INDEPENDENCE, Iowa— Josh Spece pushes a little joystick forward and happily zips along a gravel path among hundreds of varieties of hostas surrounding his home. He doesn’t allow his wheelchair to block his dreams.
Spece, 31, couldn’t walk as a baby and was diagnosed with spinal muscular atrophy. He grew up playing in the garden, graduated from high school in Independence and earned a horticulture degree from Hawkeye Community College. In 1998 on his parents’ farm, Spece opened a garden and gifts store, In the Country.
“Plants have just always been something I’ve been interested in. Even when I was little we had a vegetable garden and I was always out there with Mom.”
He had a little corner. Soon he and his mother, Sue, added ponds.
Now the yard is full of hostas, and the mail-order business online at www.inthecountrygardenandgifts.com has grown.
“We’ve shipped hundreds of plants this year all over the country,” Spece says.
He prints orders and checks shipments. His mother, relatives and friends dig, plant and pack.
“We couldn’t do it without all of our helpers,” Spece says.
He acknowledges some obstacles.
“The hardest part is probably the limitations I have, but that’s something I’ve always had, so I don’t think about it like people might think I do.”
Siblings, also in wheelchairs, follow the same philosophy. Jackie, 30, has three dance studios, and Jacob, 22, helps their father, Alan, farm while also custom finishing cattle.
“I guess it’s the way we were raised, to find a way to do what we want to do,” Spece says.
At the entrance to In the Garden is a sign: “Enter as strangers … Leave as friends.” It’s only right, then, that hostas — the friendship plant — are Spece’s priority.
He guides customers past one bed after another filled with grown display hostas, up and down aisles with potted plants in three greenhouses and talks about the growing popularity of mini-hostas. Prices range from $14 to $100 for some varieties.
“We’ve always tried to do things you can’t just go to Walmart or a nursery to buy,” Spece says.
In his spare time and in winter, he studies plants and gives talks around Iowa. Spece is also on the board of directors of the American Hosta Society and maintains its website.
He continues to dream, about the business and just maybe, someday, breeding his very own variety of hosta.
“I think it would be fun to have a plant that is mine.”