<b>By NANCY VORIS<br>
Indiana Correspondent</b></p><p>

FRANKLIN, Ind. — Outside, the snow is blowing and gray clouds hang like a wet blanket over Sunny Lawn Farm. But in the greenhouses, rainbows of color create a tropical escape from the Indiana weather through the long winter months.<br>
Along with her traditional bedding plant business, Doris Morris extends her green thumb through the fall and winter months by raising Asiatic lilies, calla lilies and freesias for Indianapolis-area florists. Valentine’s Day was busier this year, because of drought and freezing in the Florida flower market and mudslides in California.<br>
Morris’ story is just one more twist on the survival of a family farm. The history of Sunny Lawn Farm reads like a tragic Victorian romance novel.<br>
In 1910, Ennis Reynolds bought a farm near Franklin and named it Sunny Lawn Stock Farm. He built a sturdy farmhouse and barn, and married the farmer’s daughter next door. Just a few years later, his young bride died of a lingering disease.<br>
A respectable time after her death, Reynolds married the nurse who cared for her. She was killed a year later when a cow kicked her. Reynolds was childless from these two marriages; his third wife, Roxy, was 22 years younger and the Reynolds family tree finally took root.<br>
Ennis’ son, David, now rents the farmland to corn and soybean producers, but livestock is no longer raised for income. The third generation of Reynoldses has turned to new avenues of agriculture production, while keeping past traditions intact. Morris, her husband, Rob, and their children, J.D., 15, and Roxi, 13, now live in her grandparents’ home.<br>
“When Grandma passed away in ’88, we moved in and did a ‘This Old House,’ kind of thing,” Morris said of her sprawling farmhouse.
The Morrises recently sanded and buffed the hardwood floors and added warm-toned paint to the high-ceilinged walls.<br>
She has the green thumb typical of generations of farm women who raise and preserve their own fruits and vegetables.
“There’s always been a huge garden,” Morris said. “It’s just something we’ve always done … you canned, froze stuff, baked bread, made jellies. The kids get upset if I don’t make jelly. Mom does most of the canning and we help.”<br>
Six years ago she decided to run with her passion for growing plants and developed her own greenhouse business, fueled by working for three years at a Greenwood florist. Since then, she has grown to more than 6,600 square feet in four greenhouses.
In late winter, Morris sets out 1,500 plugs of spring bedding plants and vegetable plants, which doesn’t include seeds and other plant starts. <br>
Marketing her bedding plants to a friend with a hardware store was a boom to her business in the first four years. Morris raised plants exclusively for the store, but that ended after a few years, when it closed. She then decided to open her greenhouse and sell bedding plants to the public. She is open from April to June, and takes a little break to enjoy summer with the kids until the mum business picks up in September.<br>
Morris also enjoys the business of Franklin College, preparing wrought iron baskets – usually with blue and yellow flowers for the school colors – to adorn the campus. Too, she offers a custom potting service where customers can bring in their containers from home for filling and pick them up later.<br>
But it is Morris’ wholesale business that has helped her carve out a niche in the multitude of Southside greenhouses and helped her extend her growing season. <br>
She can sell a large quantity of stems at one time to a wholesaler, who in turn has regular delivery routes to area florists.<br>
She sells to some local florists who know her specialties and the color range in her greenhouses. For wholesalers, she must cut the flowers before the blooms open to allow for a few days’ storage; for florists, the flowers must be in full bloom.<br>
“I can specialize in a variety or a color that is not readily available or does not ship well,” Morris said. “It’s a perishable crop. When they are ready, they have to go.”<br>
She said it is hard to plan in the growing stage just what colors may be popular during the next season’s weddings. For example, when black and white weddings were popular, reds were in demand as accent colors. A spring wedding may require 200 lilies in peach or another pastel color.<br>
The 2,000 freesia bulbs planted in September bloom by mid-January. Asiatic lilies are planted at a rate of 700-900 per month for eight months, and 2,000-3,000 calla lilies are planted in a season. The freesias are a customer favorite because of their fragrance.<br>
“Freesia is one of those things that once you have them, you get hooked on them,” Morris said. “They smell so good that people come specifically for them, especially the locally grown plants that have more smell than the ones shipped from overseas.”
She said floriculture is such a competitive business because so many plants are shipped from Central American and South American countries. “You have to stay competitive and be in a niche type of market,” she said.<br>
The greenhouse business is a family affair. Morris’ parents, David and Carolyn Reynolds, help out along with her children. Rob, who is an engineer at Cummins, helps when he can.
“He’s not the green thumb, but he sure can run wiring,” she said.
One of Morris’ favorite aspects of business is working with the community. She makes baskets and patio containers as fundraisers for groups such as Tri Kappa Sorority and the Youth Missions Fund of Grace United Methodist Church, where J.D. and Roxi participate in mission trips.<br>
She also hosted the Johnson County Garden Club one evening.
She made a presentation on the plant material in the greenhouse and members planted a container to take home, for a small fee.
“It was a fun evening,” she recalled.<br>