There was a time when Sheree Wanner didn’t know if she could keep going.

In the early years, after purchasing a failing garden center that was, at that time, two miles south of Montrose city limits, she had her doubts, and so did most of the community.

“Everyone said, ‘What are you thinking?’ No one will ever drive all the way down there,” Wanner told the Business Times this week.

That was 1994. Thirty years later, the business is thriving with a can-do-it attitude, a little innovation and a great customer base.

Wanner smiles looking at the annuals that have begun to bloom, remembering what it was like at the beginning, and she smiles even wider when she talks about Camelot Gardens as it is today.

“It was run down, and it was a failing business at the time,” she said of the business before she and her then-husband bought it. (Wanner has owned it by herself for 21 years.) “We just started in. We had no idea what we were doing really. But you go to enough classes and workshops, you talk to enough people, you network. You figure out what works, and then, of course, as the years have gone by, we have evolved.”

Inside Camelot Gardens right now, customers can see some 1,100 hanging plants. That’s just the hanging plants.

Besides the volume, Camelot Gardens also focuses on trying to be different.

When Wanner first got into the business, she was the only show in town, and the only business on that side of town. As she puts it, there were fields to the left and to the right, as well as across the street from her 16612 S. Townsend location.

Today, the south end of town has commerce that’s seemingly endless compared to the business Montrose folks were used to seeing in 1994.

Some years later came Walmart and their garden center. They were certain they were going to put Camelot Gardens out of business. And if that wasn’t bad enough, some years after that came Home Depot and its garden center.

She also had to deal with snakes and rodents — giant rats, she says, that were the result of being located next to a junk car dealer nearby at the time.

Those were just some of the challenges, but Wanner was determined to stay afloat.

“We try to be different and higher end. They do what they do well, and then for those people who want quality and selection, that’s what we tried to offer,” she said.

The formula has worked, and today, her business is thriving.

“It’s been an amazing business. I never thought that I would do this,” Wanner said. “One of the things I truly love about this is it’s a happy business. People come in here, and they’re glad to be here. And we help them, and they go home and have success in their outdoor living, or their indoor plants. It’s not like going to the dentist or the doctor. It’s just someplace that’s really fun to go to.”

But it’s not just the fact that it’s a happy business that people keep coming back. Wanner and her staff, including general manager Trina Donahue, who has been there for some 27 years, care about their customers.

“There’s a couple dozen people who come in with a baggie full of leave, and they’ll say, ‘what’s going on?’ Or they bring us pictures of their trees outside. And we help them diagnose things,” Wanner said.

But she is glad for those customers.

“We have a whole new generation starting to come in,” she said. “A lot of younger people. In 30 years, our people who were 70 years old 30 years ago are no longer here, and so we’re constantly cultivating new customers and we have great this is Montrose is an amazing community.”

In January and March, people go into the garden center just to get a smell of dirt, Wanner said. Or, they go in to see the shop dog, a 4-year-old goldendoodle named Daisy.

“I think that my success comes in the fact that I am so totally blessed with our customers and my team here,” she said. “ And we set in an incredible location.”

Currently, they are starting with annuals in hanging baskets. Monday, they plan to start putting all the perennials out, and they should have more trees by next week.

“We’re getting to the point where people can start shopping and start planting in their yard,” Wanner said.

She doesn’t have a celebration yet planned for her 30 years in business, but Wanner said something may happen closer to summertime.

Camelot Gardens is currently open seven days a week, with shortened hours on Sunday.

They invite people to stop by and check out their selections.

Justin Tubbs is the Montrose Business Times editor. He can be reached by email at justin@montrosebusinesstimes.com or by phone at 970-765-0915 or mobile at 254-246-2260.