By Kurt Christian 812-331-4350 | kchristian@heraldt.com
Green thumbs driving south on Ind. 37 will recognize more than the familiar glow of grow lights as they pass Goldleaf Hydroponics.
Goldleaf’s co-owner, Kyle Billman, and store manager Roger Emmick both worked for Worm’s Way before the business concentrated its efforts on wholesale and sold the retail portion to Bloomington Wholesale Garden Supply in September 2016. When Emmick’s six years and Billman’s three years of working at Worm’s Way ended, they joined Billman’s wife, Monica, to open the indoor garden supply store in less than two months.
“It has been really great to continue working with Roger,” Billman said. “Roger can deliver, and I think that’s why people like the store. We’re not Worm’s Way, but they still equate us with the confidence of Worm’s Way.”
Kyle and Monica Billman graduated from Indiana University in 2014. Though Kyle majored in Spanish and Monica majored in French, the Billmans co-own the hydroponics business at 5081 Production Drive in Bloomington and speak the chemical language needed to understand the biochemistry they sell. It’s the result of conventional training in the industry, Kyle Billman said.
As an undergraduate, Kyle Billman sought out Worm’s Way to help him better tend to his passion project — a dorm room bonsai tree. He wound up working in the mail order and online sales department, where he met Emmick on the sales floor. Since 1985, Worm’s Way had cultivated more than 40,000 customers from coast to coast. Many of those customers grew to know Emmick and have continued that relationship as hydroponics, aquaponics and other indoor gardening methods have taken hold.
“Twenty-five or 30 years ago, it (hydroponics) was more or less a counter-culture movement,” Emmick said, likening the early 1990s to an enlightenment period where consumers realized tossing a scoop of Miracle-Gro into a pot wasn’t always the best option for organic growth. “For the first time, you had traditional gardeners, indoors.”
Goldleaf has already “pinned up the corners of the map” since it started doing business on Nov. 28 of last year. From Maine to California to Florida to Puerto Rico, the business has spread through online sales and word of mouth. Billman said many of the store’s local customers grow for area restaurants, Bloomingfoods and the farmers’ markets.
Several stores have branched off from Worm’s Way, but Billman said Goldleaf offers what others can’t.
“The technology in this industry, if you don’t have your face in a magazine each month, you’ll lose your competitive edge,” Emmick said.
Customers can buy grow lamps that allow them to control the amount of red or blue light waves the rig emits. There are clones of orchids from the 1900s, bred to preserve biodiversity. The show room features displays of side-by-side comparisons where two tomato plants might demonstrate the difference between plastic and mesh pots.
“These aren’t products you can get at Lowes or Wal-Mart or a local nursery,” Billman said, walking through the rows of multicomponent plant nutrient solutions and 25-pound buckets of Peruvian guano.
Goldleaf also offers free classes, like “Hydroponics 101” and “Brewing Compost Tea.”
“We are as much a source for free information as anything,” Billman said. “We know our customers’ gardens. We’re asking how things are working out from a year ago, and we value our customers’ input as much as they value ours.”
Despite the specificity an expert gardener may find at Goldleaf Hydroponics, Emmick called gardening a universal language that draws on natural instincts.
“The thing you find with gardening, that you don’t get with other hobbies and sports, is it puts everybody on the same level,” Billman said. “This is a millenia-old tradition, and gardening is a community act. Working the earth — next to reproduction — is our greatest calling.”
