Couple’s water-garden store flourishing

Aquatics and Exotics has expanded its tropical water plant nursery and the stock of unusual gardening accoutrements.

[Times photo: Scott Keeler] Tom Kiehl, who with his wife Donna operates Aquatics and Exotics nursery in Largo, tunes up one of his creations.

By CHRISTINA K. COSDON

© St. Petersburg Times, published January 13, 2001

LARGO -- Water sprays from the horns of an ensemble of saxophones, clarinets and trumpets and splashes into a fountain.

The display is the outdoor showpiece of the newly expanded Aquatics & Exotics nursery.

Donna Kiehl opened the county's first tropical water plant nursery a little more than five years ago on property that was home mainly to Country Village Antiques, a business that had been in operation for more than 30 years. At that time, the nursery was limited to a tiny open-air store and a small section of the acre property for its ponds and pots filled with exotic water plants.

"I had hoped that sometime down the road we would be able to buy the property," Mrs. Kiehl said. It came sooner than expected.

When the owner, Jeanne Walraven, retired a year and a half ago, she offered the real estate at 11896 Walsingham Road to Mrs. Kiehl and her husband, Tom, a computer software designer and developer. They purchased the land and buildings for $125,000 and since then spent another $100,000 on repairs.

"We knew it would be a challenge and it has been," Mrs. Kiehl said. "We've been doing a lot of the work ourselves."

The expanded and recently re-opened nursery now features a 1,000-square-foot refurbished store filled with tools, gifts and accessories. The inventory includes supplies for in- and above-ground ponds, tool caddies, nature paintings, antique plant stands, fountains, statues, pottery, decorative garden flags, handmade wall plaques and many other items.

Antique garden furniture and primitive tools are from an antique shop in Lancaster, Pa., owned by Mrs. Kiehl's mother.

Tom Kiehl is the creator of the musical instrument fountains. He has been making them for a year and buys the instruments at auctions. The nursery sells them for $159 to $299.

The property also is home to a piece of Florida history -- a 3,000-square-foot, 19th century Cracker house. The back door of the store opens into the well-preserved wooden house that the Kiehls are restoring as they have time. They plan to eventually have their offices there, as well as a gallery for art with nature-related themes.

Outside, the nursery offers water lilies, lotus and other aquatic plants, a lot of perennials for butterfly gardens and hard-to-find plants such as the winged beauty vine with its butterfly-like purple flowers and three species of Dutchman pipe vine.

Aquatics include a variety of white, pink, red, yellow, blue and purple water lilies, which float on the water's surface and can flower from 10 to 12 months a year, depending on the weather. Lotus plants, which blossom on stems 4 to 6 feet above the water, are spectacular but only flower in June and July, Mrs. Kiehl said.

Among the nursery's emergent plants, which hold their leaves and flowers above the water like the lotus, are cattail, pickerel rush, Egyptian papyrus and water iris. Oxygenating plants include vallisneria, anacharis, sagittaria, coontail and foxtail. Decorative plants available at the nursery are frog mouth, Louisiana iris, six species of pickerelweed, water cannas, aquatic ginger, water ferns and many varieties of taro.

Mrs. Kiehl, who has worked with aquatics for more than 20 years, keeps propagation ponds in another location for growing the nursery's aquatic plants, as well as hybridizing and experimenting with water lilies. The nursery also grows the giant Victoria water lily, whose flowers can be 12 inches across and the leaves 8 feet in diameter.

© 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times
490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111

Contact the Times | Privacy Policy
Standard of Accuracy | Terms, Conditions & Copyright