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Gwinnett nursery helping to keep Disney looking like most magical place on Earth

The owner of a Gwinnett County nursery has been working overtime to help an important client: Mickey Mouse.

Lewis Sharp’s family has been growing plants in Gwinnett County for 33 years. Premier Growers started with Sharp, his dad and brother and now his daughter is involved.

But this year, there has been little time to stop and smell the flowers.

“We’ve been through the droughts, the financial crisis and now the pandemic. We don’t have control over what can happen during a pandemic.”

Neither did one of Sharp’s most important clients: Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida. Premier Growers has been shipping plants to Disney for 12 years. But the year of the COVID-19 pandemic can change things.

“They were in the middle of their flower festival at Epcot in March. When they shut down, they had to let the flowerbeds go. They didn’t water them any longer,” Sharp said.

Sharp told Channel 2′s Berndt Petersen that Disney takes water from showers, sinks and flushed toilets at its resort, treats it and then re-uses it to irrigate its landscape.

But when the pandemic closed, the theme park and hotels also shut off the supply of recycled water. There wasn’t enough recycled water to wet all the flowers, shrubs and other plant life.

So when Disney prepared to reopen, they called Sharp, who loaded up his trucks and drove them south.

Sharp said it’s more than just business.

“Well, Disney is a magical place for a lot of people,” he said. “We love being involved with them. We feel really blessed.”

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