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There's one thing that can-tK said about thc retail nursery business in New Orleans-it' all in the family. Just ask the Bantings, the Charvets, the DeBattistas, the Perinos or the Talens.
With a collective 205 years of experience, the five family businesses dominate the local retail nursery market, with second-and third-generation family members now operating some of the oldest and largest of the city's three dozen or so nurseries.
Ivy Schlegel, for example, can remember helping out at Banting Nursery Farms Inc. from the time she was 6 years old. Schlegel, whose parents Cyril and Irene Banting started the business 33 years ago on a half-acre of land Bridge City, now handles the day-to-day affairs of the nursery with two older sisters. Banting's is currentiy situated on 3.5 acres, which the family owns at 3425 River Road. In addition, the Bantings lease another 12 acres where they grow 40 percent of their plants.
The nursery business tends to peak during the spring season, Schlegel and other nursery owners say, but when you add in Christmas items--trees, holly and poinsettas--along with landscaping services, most nurseries manage to do a decent business year-round. Most agree, however, that 1993 got off to a less-than-promising start.
The weather plays a big part in people's planting fever, and as Schlegel sums up the situation, "The weather this year has been so lousy. It rained almost every weekend in March."
Mike Talen, third-generation family member of Talen's Nursery Inc., agrees with Schlegel. "The weather has been atrocious this year," he says. Not only has the weather caused a reduction in sales, but one...