|
LOGEE'S HISTORY (continued)
Joy Logee Martin had two sons, Geoffrey K. Martin and Byron E. Martin. Geoffrey became a physicist and a university professor. His first wife, Tovah Martin is part of the Logee history and worked and trained at Logee’s during the early part of her career. Today she is a well-known horticultural author and garden editor. Geoffrey presently is the Assistant Dean of the Math and Science Dept. at the University of Toledo, married to Shamita with their three children, Neera, Tvisha and Aiden.
Byron Martin remained at Logee’s. In his early twenties he decided to turn Logee’s Greenhouses into a place where not only customers could visit, but a place that could provide unusual tropical flowering and fragrant plants. The one criteria that was important to Byron was that whatever plant he brought into the Logee’s collection had to perform well in a pot. Today, Byron is instrumental in finding new plant materials.
Byron decided if he were going to dedicate his life to the family business he needed to bring the place into some semblance of order. One afternoon, he took his chain saw into the retail greenhouse, named the Big House, and cut down everything that was unruly, vining into walkways, and overgrown; pruning at its best!
As the business grew, Byron built more greenhouses and built two propagation houses. The energy crisis hit in the 70’s and heating old glass greenhouses took its toll. Byron decided to heat the entire range of greenhouses with cord wood one season. After harvesting his own wood and burning over 50 cords, he opted to build a passive solar greenhouse to capture nature’s energy as well as a herb pit, which was built half-way underground.
In the 90’s Bryon married Laurelynn Glass Martin. Although, today Byron and Laurelynn are no longer married, they are the best of friends and share ownership in Logee’s and co-parent their two children, Elijah and Angel Martin.
Laurelynn came from a business and writing background and was instrumental in re-branding Logee’s, finding the right people for the right job in their growing company. She and Byron changed the name of Logee’s Tropical Plants to Tropical Container Plants for Home and Garden. She does much of the writing, photography, and media relations. Most recently they wrote a federal grant for a new state of the art 4 bay gutter connected production greenhouse. Byron and Laurelynn have also co-authored, Logee’s Spectacular Container Plants and recently released (Oct. 2010) Growing Tasty Tropicals in Any Home, Anywhere, a book about growing small tropical fruit trees in containers.
Visit the link below to meet our team:
|
