Chuck Heidgen sits atop the large U-shaped wooden counter and surveys his place of business for the last 33 years, a landmark in Batavia.
"Don't forget, we're farmers," says the owner of Shady Hill Gardens, 821 Walnut St., an expanse of 15 greenhouses on three acres. "We just have a unique crop."
Normally, at this time of the year, customers would be streaming in to purchase their Christmas poinsettias. The greenhouses would be alive with a spray of pink, deep red and creamy white colors, and every variation in between.
But on this recent Saturday morning, Shady Hill Gardens is all but empty.
Heidgen's eyes scan the greenhouses, row after row of bare raised benches under a symmetry of watering pipes and steam lines -- probably eight to 10 miles of steel, he says. Even vacant, there's a certain beauty here. Bathed in a soft morning light, the greenhouses are cool and comfortable.
But they are no longer practical. It costs an estimated $160,000 a year to heat the Batavia greenhouses.
In the 1990s, Shady Hill Gardens expanded to a second facility, a state-of-the-art greenhouse at 42W075 Route 38 in Elburn, where the business run by Chuck and his sons Matt and Joe is being consolidated.
The Elburn greenhouse is not only bigger but also vastly more efficient, boasting a computerized system that is set to an astronomical clock, precisely controlling sunlight and heat.
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