Cha-ching! (4-21)

Last year, My Garden Nursery in Mill Creek, Wash., was named the best Home and Garden Store in Western Washington by Evening Magazine Viewers. One stroll around the grounds will give you a pretty good idea why.

This is a garden center where gnomes are celebrated, where heuchera warrant 365 days in the spotlight, where customers don't see displays as much as idea centers -- and where those same customers can, if they want to, mail packages and buy stamps. Indeed, My Garden Nursery might be the only garden center in the country that has its own U.S. Contract Post Office Unit.

It's the ultimate "lots of parts, one great sum" retail operation, the best part of which might not even be the aforementioned bells and whistles. "Our staff is quite skilled at really connecting with customers," said Jenny Gunderson, who owns the store with Bill Raynolds. "We've hired well, and I think the feeling we've created is that we're a family."

Indeed, it's one happy family -- that is reaping the "Cha-ching!" as a result.

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