Story and photos by Susan Chambers, Staff Writer

OQUILLE - The Copper Goose Nursery is growing.

Instead of one greenhouse, Mary Torres has two. Big ones. Full of hanging flower baskets and the floor covered with seedlings and young plants.

She started by supplying only one city - Coquille - with dozens of flower baskets. Now her clients now include several cities from Gold Beach to Roseburg, a few businesses and many individuals.

That's all without opening her greenhouses to the public.

But that's next.

Torres closed her florist shop in Coquille a few years ago but couldn't keep her hands out of the dirt. It's second nature for her.

“I'm the one who spent her babysitting money on flower seeds,” Torres said with a laugh, easily working another plant into the dirt in a large hanging basket.

Torres makes two sizes of baskets: a large one that has 45 plants or more, weighs between 80 and 100 pounds and takes two men to hang, and a smaller one that has about half the number of plants and more suited to residences. Both are made using burlap placed in a wire basket; soil and fertilizer are placed in the basket well. Holes are cut in the burlap through which Torres pokes the roots of young plants, one layer at a time.

Patiently and intently, Torres cuts another hole, grabs another plant, then tucks its roots in fresh soil and fertilizer. Cut and plant, cut and plant. Cover with dirt. Go on to the next layer.

It's not long before the young plants, offset around the basket, give the conical tub shape and color. The plants are green now. Within a couple weeks, blossoms of pinks, purples, blues, reds, magentas, whites, oranges and yellows will explode into a fireworks display of blooms.

There's a method to Torres' design.

“If one of them succumbs” - to wind, for example - “there's more to take their place,” she said of the many individual plants that cascade down around the basket. “You'll never know.”

Though Torres no longer maintains or supplies Coquille with hanging flowers, her imprint still is visible. Her blooms are in front of Figaro's Pizza, in baskets and planters. Soon, they'll be at the headquarters for Oregon First Credit Union, just in time for summer.

Requests for seasonal baskets keeps her busy throughout the year planting, growing, changing, delivering, maintaining. Some entities will water and maintain the plants. Others, she said, prefer Torres' expert touch. Coos Bay, for example, is used to the maintenance and works with Torres to identify specific flowers' needs. The city prefers baskets with flowers used to thriving in sunny areas. Impatiens is a favorite basket ingredient.

The Mill Casino-Hotel, on the other hand, looks for baskets with flowers designed to prosper in the shade.

Then there are the individuals.

“Some people come and pot their own,” Torres said. She shakes her head slightly, noting that sometimes people make choices of plants that may be either difficult to maintain, don't grow well in certain areas or don't mix-and-match well.

For instance, she said, pointing out an arrangement full of plum-colored million belles, lavender verbena and opal innocence nemesia. It's this year's hottest arrangement, according to trade and popular gardening magazines.

But Torres just doesn't see it.

True, many folks are drawn to the bold purples and pinks, but Torres said oftentimes arrangements need something else, something bright. Baskets above eye level and full of dark or everyday colors may not get noticed.

“I add some yellow,” she said, “so it draws your eyes up.”

Few boxes of slug and snail bait are visible among the many plants on the floor in the one greenhouse. Torres concentrates on using organic methods of pest control, she said.

She also prefers organic fertilizer to make her plants and flowers flourish.

Bone meal.

Crab meal.

Commercial timed-release fertilizer.

The greenhouses at the Copper Goose Nursery, on Highway 42 South, are situated just down the hill from the Torres' dairy farm.

What about using cow manure for fertilizer?

“Of course,” Torres said with a hearty laugh. “We'd be crazy not to.”

It's not unusual to find her watering, planting and working in her greenhouses from dawn to dusk, especially between January and June.

This month, she's also opening the greenhouses to the public between Fridays and Mondays. Gardeners can come in, purchase plants, do their own potting or make their own hanging baskets. The only thing Torres asks is that customers call first, if they want to pot their own arrangements, so she can have enough soil on hand.

Torres hopes customers will enjoy the hunt for new plants and flowers as much as she enjoys making arrangements. She said her efforts really don't seem like work.

“It isn't, if you like it,” she said. “Everybody needs to do something they like.”

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The Copper Garden Nursery is located at 95115 state Highway 42 South, 3.6 miles out of Coquille after turning onto the highway. For more information, those interested can call Mary Torres at 396-5988.