Got a gardening question?

Garden guru Mark Springer has been solving our lawn, garden and landscaping problems for years now. Watch people follow him around at Lavalette any day, each with, "Just one more thing, Mark...."

And now you can reach Mark online too. Simply write a message to mdeespring@aol.com and bring Mark to your mailbox! Just click the link above or the button at the right.

Mark was born to this business, you know, growing up in Lavalette, W.Va., on the family's farm. He began working for Lavalette Nursery at age 13. "My primary duties were hoeing weeds and cultivating around the field-grown nursery plants on 17 acres," he says. "This was before the era of modem non-selective weed killers, so most of the work of weeding was done by hand and tractor."

Mark graduated from Buffalo High School in Wayne County sometime during the Nixon years, working summers and weekends at the nursery and in the garden center.

"I began to understand plants and the business more and more, but I still wasn't sure about what career path to take. I attended Marshall University for two years, taking assorted classes with no particular destination in mind. I got bored, wanted more money, sat out a semester and worked full time at the garden center.

"I thought it might be a good idea to get a college degree, so I enrolled at West Virginia University in landscape architecture. I graduated from WVU with a degree in landscape architecture and thought I might try to get a position with a landscape architecture firm doing award-winning designs all across the country. Amazingly, none of the firms I contacted seemed to be in the market for a young graduate with no experience. So I brought my training back home. Working again at the garden center, I started going out and looking at sites to design and to install landscapes through the Tri-State Area. And I've been doing it ever since."

Mark also has been quite active with the state landscaping industry. He is the past president of the West Virginia Nursery and Landscape Association and currently is the organization's treasurer.

"Somewhere along the line," Mark adds, "I met my soul mate and we got married. My wife works full time and still has time to be an accomplished portrait painter." The Springers have one daughter who works part time in the family business and will soon be attending college and one younger son who will begin high school next year.

"The Tri-State Area has been good to me, my family and my business," Mark says. "We hope to be able to continue serving the area for many years to come."

Mark also is quite a fine writer and regularly shares his gardening thoughts right here in the Lavalette Nursery electronic magazines. For instance, read Mark's story about how he got started with water gardening!