Green Handel North blooms in Manitowish Waters

Rachel Kroeger

Staff

October 13, 2025

MANITOWISH WATERS – Following in her parents’ green thumbprints, Tami Veldt recently opened Green Handel North Greenhouse in North Central Wisconsin, a sister business to Appleton’s Green Handel Greenhouse.

“I knew I had a green thumb,” she said. “My parents have been in the business for 32 years in Appleton, and that’s what inspired me to open my own business up here. So, they’re Green Handel and I’m Green Handel North.”

Growing up surrounded by her parents’ business and her grandmother’s vast garden – “the biggest garden ever, growing vegetables and flowers” – Veldt said she had always imagined operating her own greenhouse.

“When my mom and dad opened the greenhouse, of course, I helped and was involved,” she said. “I knew, and hoped, that someday it would work out that I could also be a part of that.”

To follow her own entrepreneurial dreams, however, Veldt said she had to leave her tenured career in education.

“I taught kindergarten in Appleton for 18 years, and then I taught up here, at the North Lakeland [School District], and was an academic interventionist for grades one through five,” she said.

Opening her doors the Thursday before this past Mother’s Day, Veldt said Green Handel North – located at 5185 Highway 51 in Manitowish Waters – was immediately and excitedly welcomed by its community.

“It was wonderful,” she said. “People were waiting [outside the doors] before opening time, and it was so good.”

Veldt said the local enthusiasm has remained strong through the spring, summer and fall seasons, with community members showing consistent and heartfelt support.

“I am blown away by the loyal customers [I’ve gained] already,” she said. “I’m the only greenhouse in Manitowish Waters.”

Though she and her husband initially relocated to Manitowish Waters with one of their daughters, Veldt said it wasn’t long before more of their family followed suit.

“We moved my daughter up here, then shortly after, my other daughter and son-in-law moved up, and now I have a grandbaby up here as well,” she said.

Dual-purpose relocation

Veldt said she and her husband knew they wanted to move “up north” – it was just a matter of determining “where we were going to move.”

Plans began to take shape, she said, when they found Bear Country Builders.

Veldt said they purchased the construction company and began settling in Manitowish Waters.

“When we moved up here, we bought [the business] and this chunk of land [off highway] 51,” she said. “We didn’t [end up needing] it, so [we thought], ‘Well, we’re going to sell it,’ and we couldn’t – it just didn’t sell. So, then I [thought], ‘I have this really good idea: let’s open the greenhouse.’”

Veldt said they began conceptualizing the greenhouse in May 2024 – a year before Green Handel North opened – and enlisted the help of their newly purchased business to construct two 34-by-96-foot greenhouses.

“We started construction in the fall of 2024 to get the greenhouses up before winter and so we were ready for our March growing season in 2025,” she said.

Though the original plan had been to locate the storefront in the shop, Veldt said “people want to be in the greenhouse, so my storefront is in the greenhouse.”

A homegrown business strategy

Having had the opportunity to learn from her mother’s 32 years of industry experience, Veldt said today, Green Handel and Green Handel North often work together.

“I take a lot of notes from my mom [because] she’s done so well on her quality and her variety that I knew that was something really important,” she said. “The wonderful thing is now, each fall, I sit down with her, we plan our orders and [ask each other] ‘what sold for you?’ Or ‘what did well?’ Or ‘what grew well?’ So, I’m basing a lot of it off of her – her varieties and what she knows.”

However, because of the two stores’ locations – one being in the Northwoods and another in the Fox Valley – Veldt said she and her mother have noticed their customers prefer different types of plants.

“In comparison to Green Handel [in] Appleton, I’m selling more marigolds,” she said. “I think it’s because people want more deer-resistant [plants] here. So, people love marigolds, and also, I sold a lot more of the waterfall begonias.”

In addition to flowers, Veldt said Green Handel North sells vegetable plants as well.

Another notable practice Veldt said she has carried over to Green Handel North is the way she manages plant orders.

“We grow most everything by ourselves,” she said. “So, I’m not shipping it in. What I choose to grow – my seeds or my plugs – is what we have.”

Growing plants from seedlings or plugs to sale-ready plants, Veldt said, means her business operates on a flexible schedule, guided by the rhythms of the growing season.

“I’ll start growing in about March, and then I open up before Mother’s Day,” she said. “[This year], I sold out by July 3. That’s my busiest part of the year.”

Following her spring and summer season, Veldt said she’ll “come back in fall for a little bit to sell fall flowers,” as well as pumpkins.

“I had fall products, and I sold most of them in about two weeks – there’s a little bit left,” she said. “I [also] brought up pumpkins, and people were telling me, ‘You have to drive so far to get a pumpkin.’ So, I have to bring more of those next year.”

In the winter, Veldt said her daughter and son-in-law plan to sell Christmas trees, and though the greenhouse doesn’t have set hours during that time, she added that she’s “always available.”

“I’m not always open…, but people can message me, [and] I stop in all the time,” she said. “I have set hours for spring and summer, and then I have set hours again in fall.”

‘Connect to my roots’

Though opening Green Handel North meant stepping away from her elementary teaching career, Veldt said she’s found a way to continue teaching.

“I get the best of both worlds,” she said. “At North Lakeland, they have an after-school program – it’s called the Lighted Schoolhouse – and they bring kids over to me [for classes].”

Some of the recent classes she’s taught for the program, Veldt said, include a fairy garden class as well as a “Mum-kin” class.

“They planted a mum inside of a pumpkin,” she said. “So, I get to teach, but I also get to connect to my roots, too, of planting and growing – being a flower farmer, as I say.”

Though she doesn’t have a set schedule of class offerings at this time – “I’m trying to see if there’s a need for it or a desire for it” – Veldt said there’s potential for future classes should the community continue its interest.

“I did have someone tell me that if I do a hanging basket class in April, that she will fill my class for me, so I plan on taking her up on filling that class,” she said. “I always say, ‘The sky’s the limit, and we’ll see where we go from here.’”

Veldt said Green Handel North also offers a planting station – where customers can pot their plants without worrying about getting their homes dirty.

“They can either come in and buy one of my planters and then plant right there in the greenhouse – so you don’t have the mess at home – or, if they have their own planters, they can bring them in and then plant at my planting station,” she said. “So, that’s unique for me as well.”

Veldt said Green Handel North also sells her mother’s “custom mix of soil.”

“Making sure we have the right soil to grow our flowers in is really important,” she said. “I always say it took my mom 32 years to perfect it. So, we’re lucky we get to have that because only [she and I] can sell it.”

Above all, Veldt said she’s simply happy to bring the joy of plants to a previously greenhouse-barren area.

“I feel like I’m spreading joy, [because] people are so happy when they come, and I love that,” she said. “I love connecting to the community and being able to provide that up here.”

For more information on Green Handel North Greenhouse, its products and services, visit its Facebook page or greenhandelnorth.com.