Photo by Ellen Ferrera

•July 26, 2017•

By Ellen Ferrera
for the News Progress

Traveling north through Lovington you can’t help noticing the giant, plastic sunflowers outside a vacant store.  Except, it isn’t empty.  Inside is the workshop of Gary Smith who has made quite a business of making whimsical garden decorations.

He won a large, plastic sunflower in a charity raffle, and the more he looked at it the more of a challenge it became. “I figured I could make one myself so I made a pattern and cut them out of white, 55 gal. plastic drums”, explained Smith. He then custom spray paints them and sells them for $55 ($65 with the post), and he will deliver and install them. “I started making them last fall and have sold 85 so far this spring”.

People from Des Plaines, St. Louis, Springfield and all over have interrupted their journeys to stop and purchase his sunflowers. He has shipped them to Arkansas, Texas and Minnesota – all this without a website! One of his sunflowers sits in the community garden at Mason Point where I live. He hasn’t even had time to name his business.     Login or Subscribe to read the rest of this story.