Double B Plant Farm in Grovetown is just one of many businesses impacted by Hurricane Helene.
The storm left the garden center, which sits on some four acres off Wrightsboro Road, devastated. The Burns family, which owns the nursery, has elected to close the business, amid cleaning storm debris, updating customers on social media on the depth of the damage.
Owner Joe Burns and his father, Joey Burns, built a small chapel on the farm that was left unscathed.
“There is not a piece of tin bent, there is not a candle out of place. Everything is exactly how it was before the storm,” said Joe Burns. “And that is the reason that we’re able to stand up the way we are, because of our faith.”
The elder Burns started Double B in 1987, after he and his wife Rosalynne moved to Grovetown from Wetumpka, Ala. to purchase the farmland from his grandfather, James Shoffitt. The business remained in the family as it grew, with the Joe Burns working—and managing—the farm alongside his wife Samantha.
“My whole life has been this farm,” said the younger Joe Burns, who graduated from UGA in 2012 with a degree in horticulture. “Doing this and growing up in it, and doing my fair share of helping build other, you know, parts of the of the farm.”
Plant-loving patrons had a vast array of offerings to choose from: various types of azaleas and camellias, hollies, oaks and maples, junipers, spiraeas and miscanthus. The nursery even offered fruit plants: peaches, pears, apples, blueberries and blackberries.
“Blackberries were always a big, big hit with a lot of people,” said Burns, who refers to the business his father built as a masterpiece, a work of art that’s a testament to his father’s formidable work ethic.
Helene’s damage to vital parts of the nursery has made any rebuild of Double B Plant Farm a far-off prospect at best, he says.
“We’re going to have to get our feet under us before we decide to make a decision like that,” said Burns.
Now he’s focused on making sure his parents can peacefully retire. His love of growing will continue unabated, even if it’s planting a home vegetable garden. All he asks of anyone concerned is their prayers.
“That’s the number one thing our community can do, is pray for us,” Burns said. “We believe in it. We believe in the power of prayer. And we want everybody to keep doing that for us.”
What is also unperturbed is the family’s faith. He lauds the generosity of the community—including customers of the nursery—reaching out to help, sending money (“even when we told them not to,” Burns notes) and offering prayers. Fellow members of Central Church of Christ arrived at the property to help, unbidden, “on day one.”
Burns sees this burst of kindness and solidarity as answers to prayer.
“It’s just God’s light is shown through, even in … the darkest times,” he said. “Through Him, the community and friends and family and church family have been so, so supportive in a way that just that makes you feel good. Even though there are tears, they are happy tears.”
Skyler Q. Andrews is a staff reporter covering business for The Augusta Press. Reach him at skyler@theaugustapress.com.
