It started with a few greenhouses and a used pop-up tent from Furman University — and yes, that is where our signature purple comes from. David and Deborah Lichtenfelt founded Lichtenfelt’s with a simple goal: provide high-quality plant material in a well-organized layout, paired with great signage and expert gardening advice.

Every nursery runs on water. Drilling the well was one of the first big investments — the quiet groundwork that made everything growing here possible.

From the plants to the potting soil, quality has always come first — right down to the organic mushroom compost we have loved for decades. Some things never change: it is still the real stuff.

Good advice was always part of the deal. Deborah hosted a weekly gardening Q&A show on local radio that ran for nearly ten years, while David kept the growing operation humming behind the scenes.

At the beginning of 2020, David and Deborah were ready to pursue new interests (don’t call it retirement, they say!), and ownership officially passed to the second generation. Connor and Courtnie set out to honor the nursery’s deep roots while reimagining a modern garden center: renovated facilities with 30,000+ square feet of shade structures, a new in-house Design Center, a curated indoor plant shop, a rebuilt online store, and a delivery van bringing the nursery straight to customers’ driveways.