The legacy continues

Micah TribouPlumline Nursery in Murrysville, Pa., sits atop a high ridge, and travelers on Logan Ferry Road often stop at “Plumline’s Overlook” to scan the impressive view. This beautiful garden center exists thanks to hard work by the company’s founder, Bill Tribou.

Bill died recently, but his spirit is alive and well with his son, Micah Tribou. He’s part of the team preserving and growing this unique destination. Micah often calls upon lessons learned from his father as he continues the business:

“I learned about commitment,” he said. “Commitment to hard work—an incredible work ethic. Commitment to family. Commitment to honesty, even in business. Commitment to beautifying our little part of the world. Commitment to God. Commitment to the American Dream.”

GARDEN CENTER: Tell us about the Customer Appreciation Days you held in Bill’s memory.
MICAH TRIBOU: It was a wildly successful event. There was the smell of hamburgers grilling all day, free drinks, free sno-cones, a live band playing, fun games with great plant prizes, exciting seminars featuring local Emmy winner Doug Oster and a duck pond (with different discounts on the bottom of each duck). We also had free landscape “designs from photos” by our design staff. People had to stand in line and take numbers for this one.

We passed out free tote bags, seed packets and purple wristbands. The seeds were forget-me-not packets imprinted with “In memory of Bill Tribou.” The purple wristbands were like the yellow Livestrong ones and said “Bill Tribou: The Legend, Plumline Nursery.”

GC: I’m sure you wear many hats at the nursery. Is there a favorite among them?
MT: I’m not quite sure that I have a favorite. I love my job, and just about everything that I do is rewarding to me in some way. I do get extra satisfaction from growing plant material on site. It’s great to watch a tree or shrub we grew leave the yard in the back of someone’s pickup truck.

GC: On a typical day, what’s the first thing you do when you get to work?
MT: In the mornings I do a drive-around and look for potential problems and projects and make sure everything is ship-shape. I then run some numbers and check my e-mail. By that time employees are starting to show up and I can start my day.

GC: How did Plumline establish a reputation as the “Japanese maple capitol?”
MT: My dad planted a tiny, weeping cutleaf Japanese maple in the center of our tiny nursery in 1980—one year before I was born. That tree grew into a magnificent specimen.

As the years went by, dad grew to love all kinds of Japanese maples and planted over 60 in our small display garden. This magnificent garden now showcases big and beautiful Japanese maples—many, many varieties. What a show we get every fall when they turn color!

Anyway, our customers fell in love with those trees, and we began to sell all kinds. We have wonderful growers on the West Coast who keep us up-to-date on every kind of Japanese maple.

GC: What are your personal goals/plans for the nursery in coming years?
MT: My first priority is to continue to operate the nursery to the standards my father set years before. We have a lot planned for the future. We have plans to convert our in-ground production of trees to a pot-in-pot system. We also plan to expand our above-ground container growing to accommodate our sales. There are even a couple of top-secret projects that are in the early phases of development.