For more than 40 years, a local couple have been selling a wide variety of plants alongside offering plenty of wisdom and tips to grow them. 

Now, their Kennewick plant shop Flower Farm will be replaced by a gas station, causing uncertainty about the future of their business. 

Tom and Gayle Kay started the Flower Farm in 1984 in Pasco before relocating to their present location in Kennewick a few years later. They’ve leased the land for their business at 311 S. Columbia Center Blvd. since they didn’t have the money for a down payment when they first set up shop or later down the line.

Tom Kay said it’s been “by the grace of God” that they’ve been able to stay at 311 S. Columbia Center Blvd., Kennewick, pay taxes and send their kids to college.

The 2.04-acre property has been owned by Goodwill Industries of the Columbia since 2018, according to property records.

The Kays got notice in November that their lease would be ending. They said they were frustrated, disappointed and caught by surprise.

Goodwill CEO Jeffrey Maddison said both Goodwill and the land buyer took the Kays’ concerns into consideration, noting that the deal was initially scheduled to close in mid-April. Maddison said Tom Kay reached out to Goodwill asking for more time to sell off their inventory, until about mid-June. 

Both Goodwill and the buyer agreed to postpone the closing date until the end of June to accommodate that need. 

“Tom was a good tenant,” Maddison told the Tri-Cities Area Journal of Business. “We wanted to make sure ... that he was able to get through the season. We felt like we did the right thing by accommodating that.”

Maddison said Flower Farm had a month-to-month lease that was intended to continue until the Kays could buy the land or it was sold to someone else. 

The parcel leased to Flower Farm and the one home to the Kennewick Goodwill store next door to the nursery were bought together. The Flower Farm parcel was peeled off and Goodwill had listed it for eight years.

Maddison said it was surprising that the land didn’t sell even sooner.

That area of Columbia Center Boulevard is continuing to grow, with the Resort at Hansen Park developing at the south end of the street and Vista Field and the Three Rivers Convention Center revamp and hotel underway to the north. 

Documents filed through the State Environmental Policy Act show that a Friends Corner gas station with five fuel pumps will be built on the property. 

An 8,500-square-foot retail building is planned and will include a 5,500-square-foot convenience store with a drive-thru and two additional tenant spaces. 

The Kays will have to be out of their location by early June. They’re currently selling houseplants with heavy discounts and trying to get rid of all of their stock. 

The whole situation took the Kays by surprise, they said, and although they hadn’t been planning to retire just yet, they haven’t decided what to do about their business or if they’re going to try to relocate it. 

“We’re really going to miss our customers, but I’m hoping we can come up with another situation,” Tom Kay said.  

Seeds of success

Houseplants were rising in popularity when Tom Kay moved to the Tri-Cities, where he met an “incredible lass” who was just as interested as he was in the plants. They decided to launch their own business. 

So, they began with houseplants and then moved on to shrubs. 

Gayle Kay is from the Tri-Cities and Tom Kay from a farming family in Colorado.

One year around Christmas, a grower gave them several Christmas trees for half price. They decided to display them in the then-empty parking lot off of Columbia Center Boulevard in Kennewick. The venture was successful, and the couple thought it would be a great place for a store.

They did the work themselves, flattening the land, putting in greenhouses and water, sewer and electrical. That was 36 years ago. 

During the economic crisis in 2007-8, the Kays had to make some adjustments and they closed their Pasco location, putting all their efforts into the Kennewick shop. 

Love of growing

Tom Kay said he enjoys nursing the plants and watching them grow and change.

Their store covers a whole range of plants, from garden flowers to vegetables and more. They have perennials, “they come back every year,” Tom Kay said, and annuals – which means “you come back every year,” he joked.

They purchase plants in small plugs of dirt from propagators, which they have to start growing around Christmas to be ready to sell in May. 

Some perennials take between three and four years to get up to gallon size. Those may be more expensive in the store, but that’s because the Kays have been growing them to a size that consumers are looking for.

Rather than selling as many varieties of plants as customers might find in a catalogue, the Kays curate their collection, focusing instead on, say, the most popular tomato varieties for this area. 

Reaping rewards

For the Kays, their customer base is really important. Making them happy is the “most important thing you try to achieve,” Tom Kay said. There’s plenty of competition, and the Kays try to stay competitive with prices, but the Flower Farm also offers something that most big box stores don’t: knowledge. 

Tom Kay said that they know how to grow the plants, what the problems are and how to solve them. Even if customers are having a problem with a plant they bought elsewhere, the Kays are happy to talk to them and solve their problems – often gaining them a new customer along the way. 

Tom Kay loves that aspect of simply teaching and passing along information they’ve learned over the years.

The couple have also done a call-in radio show on KFLD 870-AM for 30 years, once a week on Saturday mornings, to share their knowledge.

“I enjoy the customers, I enjoy the questions,” Tom Kay said. “He enjoys talking,” his wife playfully added. One of her favorite parts of running the Flower Farm is talking to customers who are just getting into houseplants for the first time. 

Next chapter

Whatever happens next, the Kays’ time running the Flower Farm has been a rewarding experience.

“Look where I get to work every day!” Tom Kay said, gesturing to the plants around him. The greenhouse space is more functional than glamorous, trapping warm, humid air inside on a breezy afternoon, but it’s brim-full of flowers and greenery, lending a cozy atmosphere to the space.

“That doesn’t have any ‘cha-ching’ value. We work in a beautiful environment, and we get to make other people’s environments beautiful in the same way,” he said.