HINTON, W.Va. -- The success of owning a garden center/landscape business depends on the whims of Mother Nature -- sun, rain, soil and such can be the life or death of the venture. Add clinging to the bank of the longest undammed river on the East Coast, and you've got Groundworks Nursery in Hinton.

Chris and Torula Chanlett-Avery have been growing, planting and selling annuals, herbs, vegetables, perennials, shrubs and trees since 1984, when Chris, now 63, was a self-described "hippie with a pickup truck."

He's now on his fifth truck, and he and wife Torula, 59, have built a thriving business complete with a garden center in an unlikely spot along busy W.Va. 3 in Summers County.

"When we built, there were 7,000 cars passing here each day," Chris said. "Now it's probably 10,000. We have a lot of repeat business, business from second-home people who have vacation homes nearby. We also sell to people who are from Huntington or Charleston and just in the area."

Someone from the nursery travels to the Lewisburg Farmers' Market each week, and while they don't sell a lot of items at the market, they make many valuable contacts that lead to jobs at The Greenbrier resort and throughout the area.

The early landscaping business grew from the couple's love of the land that brought them to West Virginia.

"We were part of the homesteader movement," Torula said. "We moved here to live on the land. We lived sustainably, grew wheat, everything we ate."

They lived communally with others and with their daughter, Emma, who was 6 months old at the time. They had another daughter, Sadie, three years later. Both girls went to Summers County High School; Emma went on to Amherst and Columbia and now works for the Library of Congress as a congressional researcher. Sadie went to Bryn Mawr College and lives in Oakland, Calif., and is the in-house yogi at Clif Bar & Co., a maker of natural energy foods and drinks.

Avid kayakers and canoeists, the couple has become involved in the preservation of the rivers they love. Chris is president of the organization Friends of the Lower Greenbrier River Watershed. He grew up in Chapel Hill, N.C., the son of a college professor, and Torula was born on Long Island and was raised in the D.C. area.

Both of their parents had engineering backgrounds, and Torula credits their own design sense to growing up in that environment. They designed and built the structures that contain the garden center.

The sliver of land between the highway and the river on which the nursery is built had two trailers on it back in 1996 when the Greenbrier River flooded to a record high, and the trailers were washed away. The couple had to get approval from FEMA before they could construct their buildings in 1998; those structures are built to withstand high water, with deep pilings, removable doors and windows and washable natural materials.

"We are four miles from the mouth of the Greenbrier, so we get about a day's notice when there's a chance of flooding," Chris explained. The flood season is between November and March, when the garden center is shut down, so there hasn't been much loss from rising waters.

Inside the garden center's main building, there are lines drawn on the walls marking flood water levels. The "hoop houses," where they grow their plants, are closer to the highway on higher ground. Torula said the main loss during the worst flood was the gravel parking lot that washed down the bank.

"But after that flood, we laid out the garden center in a more efficient manner, so something positive came from it," she added.

Water for the plants comes from two wells, and many of the shade plants are displayed under a large bank of trees along the parking area.

The business is packed with thriving plants, each one carefully tended daily by the Groundworks staff. The fruit trees and roses from Bailey's are the healthiest I've seen, and the prices were reasonable. Torula said the fruit trees are big sellers, and she treats them with an organic fungicide to keep problems at bay.

"The 'Easy Elegance' roses compete with the 'Knock-Out,'" Torula said. "The sales rep said that while they are guaranteed, the company rarely sees one returned."

Many Proven Winners shrubs, in full bloom right now, can be found around Groundworks, including hydrangeas 'Invincibelle Spirit,' 'Incrediball,' 'Cityline,' 'Mars' and 'Limelight.' There's Proven Winners' version of the "Endless Summer" hydrangeas -- 'Let's Dance' and 'Moonlight.' Also blooming are 'Sunshine Blue Caryopteris,' Buddleia 'Miss Ruby' and 'Miss Molly,' 'Lo & Behold' and hibiscuses 'Blue Satin' and 'Lavender Chiffon.'

The Ninebarks -- 'Summerwine' and 'Coppertina' -- are stunning, and Torula has several that are trimmed into standard form.

"Ninebarks have that drooping branch when they are mature, so I'm looking forward to seeing them as they mature in these standard forms," she said.

The center receives bare-root plants in February, and they pot them in a mix of 80 percent fine pine bark and 20 percent compost, shipped in from North Carolina. It's all hands on deck getting the young plants into pots and into the hoop houses to mature. They speak fondly of their loyal staff.

"We had a young man show up when he was 8 years old with his mother, and he said, 'I'm going to work here someday.' Well, he's worked here for six years now; he's 20, and in college at Concord," Torula said. "We're all family here. Two gals who work here are daughters of our farm partners. We've been referred to as 'Team Groundwork.'"

The couple is at home walking among the beautiful garden beds along the highway, teasing each other about different plantings and combinations. Her bumper sticker describes their philosophy: "Practice Random Acts of Gardening!"

They can't use the lower part of their land that spans the bank of the Greenbrier for business purposes because of the tenuous nature of the river's water levels.

"We have a picnic every July down there for staff and friends, but that's all we can use it for," Torula said.

The river and the road play an integral part in Groundworks' success, and Chris said the sounds from both play a part in their daily lives.

"In the early spring, you can hear that river, and, of course, you can hear the cars on the road. Then a train comes through, and wow! It's loud."

The couple agrees that the best sound, however, is the crunching of tires on the gravel parking lot in the spring signaling the beginning of growing season.

"Ahhh ... the sound of tires on gravel," Chris said with a laugh. "We like that sound."

Groundworks Nursery is located along W.Va. Route 3, in Hinton. For directions, visit www.groundworksnursery.com or call 304-466-4440.

Reach Sara Busse at sara.bu...@wvgazette.com or 304-348-1249.