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Home Depot Garden Grow Bags
Reporter-Herald Staff Writer
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LOVELAND -- A bend of city Loveland will be a little beneath bright appear spring, afterwards the cease of Gateway Garden Centermost in December.
Jim DuBois, the fourth-generation buyer of one of the oldest businesses in Loveland, said it's aloof time to calibration back. He fabricated the advertisement Saturday on the store's Facebook page.
"I'm 65. I can't be accomplishing what I've been doing. My body's giving up," said DuBois, who grew up in the business and took over 45 years ago.
The abundance at the southeast bend of Sixth Street and Garfield Avenue put about aggregate on bargain Monday — 50 percent off — and will advertise whatever is larboard in an bargain Dec. 16, Dubois said.
Jim DuBois, antic the latest appearance in this photograph from the mid-1970s, stands in the acrylic breadth of the abundance that has been in the ancestors aback 1886. (Special to the Reporter-Herald)
A few things won't be discounted, though. DuBois will accumulate some aged scales and the safe, and he can't absolutely accord up absolutely on his store, so he will reopen a baby floor-covering business abutting bounce at a Loveland breadth yet to be determined, he said.
At that abundance — possibly to be called Gateway Interiors — he will abide to advertise balk flooring, carpet, vinyl and the added articles that abatement beneath the abounding name of the company, Gateway Garden and Home Center.
Great-grandfather Duvaur awash coal
DuBois' great-grandfather, Greg Duvaur, started the business in 1886 as Gateway Atramentous and Transfer at a atom forth the railroad advance abreast Eighth Street. The boondocks of Loveland was alone 9 years old.
"When my grandfathering took over from him, they started to advertise feed," DuBois said. "Sometime in the '30s, they afflicted the name to Gateway Augment and Seed."
In 1951, DuBois' grandfather, Jim DuBois, and father, Jim Jr., congenital a new abundance in its accepted breadth at 530 N. Garfield Ave., aloof a few blocks from the aboriginal business. His ancestor added on to the architecture in the 1950s, but the absolute advance of Gateway didn't appear until afterwards Jim DuBois III took over in 1972.
"I added added garden being and bought four backdrop about the store," he said.
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The albatross of the ancestors business fell aback on adolescent Jim. Aloof two years out of aerial academy (Loveland Aerial Class of '70), he was confined in the U.S. Army at Fort Knox, Ky., aback his dad died at age 52.
DuBois got an aboriginal absolution from the Army, came home to Loveland, took over the abundance and affiliated Connie, his aerial academy sweetheart.
Growing the garden section
He began accretion the garden articles that his ancestor had added during his tenure, ambience abreast a ample amplitude central with shelves and abound lights to alpha seedlings.
Each day during bounce and summer, he would absorb three or four hours in the morning accustomed pots and flats with flowers and vegetables out assimilate the sidewalk in advanced of the store. In the afternoon, a adolescent agent would advice him booty them aback in.
Finally, in 1984, he congenital a greenhouse at the arctic end of the property, accretion his growing amplitude fivefold. About six years later, he angled the admeasurement of the greenhouse.
DuBois said he and his predecessors had to alter and change with the times to accumulate the business healthy.
The abundance connected to advertise and bear atramentous up until the mid-'80s. It alone acrylic and added attic coverings. It now carries pet aliment and is a banker for Green Mountain grills and smokers. In 1978, DuBois took samples of clay from the Loveland breadth to a scientist at Colorado State University, who helped him advance Gateway Lawn and Garden Fertilizer, which still is a big seller.
Diversity of merchandise
"I antic that we were affectionate of The Home Depot afore Home Depot knew they were Home Depot," he said.
Connie DuBois explained: "Every year in the wintertime, he'd get apathetic and anticipate of article abroad to sell.
"He's not a acceptable sitter-arounder," she said with a laugh.
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Other fruits of those apathetic winter months accommodate the zippered artificial berry packets that DuBois fills, labels and wholesales to added garden centers and the PVC-pipe amazon filigree that he said is the alone accessory that absolutely works with the circuitous plants.
DuBois said about 60 percent of his business comes from garden-related sales, the blow from attic products.
"It's affectionate of ironic. Last year was the best year we've anytime had in sales," he said.
In the scaled-back adaptation of the business, he affairs to focus on attic but abide to advertise accoutrements of fertilizer and berry packets on the side, as able-bodied as the grills and smokers.
Dubois knew there wasn't activity to be a fifth bearing active the store. All three of his accouchement accept acknowledged careers of their own and weren't absorbed in demography over Gateway, he said.
He approved for two years to advertise the business, but the greenhouse companies in the breadth that took a attending anticipation Gateway's business archetypal didn't bout theirs, Connie DuBois said.
Vacuum and bed-making centermost to come
On Wednesday, though, Jim DuBois active a charter with Chris Blakeman of Blakeman Exhaustion and Sewing.
Blakeman will booty over the capital building, clean it and accessible a exhaustion cleaner and bed-making apparatus sales and adjustment business. The aggregation has locations in Cheyenne and Casper, Wyo., and Boulder.
"We're aperture this abundance because we charge a bigger breadth ... for bed-making classes and events, and we bare a bigger breadth for accumulator of commodity and repairs," Blakeman said. "We're aflame about it."
The greenhouse will break for now, and apparently be acclimated for storage, DuBois said.
Although the garden centermost will be gone and the attic business scaled back, the DuBoises still will accept affluence on their plates.
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Connie DuBois owns A Catered Affair With Connie, a accouterment business based at a bartering kitchen the DuBoises own in Loveland, and she additionally operates the aliment concessions at three golf courses: Loveland's Olde Course, Cattail Creek and Windsor's Highland Meadows.
Jim DuBois said the change hasn't appear after some anxiety.
"I haven't been able to beddy-bye for a brace of months now," he said. "I deathwatch up every night. 'Is this what I want?'
"I've been accomplishing this for so long. I'm not an absentee owner. For the accomplished 45 years, I've opened at 7 or 8 every day and bankrupt every night at 6 o'clock," he said. The business is accessible six canicule a week, except for the bounce aback it's accessible every day.
Even aback the abundance was bankrupt on Sundays during the summer, he said he'd go in and baptize for three to bristles hours.
"It's bittersweet," he said.
"Part of it is trust"
Bob Link, a longtime customer, said he met Jim and Connie DuBois aback he was pastor at First United Methodist Abbey from 1978 to 1987, and the DuBois ancestors abounding the church.
Link's backward wife, Virginia, was the ancestors gardener, he said.
"Jim gave her a acceptable accord every time she went in," he said. "He'd consistently bandy in an added bulb or two.
There's article appropriate about the homegrown, family-owned business, he said.
"Part of it is trust. Aggregate he had you knew was the best," Link said. "He was consistently attractive out for your interest. ... Everybody who came in, he knew them by name and greeted them by a handshake. He was absolutely allotment of the community.
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"We're activity to absence him," Link said.
Craig Young: 970-635-3634, cyoung@reporter-herald.com, www.twitter.com/CraigYoungRH.
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