History

Hi, my name is Joe McShaw. You may have seen me around the greenhouse and maybe you haven’t but that is where I spend most of my day. I’m the one who is responsible for the plant’s quality and plant care. I’ve strived my whole life to cultivating the best plants for the best price with top notch care and attention to detail always learning new techniques along the way.

We are a family operated greenhouse and nursery that prides our self in providing high quality plants, innovative plant technology, and a passion for business growth.  There is something changing and new happening here every year! Our newest project we are working on is shade area.  This new area will provide more optimum growing conditions for our shade loving perennials and shrubs.  We are also working on creating a new and improved parking lot, more spaces, and lighting.

Our mission as a family was to spend as much time together as possible, so we figured out a way to combine our passion for plants with what we truly wanted out of life.  We have 4 children: Chad, Clint, Dwight, and Falena. Clint, his son Alex; Dwight, his wife Allison along with their two children Ellie and Logan; and Falena work with us to operate the business.   Chad works in IT in Oshkosh and is always willing to help when we have tech questions.  We love being able to watch our children and grandchildren grow and share in our ambitions.

We also have a welcoming committee made up of 3 English cream golden retrievers.  Their names are Roy, Ollie, and Ace.  During the day they are true agriculture dogs playing outside and getting dirty. At the end of the day Roy goes home with Joe and Marci, Ollie with Dwight and Allison, and Ace with Falena.  What better way can you spend your day than with plants, family, and dogs.

We take the meaning of small business to a whole new level for our size. We operate efficiently and smoothly on a small staff of 6-10 very hardworking individuals. These employees become like family to us.  Everyone here wears many hats working here from cuttings, plating, moving plants, customer service, cleaning, running equipment, logistics, the tech side of the business, hoeing the garden and picking produce, to making wreaths in the winter. Each of us has so much pride and passion for what we do to ensure you and your family have the best products and experience we can provide. Along with my sons, we do all the building and maintenance of the greenhouses and pouring all the concrete. Its constant work to up keep the buildings, changing poly, fixing and maintaining heaters and waterlines, and keep the vehicles and equipment running properly.

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I grew up in a Pennsylvania with my all my siblings and lots of chores to do every day. My Dad (Andrew) and mom (Ann) had multifaced business which included: a greenhouse, vegetable farm, honeybee farm, and a side business doing carpentry. I grew up learning an abundance of diverse skills. It sure made me realize what hard work was! I learned a lot of talents on the farm that have helped me think the way I do around the greenhouse. On the farm I was the youngest of 10 siblings.  My mom passed away when I was 9 years old, so my dad was left to raise us all as well keep all the business going. We learned a lot from a hard life and the struggles that goes along with it.

After years of working at home, I spent a lot of time helping my brothers with their honeybee businesses traveling to Wisconsin, Canada, and Florida.  Once I graduated high school, I found it was time to move permanently to Wisconsin. I worked for my brother at his greenhouse and also worked with my other brother with his honeybees.

In 1983 I married my lovely wife, Marci. At the age of 21, in 1984, Marci and I started Honeymoon Acres. Marci and I would tear down old barns for people. We started Honeymoon Acres with only $5.00 in our pocket. We would then use those barn boards to build greenhouses. It was hard and labor intensive but that was the start of something special.

The first greenhouse we built was a total of 1,000 square feet.  In the beings Marci and I both had full time jobs, 4 children to take care of with no daycare working opposite shifts, and we also had our 5 acres of vegetables. We would take the produce down to the corner of the old Red & White restaurant in New Holstein to sell on Saturdays. The next few years we expanded more of our greenhouses. It has truly been dream that we achieved so much. We had a young family and a business to hold up. Around 1990, our greenhouses were beginning to expand much more. Our goal was to be able to spend as much time together as a family and create a successful business in which people could buy quality plants, vegetables, and nursery stock.

We had to decide to either to do more with the greenhouses or expand the vegetable farm. At the time of this debate, the greenhouse portion was doing much better than the vegetable farm. We made the decision to put all our attention towards the greenhouse and it took off to what it is today.

2002 we had to make a pivotal decision for Honeymoon Acres. Currently, we have about 60,000 square feet of greenhouses on Honeymoon Hill Road.  We had many customers coming through our greenhouses, and we wanted to make your visit to our place even more pleasurable.  So instead of having Port-o-Potties, we looked into putting restrooms in.  The fact that the Port-o-Potties are not good for handicap to use, we knew we had to do something about it. To this day we strive to make our facility handicap friendly with all areas smooth and level, extra wide walk ways and bathrooms.  At this point, we looked into the land around us to expand but it was not for sale. So instead we looked around New Holstein and got the property on Ford Drive. That land is located on a TIF District and we started to build what you now know as our retail location.  Since then we naturally have upgraded and changed a few things around.

It cost us a fortune in money and mental strength to invest our whole lives into our business. After 6 months of building the whole place mostly by ourself and lots of family bonding, we opened in 2003. It was enjoyable to see our customers think of our place as “Plant Heaven.”  It makes all the hard work worth it to see our customers so happy!

We do miss the quiet little place on Honeymoon Hill Road, but we really had no choice.  We try to make our place on the highway easily accessible and beautiful for everyone to enjoy. The store front now consents of an 27,000 square foot annual greenhouse, a 10,500 square foot perennial greenhouse, and most recently 5- 1,800 square foot greenhouse where tomatoes, peppers, cool crops, herbs and vine crops each have their own house.  These 5 individual greenhouses allow for better growing conditions for different species and to make it more convenient for our customers. We have of 2,400 square foot of salesroom where we sell pots, jams and jars of goodies, as well as Jacks fertilizers.  We also have an outdoor area for displays of lawn ornaments, our nursery stock, extra perennials and other plants that is about 20,000 square feet. We also will be having our new shade area. In addition, we have more greenhouses on the upper and lower part of property is used strictly for overflow of plants that we use to restock the retail area.

We still have our old place on Honeymoon Hill Road, but it is an overflow facility (we are our own suppliers) only and is NOT open to the public.  It consists of an area just to grow our plants so that can reach their full potential to be moved and sold at the location on the highway. Just think we need to water and take care of plants in all locations of greenhouses and we fill both areas for spring too with only our few employees!

When you pull into our establishment, you will not believe your eyes in spring. It sure is beautiful, especially when everything is in bloom.

We have expanded and purchased the land on both sides of us. The field to the north consists of more greenhouses where we store our ‘stock’ of plants. The field itself we grow a large section for pumpkins and gourds to be sold in fall. We most recently purchased the buildings across the street to us that we are using as a production site, closed to the public, that we call ‘The Potting Shed’.  We built growing greenhouse at this new location. This greenhouse is cool since it a growing greenhouse where the seedlings grow up big and strong with the proper light, heat, and water ratios. This is the bright pink building at night you see off of Hwy 57 when cuttings are growing. It is our production facility where we start the plants from cuttings and seed.  Then, we let them get big enough for us to plant them into the containers you take home with you.  It is a great addition and will make everything easier in the long run. The land in between our production site and the retail store will be used for parking. We use the other building at storage for soil and flats.

Working in the greenhouse is not just a job, but a way of life. To live a full life, you must find a job that you love. The way I got started to love plants was from my past. I also enjoyed being my own boss and doing things the way I thought they should be done.

Through all the struggles and situations, we always seem to pull through. Please remember if there are any issues, problems or concerns regarding the plants, please ask for me to answer them with the plants in the greenhouse.

We dedicate all our time and effort for you to have the best experience you can as a customer. I hope this gives you an idea how much my family and I love our business and want to share it with you and your family. We are truly thankful for everyone who comes to our place to purchase our plants. We are proud to be one of the best greenhouses in Wisconsin.

-Joe