The small Park Greenhouse Nursery located just outside of Ripon on West Ripon Road is getting ready for its annual rush for poinsettias for the Christmas season, selling both to local retail customers and to commercial accounts alike – nearly 100,000 plants are custom grown.

Retail supervisor Shelley Corona said they sell some 5,000 poinsettias out of their Ripon retail nursey and another 95,000 are shipped out to commercial stores including Raley’s Markets and K-Mart and to nurseries from Bakersfield to Reno, and the Bay Area in a variety of stunning colors from red and white to their Jingle Bells variety sprinkled in gold.

Corona said the ones they paint are most spectacular where the white variety is turned into multi-colors, blue, purple and gold.

“Last year Raley’s alone ordered 7,000 from us,” she said.

She said the specialty “Mumettes” are in high demand using an eight inch tub as a centerpiece with an outside ring of mums centered with a single poinsettia. Several small nurseries come and load up their orders – knowing that they have to pre-order to insure there are enough to choose from for their customers.

The Park’s supervisor said their poinsettias are grown on site at the West Ripon Road nursery which she said makes a big difference when the plants are presented to the public.

“Our customers have the option of colored foil wraps that cover the posts in festive green and gold,” she noted. “We also make them extra fancy – putting them in a florist quality basket presentation with a pretty bow at an extra charge,” she said.

The nursery starts their plants for the Christmas season as early as July, she noted, and sales of poinsettias begin the day after Thanksgiving. The nursery is open from 8:30 a.m. until 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday.