El Prado Gardens takes seed, blooms in Taos
El Prado Gardens takes seed, blooms in Taos J annet Enright arrived in Taos in 1989 with a 4-year-old in tow and 15 years experience in “plantscaping,” having designed thousands of atri­ums for corporations such as McDonald’s and IBM prior to her move from Denver, and having grown everything from flowers, to vegetable starts and ornamentals.

Once here, however, she ran into the proverbial Taos tight-money syndrome, and needed to find a way to sta­bility — quick. So she worked her way around every nursery in town, including Wal-Mart, to make ends meet.

“Then, while I was work­ing in Embudo, a young man ‘dropped’ in. He recognized me from Denver. He was now a grower in the Albuquerque­Belén area. When I found myself unemployed a few years later, he suggested I open a seasonal yard of flow­ers. He lent me a tent and supplied the flowers.”

And the rest, as they say, is history. Soon Enright needed a location for her business. “Julian and Julia Romero went to bat for me with the town. No one had ever done what I wanted to do and Taos codes were not very well defined in the early ’90s, so we had a lot to sort out. The town agreed with my plan, and Tent-o-Flowers was born.”

The next year, with a scrap greenhouse frame and the help of friends, Enright built her first greenhouse.

That meant staying open year-round to sell ristras, Christmas trees, houseplants, potting soils, pottery and monuments … and ultimately the birth of El Prado Gardens.

Once El Prado Gardens became a reality, Enright was free to pursue her “true passion” of xersic garden­ing. “No one had even heard of the term,” she says. “The word and concept were coined by the Denver Water Department (where they’ve) lived with water restrictions since World War II and the huge popula­tion boom.”

Sound familiar? In New Mexico we face the same ongoing challenges, and horticul­tural methods can effectively address those challenges.

“We experi­mented with drought­tolerant plants and trees. In fact, xeriscape is defined as, ‘water conservation through creative landscaping’ — not quite zeroscape, such as cacti, rocks, etc. We just plant with the annual moisture as (our) guide.” At El Prado Gardens, you may go in for a plant, but you’ll come out with an education — “like it or not,” Enright says about our precious resources.

Included in every sale is Enright’s take on the non-use of pesticides and herbicides, for example. “In all these years … we’ve never once eradicated a bad weed or bug … we just make them stronger, and kill the friendly ones.”

But Enright’s work his­tory is only a fraction of this woman’s cameo because not only does she boast about her hor­ticultural “family”, but on her human extended family as well. “I thank the wonderful people of Taos for that … I have redefined my own expectations of what a good life is all about.”

Enright’s supporters agree and the specifics are, frankly, awesome. One of Enright’s “causes,” she says, is hiring “at-risk children and adults to work at El Prado Gardens.

It’s amazing how many U.S.

citizens have nothing … no family, no identity, no hope — nothing — runaways who have never had a social security number or birth cer­tificate, (let alone) a phone, a street address, clothes, daycare, food, or respect. I now have wonderful people helping (to get) them their identities and evaluate them for their GEDs.”

It’s Enright’s goal to help these people “speak and be heard,” and for that we applaud her efforts.

Even Taos High kids get in the act, along with Enright’s own grandchil­dren. “You may be surprised when you come to shop,” she says. “We truly have a family here … and by the way, we could always use more help in our cause.”

“My advice to future busi­ness owners is to hang tough and enjoy the beauty and people of our town — the hardest working and most loving people I have ever met. Think clearly — not about a business plan, but about a life plan — that’s what it’s all about. Because at the end of the day, I feel so lucky for what I have.”

And with Jan Enright in town, so can we.

Heidi Connolly and Christopher Madrid write exclusively to create aware­ness of the critical role entre­preneurship plays in our community. To learn about the many services available to businesses and start-ups or to make suggestions, contact the Taos Chamber of Commerce at (575) 751-8800.

INNOVATORS & ENTREPRENEURS

HEIDI CONNOLLY AND

CHRISTOPHER MADRID

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