of the process, a glitch or unforeseen impediment came forth. The clearing of the pad for the greenhouses angered a colony of Africanized honey bees that were living in a hollow Post Oak. The soil beneath the greenhouses, thought to be just clay or sandy loam, turned out to be a bed of gravel. It was so hard and compacted because of a historic, miserable drought, that the drilling of the holes where the greenhouse bows were to go was a very difficult and an ultra slow process. A process that I thought would take two to three weeks dragged on for three months. And don't get me started on $4.00-a-gallon gas prices.

Then came the move

Though small pick-up truck loads of durable plants and supplies were moved weekly to Giddings during the January to August 2008 time period, the bulk of the nursery stock remained in Hempstead because there was no place to properly care for it at the new location. I seemed to always be traveling between two worlds (a one hour trip one way), trying to get everything set up at one site while trying to maintain the other. I started to feel like Bilbo Baggins from the Lord of the Rings when he said, "I feel like butter that's been scraped over too much bread." I was doing much of this by myself, because Carl was in Argentina during most of this time period.

In Hempstead, we had four - 30' x 100' production greenhouses, ¾ filled with plants. We still had many, many plants to be moved. So, in August, I felt I had to get the process going, and the actual move of the nursery's plants to their new home began in earnest. At first, I would take weekly and bi-weekly trips up to Giddings using my Toyota Tacoma and a 16' flatbed trailer. Once in Giddings, I placed plants temporarily in and amongst the various sheds and structures that were on the property, because the new greenhouses were still under construction. First moved were the tough plants, like rain lilies and succulents that could survive several days without being watered or needing much care.
The move was progressing steadily until September, when the gas prices began spiking to almost $4.00 a gallon. Because of the expense, I went into survival mode, making only one trip a week while the prices were so high. Then, as suddenly as the gas prices spiked, they fell. By now, the greenhouses were nearing completion and summer temperatures began to abate, so it was back to moving several loads a week of plants and supplies.

By the time Carl returned from Argentina in December 2008, I had 90% of the production stock moved. Carl's return pushed the move into hyper-drive, initiating the final phase of the longest move in history (or at least it felt like it to me), with the move ending in late January 2009. Now, I could go on to discuss the hassles of renovating and converting an existing structure into an office building, finding out what internet services were available in a rural area, and so on, but the point to be made is that the move had been completed.

The move is complete! Yes, to repeat, the move is now complete! I just love to say that.

Yucca Do, Version Two

The new location is not completely set up and there is still a lot of organization needed before everything runs optimally, but we are shipping again and trying to get back into full working mode. During the move, propagation of new plant material was just not possible, and collection trips were put on hold, so we do not have as many new items to list this year. This will improve. We have many seedling flats of great things growing, and Carl and I plan to resume collection trips to find new and wonderful things.

Before and during the move, I received many comments from folks, such as "You're going to move the nursery? That's a lot of work you know. Why would you do such a thing?" I don't have the most rational explanation for it, and you can call me craz or foolish, but there are points in one's life when you have to make a change. You just can't sit back and accept things as they are and live a less than optimal existence. You have to move on. Sometimes a move—or a journey—requires doing things that are not easy or what necessarily makes sense to others. But rest assured, I won't be moving a nursery again anytime soon, at least I hope not. And Yucca Do is in its new home; ready to provide you with the most interesting and unusual plants we can find.

Wade Roitsch,
Yucca Do Nursery Manager