Dec. 18, 2023

This paid piece is sponsored by Sioux Metro Growth Alliance.

The concept of Christmas in July takes on a whole new meaning inside a sprawling greenhouse on the edge of Lennox.

Midway through each calendar year marks the start of the growing season for the more than 700 poinsettias that bloom inside Flowers by Bob, a multigenerational family business that has found a home in the Lincoln County community for decades.

July 20, to be exact.

“There’s a lot of work in between July and now,” co-owner Cameron Kramer explains. “Every week, there’s a step.”

By mid-August, they count the leaves and use a surgical knife to cut each into the form of a plant. Then, “there’s fertilizing and spraying and other things involved to get them just right,” Kramer said. “Every week, we give them a calcium treatment on top of it.”

It’s hard to find another greenhouse in the Sioux Falls metro area that grows poinsettias at this scale – and that’s just one business line that has helped evolve this mom-and-pop shop into a regional provider of fresh-cut and homegrown flowers and plants.

“Flowers by Bob is the sort of under-the-radar success story we see across the Sioux Falls metro area,” said Tyler Tordsen, president and CEO of Sioux Metro Growth Alliance. “As they’ve grown, the availability of land, labor and community support has met their needs, and in return, their home community has benefited from an outstanding employer and destination business.”

Kramer’s parents, Bob and Patti, bought the business from another local florist in 1980. It then added a location in Beresford, where Patti still works full time in the store. Bob, now semi-retired, still helps out but was able to transition when his son entered the business.

“I did not think I would ever do this,” Kramer said. “I thought I would want to farm, and we did for a while – my grandparents owned a dairy for years – and they got out in 1995, and we tried it and got out and decided the flower shop was best for us.”

His wife, Ashley, is a co-owner and works full time in health care. Since 2016, the greenhouse has been located on Highway 17, a newer growth area for Lennox. In the past year, the business added 2,000 square feet onto the greenhouse for a total of 7,000 square feet.

“Lennox has always been a good town for us,” Kramer said. “We’re so close to Sioux Falls, yet far away to cover a lot of rural areas.” The business delivers to Sioux Falls daily but also out to Marion, Irene, Canton, Alcester and Vermilion.

“We do about 600 holiday spruce pots every year, plus this year we did just shy of 300 people who participated in a spruce pot class and made their own, so probably 900 pots went through our building,” Kramer said.

“Our poinsettias are distributed locally to churches, businesses in the Sioux Falls area; we wholesale to a few smaller flower shops and then out the front door and into homes.”

By this time of year, there are still some plants left – but not many.

“For Christmas, we have decor in the store, we sell a lot of Traeger Grills, and we do a lot of Christmas arrangements for tables, vases, just about anything you need for Christmas,” Kramer said.

There won’t be much time to rest after the holiday, either. Flowers by Bob delivers cut flowers seven days a week, and as soon as Valentine’s Day is over, it’s time to start growing geraniums for spring.

From the last weekend in April through mid-June, it’s all about cut flowers, bedding plants, perennials and green plants. A crop of fall mums is available every year.

“Lennox supports us very well,” Kramer said. “We have a huge selection for spring. May is our biggest month. But Christmas is big too.”

There’s still time to visit Flowers by Bob for the holiday season. Hours are 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. weekdays and 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday. In May, there are seasonal hours, and it’s open seven days a week.

For more about Flowers by Bob, click here.