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'Plant Doctor' is in

The woman with that moniker says she doesn't know everything about plants, but it sure seems that way to customers of this well-known nursery.

By S.I. ROSENBAUM
Published May 20, 2005

SEFFNER - Tina Roper might not remember your name. But she knows what plants grow in your garden.

"Are your other hollies doing any better?" she asks a woman at the counter.

"Oh, yes, yes, yes!" the woman says. Her name, although Roper does not know it, is Nuguana Jonas, and like many local gardeners she has been coming to see Roper at Kerby's Nursery and Landscaping for years. "They're blooming green," she tells Roper.

Roper is 47, thin and brown from years in the sun. She learned gardening at her mother's knee. "I used to say she could make a dead stick grow," she says.

To locals, she is "the Plant Doctor." They come to Kerby's looking for her sunburned face, for her brown hair pulled back in a perennial ponytail. She's part of what has made the family-run nursery at the corner of Wheeler and Parsons a local landmark over the past two decades.

Larry Kerby, who started the nursery in 1980 as a small stand on the side of the road, can't remember when he hired Roper. Now, the business occupies 12 acres and offers the biggest variety of plants of just about any nursery around. He has 11 employees, about half of whom, he said, are family members. He declined to say how profitable the business is, but said business has doubled in the last few years. He attributes that growth to his kids, Kim and Mark, taking over management of the nursery.

Kerby said he plans to turn the business over to his kids sometime before his 60th birthday later this year. Roper has watched Kim and Mark grow up. She remembers their high school graduations.

Next Friday the nursery will be featured on a PBS gardening show, Garden Smart. But Roper doesn't watch gardening shows. She doesn't read gardening books or magazines.

Instead, she experiments. When the nursery gets a new plant, Roper makes a cutting. She tries different things. "I just work with them," she says. "I learn better by working with them."

She knows all the plants the nursery carries, even though there are hundreds of different kinds. Kerby's specializes in variety; they carry 25 different kinds of orange tree, 30 different kinds of mango.

It seems like she knows everything there is to know about plants, but that's not true, she says. In fact, it's the opposite - and that's what she loves about gardening. "You never know it all," Roper says. "There's always new plants, new diseases, new weird insects."

Once in a while, someone will stump her. Usually, when she says she doesn't know the answer to their question, they don't believe her. (On rare occasions when Roper is stumped, she usually refers folks to the County Cooperative Extension in Seffner.)

At the counter, Roper tells a man with a rose tattoo how to plant a real rose tree (dig the hole a little deeper and wider; use good potting soil to fill it in).

She fields questions about whether blueberries will grow by the water in Apollo Beach (yes, as long as the sea spray doesn't blow directly on them).

A woman asks if the nursery has any minema jasmine.

Roper smiles.

"Let me point you in that direction," she says.

S.I. Rosenbaum can be reached at 661-2442 or srosenbaum@sptimes.com

WHAT: At 12 acres, Kerby's is one of the largest plant nurseries in Hillsborough County. It carries 25 varieties of orange tree, plus a wide selection of ornamentals, flowers, herbs and pond supplies.

WHERE: 2311 S Parsons Ave., at the corner of Wheeler Road.

HOURS: 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. six days a week; 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sundays.

PRICES: Prices range from under a dollar to several thousand dollars, depending on the plant. Most gardeners' needs can be filled for prices that compare to chain gardening stores, says owner Larry Kerby.

PHONE: 685-3265.

ON TV: At 11:30 a.m. May 27, Kerby's will be profiled on the PBS gardening show Garden Smart. The program is broadcast on WUSF-Ch. 16.

[Last modified May 19, 2005, 08:41:13]