Business

Above) Top L-R, Ashley Stratton, Charlie Stratton, Dan Stratton, Susie Stratton and Steve Stratton. Below) Steve Stratton watering flowers on Bluffton's Main Street.

By Liz Gordon-Hancock

Stratton Greenhouses celebrates its 75th anniversary this year. Owners Steve and Susie Stratton have continually reinvented the business over the years to provide beauty and art in plant form to their customers and surrounding communities. 

Their business tagline is “serving your growing needs since 1949” but the motivation behind their business is really promoting the benefits of beauty and plants. “We don’t do it for us,” said Susie, “we grow for the beauty that it can bring to your life, to the community’s life.” She added “I feel like we are, in a sense, the world’s decorator.” 

The business began back in 1949 when Steve’s father, James Stratton, started growing hothouse tomatoes on the family farm. His son, Steve, essentially grew up “in a bushel basket” in the greenhouse, said Susie. But by the ‘70s, hydroponics shut down the greenhouse tomato industry. This is when Steve quit his teaching job to help his father reinvent the business to grow bedding plants and poinsettias.

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