STILLWATER, Okla. — “Flowers are the source of everything,” Colonial Florist owner/founder Jim Burtschi said.

Plants are the only organism that converts light energy to food and produce all the foods that animals eat. Plants are the beginning of the oxygen cycle, using photosynthesis to convert carbon dioxide and water into energy and oxygen.

“We can’t eat without flowers,” he said.

Flowers also have been Burtschi’s life source for a few days more than 50 years. Burtschi founded Colonial Florist, 401 S. Washington St., in July 1962.

The floral industry has evolved in 50 years, Burtschi said. In 1962, 90 percent of the flowers he sold at his store came from America. Today, 90 percent are imported from other countries.

“The quality is so much better now,” he said.

The method for receiving orders from other cities and states also has charged, Burtschi said. Telegraph brought those requests in 1962. It changed to telephone, fax and computer e-mails over the years.

“Everything goes through the computer now,” he said.

He has seen his business grow from just flowers to flowers, gifts and Oklahoma State University licensed merchandise.



Starting from seed

It seems as if Burtschi always had a knack for growing things.

When he was 5- or 6-years old, Burtschi planted an avocado seed next to stairs in the backyard of his parents’ house in Forth Worth, Texas.

“My mom walked out of the back door one day and there was this funny little plant growing. She didn’t know what it was,” Burtschi said. “It was my avocado seed. It had come up.”

His green thumb extended to peach seeds, too. He planted one in his father’s vegetable garden. It sprouted too.

“He had to leave it grow because I had planted it,” Burtschi said. The family took the peach tree with them when it moved to another house nearby.

“My dad said, ‘I should’ve known you were going to be a florist when you started doing that as a child,’ ” Burtschi said. “That was during World War II.”

The family moved to Stillwater when Burtschi was in high school.

Burtschi’s interest in plants was re-fertilized while working at Inciardi’s Greenhouses and Nursery, which was a peach pit’s throw from what is now Colonial Florist.

Inciardi’s was growing hothouse tomatoes and delivering them to grocery stores in Oklahoma City and Tulsa, Burtschi said. It also grew potted plants that TG&Y variety stores sold.

“I learned everything down in that greenhouse,” he said. “He had me practically managing it by the time I got out of high school.”



The doctor is out

Burtschi didn’t start his college career at Oklahoma State University in the agriculture or horticulture department. No, he enrolled as a pre-med student with thoughts of becoming a doctor.

Dissecting a frog proved to be his undoing, Burtschi said. He decided if he had to cut something he’d rather cut flowers than frogs.

“I thought, ‘I’d like to get into that growing — the flower part of it,” Burtschi said. “My dad had a conniption fit because I was changing from pre-med to growing.”

He said he had has dad’s blessing after his father, Bill, called the owner of a huge greenhouse in Guthrie who told him the business thrived during the Great Depression, Burtschi said.

He pursued a horticulture degree — getting approval to opt out of some classes more closely related to farming and adding courses like business law, accounting and other business-related courses.

Burtschi graduated from OSU, went to a flower-design school in Denver, turned down offers to work for his uncle in a St. Louis, Mo., lumberyard and started Colonial Florist with a $10,000 loan from his dad.

He rented a store space on Washington Street. It took about five years to start showing a profit, he said.

Burtschi eventually bought the property and expanded Colonial Florist in 1984-1985, building a new addition over and around his original shop.

“It’s been a good 50 years. It’s a lot different when I walk in compared to when I walked into the shop the first time. I just wonder what it will be like 50 years from now. I won’t be here, but I know there will still be flowers here.”