Christan and Tony Krajeck are in their first season of running the Dancing Daisy Greenhouse on Highway 75 north of Georgetown. (Photos/Nancy Hanson.)

Tony Krajeck is the Dancing Daisy Greenhouse’s “Mr. Fix-It.”Nancy Edmonds Hanson

Growing up 100 miles from Moorhead, Christan Krajeck says she “wasn’t all about gardening.”
“We farmed. We raised hogs. Gardening was just about pulling the weeds,” the Cogswell, North Dakota, native recalls. “But after Tony and I got married, I had a dream – to someday have a greenhouse of my own.”
That day has come. This month, the Krajecks opened the doors to the Dancing Daisy Greenhouse. After purchasing the former Janie Marie’s Greenhouse just north of Georgetown, the couple rechristened it and took over its operation from Jane Hulteng-Mattheis, who operated it for nearly 30 years. Now the rural plant place, with its greenhouses crowded with seedlings and blossoms, has enabled Christan to bring her vision to life.
That dream has had its challenges. Only recently have their thousands of infant plants moved from plant lights and shelving in their home – half of the living room, the kitchen, the sunroom, the entire porch – to the three greenhouses that greet visitors on their grounds 18 miles north of Moorhead on Highway 75.
“I get up at 4 a.m. to water before going to work,” the still-enthusiastic entrepreneur reports. “Now I’m glad to see the flowers, veggies and herbs walking out with every customer.” Sales are good, she explains, but their departure represents one more benefit: Fewer left to be watered the next morning.
Meanwhile, husband Tony’s home life consists of being Mr. Fix-It, he says, repairing the covering of the greenhouses blown open by recent winds and standing by to repair, rebuild or replace whatever needs attention.
For both, their new business has at least doubled their working hours. Christan continues to work in Fargo four days a week as office administrator at Nexus PATH, which offers foster care, residential treatment and mental health services, and as the billing specialist with Better Days Therapy and Wellness. Tony is a team leader and industrial maintenance technician with Cardinal IG.
But they have no complaints. “We had a big corner lot in West Fargo,” Christan reports. “I had dabbled with starting vegetables and herbs indoors under grow lights. We started with an in-ground bed, before moving up to a few wooden raised garden beds in the yard. That grew to 10 of them, plus half a dozen metal beds. By the time we heard that Janie was getting ready to sell, I knew we really needed our own greenhouse.”
Hulting-Matthies helped the couple get off the ground: “She knows more about plants than I ever will,” Christan observes. That included closing for the winter and planning for their first season of sales with orders for seeds and plugs. They began to arrive in February and March … and the Dancing Daisy was on the grow.
Getting the greenhouses ready for customers was the next big challenge. “We wouldn’t have been able to do it all without our parents and our neighbor, Michele Cox,” Christan notes. Her parents, Rita and Elden Linderkamp, traveled from Cogswell to help out, along with Tony’s folks, Jane and Chris Krajeck of Horace. Neighbor Michele put in many hours, too, designing the multi-floral pots and transferring tens of thousands of plugs and seedlings from seed-starting trays to individual pots.
On the very first day the Dancing Daisy was open for business May 1, the Krajecks had no customers at all. Flower fans began arriving Friday, however, with the pace picking up day by day. As Mother’s Day approaches, they hope that trickle turns into a flood.
A major challenge for the fledgling business is the lengthy Highway 75 detour faced by shoppers approaching Georgetown from the north. Highway 75 is closed for completion of flood control measures on the south side of Perley. Fortunately, the detour starts on the north side of the greenhouse location, leaving the 20-minute drive from Moorhead unimpeded.
Of the 50 species of flowers, 13 vegetables and fruits, 14 herbs and seven ornamental grasses on the Krajecks’ benches (not counting countless varieties of each), Christan admits herbs are her favorites – mints, lemon balm, basil She’s also partial to her osteospermums, small, brightly colored relatives of daisies. For Tony, the clear winners are the entire spectrum of coleus, from deep green and yellow-green to copper and dark red, along with fragrant white, pink and purple sweet alyssum.
The roster of plants available at the Dancing Daisy is available online at www.theDancingDaisyGreenhouse.com, along with directions for navigating the detour and a contact form for checking the availability of specific cultivars. Hours are from 6 to 8 p.m. Monday through Thursday; from noon to 8 p.m. On Friday and Sunday; and from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday.