Growing Native: Pleasant Avenue Nursery
Articles - Business Feature

PANfamilyby: Dustin Heron Urban

South Main’s beautiful street trees are alive and well. This is by no means a given. Actually it is thanks to decades of study and effort from the Ludwig family, owners of Pleasant Avenue Nursery of Buena Vista. For nearly 30 years Gary Ludwig has been perfecting the art of growing trees, shrubs and perennials native to Colorado’s high elevations. It has therefore been an easy decision for South Main to turn to Gary for all of our landscapingPANentry projects.

When it came time to choose South Main’s numerous street trees, Gary was ready with three varieties native to the area. With the exception of Buzz Boulevard, South Main’s street trees alternate between Green Ash and Lanceleaf Poplar. Planting two varieties ensures that if disease were to strike, only half of South Main’s street trees would perish. For Buzzpleasantave.potteds Boulevard, meanwhile, Gary selected a strain of Plains Cottonwood cultivated from cuttings from the majestic cottonwoods located in the Forest Square Park adjacent to the Chamber of Commerce. No other Plains Cottonwood strains were surviving Buena Vista’s harsh winters, but trees of this line have grown vigorously and will, in years to come, shade Buzz Boulevard with their soaring limbs.    

The Pleasant Avenue Nursery story begins not in Buena Vista, however, but at the uppermost headwaters of the Arkansas River—at the Climax Mine. As the mine’s manager, Jim Ludwig determined in the late 1960s that better reclamation efforts were needed to mitigate the mine’s environmental impact. So he decided to hire an environmental engineer—a move unheard of at the time—in an effort to revegetate and restore land disturbed by the Climax operation. Jim quickly discovered, however, that growers of plants native to Colorado’s high elevations were about as common at the time as environmental engineers in the mining industry.

And so the seed of the Pleasant Avenue vision was planted in Jim Ludwig’s mind. If he couldn’t find native plants to purchase, he would grow them himself. In 1972 he bought a plot of land with good water and arable soil at the south end of Pleasant Avenue in Buena Vista. The requirements of his mining job prevented him from starting the new business on his own, and he hoped that one of his children would feel compelled to take it on.

Young Gary Ludwig, meanwhile, was less interested in college than he was in a new car. His new car phase ended abruptly, however, when an auto accident destroyed his vehicle and broke his back. It speaks volumes of Gary that he considers the accident “lucky.” “If I hadn’t gotten in that accident, I may not have gone to college.” He capitalized on his new circumstance by working to save his own money for school.

In 1978 Gary attended the Community college of Denver and in two years had an Associate’s Degree in Nursery and Landscape Management. While he detested high school, Gary found that he was a natural in the field. “When I went to horticultural classes, it was all so simple,” he told me.

Back in Buena Vista Gary went to work starting the new business. His dad invested in the venture while he ran the operation. Jim retired from the mining industry in 1982 to join his son in the new business. Pleasant Avenue Nursery was one grand experiment from the start. Gary’s academic training was helpful but applied more to the plants and conditions of the lower-elevation Front Range. There was minimal literature on cultivation techniques for plants native to the region, and in most cases Gary and his father had to discover by trial and error the best cultivation methods for a given species. Their nursery became a laboratory for such efforts, and the many hardy trees, shrubs and perennials now available at Pleasant Avenue Nursery are the product of such efforts.

Today you can purchase at the Nursery a hearty Dogwood strain originating from Poncha Pass, Narrowleaf Cottonwoods from cuttings in Twin Lakes, and, of course, Plains Cottonwoods cloned from trees in Forest Square Park. Gary and his family also have available a wide variety of annual flowers and vegetable starts which have come in handy for my household’s backyard gardening efforts. Pleasant Avenue’s original mission was to provide plants for the mining industry, but Gary and his wife Mary love serving the local retail market in the Arkansas Valley. “I’ve always enjoyed working with local retail customers and helping them learn,” Gary told me. My wife Katie and I never hesitate to give Pleasant Avenue a call when the challenges of growing in the high mountains have us stumped. We in the Arkansas Valley are truly fortunate to have such a wonderful family to supply us not only with beautiful native plants, but also with the knowledge to cultivate them successfully. For more information you can visit the Pleasant Avenue Nursery website at www.pleasantavenuenursery.com or stop by at 506 South Pleasant Avenue in Buena Vista.

Photos by Dustin Heron Urban


Each month South Main sends out an eUpdate which features new articles for and about the local Buena Vista community. To subscribe, please visit our contact us page.