W. C. Bradley Real Estate, LLC
Capri Medical Group
Growing Room Child Development Cntrs
Edible Arrangements
HoBart Builders, Inc.
Lane Dermatology & Dermatologic Surgery
Flooring & More Carpet One
Reynolds Bickerstaff/Waddell Realty Co.
Best Nursery and Outdoor Equipment
D. P. Jones Electrical Company
The Hughston Clinic
T&W Oil Company
Hudson Financial Group

BEST NURSERY AND OUTDOOR EQUIPMENT
9616 Fortson Rd. • Fortson • (706) 327-1515

Shopping at Best Nursery and Outdoor Equipment is like taking a step back in time. It’s a journey back to a more natural world when families owned businesses and greeted customers with a smile and good advice.

Bob and Diana Best still inhabit that world…seven acres of beauty at 9616 Fortson Road. Their business looks like a rustic summer camp with weathered buildings, babbling creeks and plants and flowers everywhere. They are making their world available to everyone.

Sowing the seeds
The seed was planted more than 30 years ago. Bob grew up on a farm and the soilwas in his blood. Dianawas a city girl from around Atlanta. They met while working at a Columbus nursery. Diana fell in lovewith horticulture and Bob, and that began the couple’s thriving nursery business.

Best Landscaping Company dates back to 1979, providing landscaping and maintenance for commercial and residential properties. Diana started propagating plants in the early ‘80s as away to work out of their home while raising a family. The couple founded Best Nursery as a propagating nursery using most of the acreage around their home to raise plants. When the rock quarry bought their property in 1994, the Bests found the perfect location for a retail nursery.

Cultivating the Business
Rather than use the modern looking house that was on the land, Bob antiqued the exterior to blend into nature. It was put to use as an office. Instead of constructing a store, he found an old building tomove to the site. He soon discovered that wooden, one-room structure was the old Fortson Road Public School, built in 1898. Now immaculately restored, the school house not only contains its original chalkboard, but also garden gifts and novelty items from birdhouses to jewelry.

Other old barns Bob brought to the nursery have become sheds for plants and places that shoppers can relax and enjoy tinkling wind chimes, a stream splashing against the rocks or a breeze rustling the second oldest Bradford Pear tree in Georgia. Everywhere are shrubs, flowering plants, trees, garden ornaments and pots artfully incorporated into the seven acres.

The newest addition the Best Nursery is the Garden and Outdoor Equipment Center. Housed in a new building, made to look old, it, too, blends into the bucolic setting. Inside are all kinds of lawn and garden equipment from powerful commercial mowers to hand tools. Exmark and Shindaiwa are among the brands sold. There is a wide variety of everything you need to bring your lawn and garden to life: tools, fertilizer, seeds, chemicals, soil, pine straw and plants. For the home farmer, raised bed kits and canning supplies are also available. Three trained mechanics are on staff to repair equipment.

In addition, there is the expertise to help you make your garden grow. Bob believes one of the reasons the nursery is special is that it is managed by women. Five trained horticulturists tend to the plants and the customers. Luester Walton is in charge and guides homeowners to the plants and equipment to fit their needs. She and the other horticulturists also help the landscaping side of the business with designs for commercial properties. Luester orders the plants, and Bob says she stays on top of what’s new and different from the truly unique to the tried and true. She and the other horticulturists will have the right answers to your questions, Bob says, or they will research it for you on the nursery’s computer system.

Reaping the Rewards
The Bests say, not only is the staff like family but their real family members also work in the business. Son Matthew runs the outdoor products center, and during the busy season he is joined by his wife and his sister, who operates dress stores in Athens and Augusta.

Although spring is the busiest season, Best Nursery is renowned for its fall celebration. In October, they bring in 100,000 pounds of pumpkins for the annual pumpkin patch. Amaze is built from pumpkins, and last year about 12,000 people meandered through the patch. They also offer hayrides and fun for the whole family—including the Bests.

Although Best Nursery is the family’s business, it is also their enjoyment. “You have to have a family feel,” Diana explained and Bob added, “We believe in open communication and happy customers.”

To see this story complete with photos, pick up the latest issue of Columbus and the Valley at a retail outlet near you, or click here to subscribe online so you’ll never miss a word.

Phone: 706-324-6214
E-mail: contactus@columbusandthevalley.com