Red and yellow, orange and green, purple and black, white and striped, tiny and tremendous. We're talking tomatoes--150 different kinds are raised by Denise Smith, AG '79, at her nursery, GardenSmith, in Jefferson, Ga.

Last year, she held a tomato fest for tomato aficionados. "It was a very sociable event with everyone sampling tomatoes, talking tomatoes, while my helpers and I were chopping tomatoes in the kitchen and bringing out labeled offerings. We didn't sell any tomatoes because we ate them all," she recalls, but the tomato tasting introduced her customers--gourmets, cooks, professional and home gardeners--to the varieties of plants they might want to raise.

There's more than tomatoes available at GardenSmith--old fashioned heirloom and new hybrid flowering plants, big blooming pots of roses, a full spectrum of veggies, including peanuts and potatoes growing in containers for city dwellers, unusual lettuces and French imported dandelions and 500 varieties of herbs.

"Although I avoid cooking as much as possible, I read about what's new in cooking and keep track of what gourmet vegetables are offered in grocery stores so that I can order the plants," Smith says. She uses a broker who networks different sources for her, and she works with plant breeders, collectors and botanical gardens. She says she can't resist the lure of new plants that are not in her collection. "I want at least one of everything," she says.

"At first, the business was mostly wholesale and we took the plants to people; now, it's half and half--retail and wholesale--and many more people come to us," she says.

Smith first discovered her passion for plants in Hershey Park, Pa. "My family, who owned radio stations, moved from Georgia to Pennsylvania," she says, "and I had a summer job at Hershey Park. They held Pennsylvania Dutch Days there, and during a break, I walked by a small table where a woman was selling herbs. The fragrance was wonderful and amazing. I was instantly attracted to them and became so interested I bought a book and several plants, all of which I managed to kill. I bought some more with the same result, but, finally, had success."

Growing plants still fascinates her. "Putting a little seed or cutting in the ground and watching it turn into a plant is pure magic," she says.

In the days Smith was trying to "find herself," she studied for two years at Temple University, followed by a job. "It was my introduction to the real world. I realized I needed to go back to school, and Delaware offered the most courses in plants and horticulture."

While in Newark, she worked with the Newark city landscape crew, which was involved in planning, planting and maintenance. "I sprayed every weed on sidewalks from Newark to Elkton, Md., sitting in the back of a pickup truck," she recalls.

She then worked for a Pennsylvania nursing home, located on a working animal farm, which also had a greenhouse where plants and fresh flowers were grown for the nursing home. Her next job was with a Pennsylvania firm, which sent her to Puerto Rico, where they grew foliage and tropical plants and shipped them by barge to Baltimore and Philadelphia. She later moved to Florida to work for a similar company.

Her next career stop was at a plant and tissue company in Tennessee, which had a scientific approach to plant propagation, with cells put in a culture in test tubes and multiplied to become small plants.

Then, it was time to "stand on her own two roots," she says. "By sheer serendipity, a friend in California had seen a notice of the sale of a nursery in Georgia and sent it to me," Smith says. "I've had a lot of luck in my career."

By then, her parents had returned to the South. "My father's goal was for his three daughters to own their own businesses the way he had. He gave me advice, helped me with bank loans and to get established, and both my parents helped with weeding, transplanting and transporting plants," Smith says.

With moral and practical support from her parents, Smith became the proud owner of GardenSmith at 10:15 a.m., Feb. 3, 1987, when she signed the check that made the nursery hers.

The last owner was heavily in debt, but Smith turned the business around. As an article in The Atlanta Journal and Constitution stated, "She's built up one of the most diverse nurseries in the country. That makes her nursery a destination for serious food gardeners."

Her only regret is that she didn't take more business courses to help with the other side of running the nursery. "After I deal with all the paperwork, I reward myself by going out and working with the plants," she says.

GardenSmith includes a half acre of heated greenhouses, plus unheated buildings and outdoor plant areas. She employs about 10 people, from high school students to those in their 70s. Students from nearby University of Georgia have internships or work part time.

Her advice to budding entrepreneurs? Don't put up with disagreeable people as employees or customers. "You don't need the aggravation and you will discover you can get along just as well without them," she says.

Smith says she runs the business with the help of her cats, named Thymus, Rosemary and Lavender. They are listed under "Management" on the Gardensmith web site, an informal, breezy combination of information and humor about what's going on and what's available at Gardensmith [www.gardensmithonline.com].

--Sue Moncure