A visitor to Bayview Corner on Whidbey Island can tour the extensive nursery at Bayview Garden, shop for a range of items at the beautiful garden and gift shop and also enjoy an espresso, pastries, or breakfast or lunch items at the Flower House Café. This Bayview business was created by Maureen Murphy, who came to Whidbey Island 40 years ago.
Since that time Maureen has followed her family’s horticulture interests and created an extensive garden center. She has a deep love of nature and studied under Dan Hinkley in the horticultural department of Edmonds Community College before starting Bayview Garden on Whidbey.
Maureen’s love of nature, gardening and landscaping, combined with her family background of greenhouse manufacturing, lead to the creation of a wholesale growing business in the early 1980’s. While raising her family, she grew plants on her island property for mainland garden centers such as Swanson’s, Sky Nursery and Wight’s. The desire to make a living on Whidbey and support the family without needing to commute became a driving force in her business venture.
In 1993, after making the decision to “go retail” and searching for just the right location, Bill Lanning of Bill’s Feed and Tack offered to rent her the hayfield behind the old feed store. Greenhouses designed by her father and manufactured by her family’s business were set up, and the doors opened to the public on March 1st, 1993. Over the years, through hard work and loans she was eventually able to buy the property and develop her vision for the extensive community centered business she operates today.
In 1993, the year Maureen broke ground for her retail garden center, she and her mother took a trip together to England with the Professional Plant Growers Association. While there she was fortunate enough to tour some of the best wholesale growers and retail nurseries in the world. Also on this same tour were Egon and Laina Molbak, who were friends to Maureen’s parents as colleagues in the same industry. Maureen was very inspired by these two horticultural pioneers and spent much of the trip learning from them, exploring the English garden centers and public gardens with them, and hearing about their journey from a small roadside plant stand to the iconic Pacific Northwest retail garden center they are today.
In the ensuing years, Maureen made several trips to England, studying the retail garden centers. She was interested in how they displayed their plants, the signage, the flow, the ambiance, and the fact that the best ones had cafes as part of the experience. She was also inspired by the vast selection of unique perennials available that were not seen in the US, and brought back several plants to introduce to the region and propagate for sale at her growing facility. This trip and several other trips to England over the years provided much of the inspiration behind what she has created.
Another big influence for Maureen was her travels throughout China, especially a trek into the Yunnan Province in southwest China. Northwest Yunnan is one of the richest temperate regions in the world for biodiversity. Traveling up Mt. Yulan, Maureen saw vast species of rhododendrons, magnolias, and numerous perennial species in their native habitat, many of which are cultivated in the US for the garden center market.
Maureen notes that most people don’t know that the majority of the rhododendrons that we grow in our gardens here on Whidbey originally came from this part of China and were part of the rich plant genera collected by the intrepid botanists and plant explorers from England, Holland, Germany, the US, etc., since the 1700’s. There are only five species of rhododendron native to the Pacific Northwest.
In 2013, Maureen opened the Flower House Café, as part of the garden center. The café has a full espresso bar, baked goods, and a wonderful seasonal breakfast and lunch menu offering.
She believes that one of the major draws of her business is that it offers an experience of love and community, and is a family operation. She gives credit to her two adult children, Sam and Nekoda, and her son-in-law, Manuel, who run the company with her, as well as the excellent staff of approximately 50 employees. Nekoda is a pastry chef and manages the café and the gift department. Manuel runs the kitchen and is the principle and extraordinary cook. Sam is a buyer and the retail manager.
As the largest garden center on Whidbey, Bayview Garden draws lots of local gardeners, plant lovers, and tourists who love walking through the garden, picking up gifts in the shop, and finding delicious refreshments in the cafe.
Maureen’s vision can be seen in the excellence of the items that are sold and in the carefully selected, well-grown, and locally sourced plants. Bayview Garden has received numerous awards and has been designated in the top 100 garden centers in America by Garden Center magazine. Whidbey Island has a jewel in its midst. Happy 30th Anniversary to Bayview Garden!
Bayview Garden, at 2780 Marshview Ave. in Langley, is open every day from 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.; phone, 360-321-6789. Visit her website here. The Flower House Café is open every day from 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.; phone 360-321-7140.
