Civano Nursery, Growers Cultivate a Lush Southwest

By Tom Leyde

Civano Growers and Civano Nursery are inventing new ways to make the Southwest bloom.

The family-owned businesses comprise the largest plant-growing operation in the Tucson area, with both wholesale and retail outlets, and are literally creating breeds of plants that are native to the region, will thrive in a desert environment, and fit into modern landscaping.

“Home lot sizes are shrinking. Our climate keeps changing. It’s getting hotter, getting colder,” said Chris Shipley, president and co-owner of the family business he runs with his father, two brothers and wife.

The thought process to make the company founded in 1998 competitive and unique in the market was to give customers something they can’t get from other nurseries and growers.

“If we could take the best plants that are sold commonly and do something to them that make them fit a niche and make them better in our view, then we could have something,” Shipley said.

Chris’ brother, Nick, is the man behind the breeds. When the company embarked on a breeding program, they started with the most common plants in the region, the mesquite and the desert willow, two plants that are often including in the landscaping in new developments throughout the region.

“We have a mesquite tree now that we came out with called Civano Seedless. We took the thorns and the seeds off, and we gave it nice form,” Chris said, adding that the breed does not drop those pesky pods all over the yard. “The tree is great looking, and you don’t have to be out there in 110 degrees raking.

“We took the desert willow and gave it bigger leaves, better flowers and no seed, so it’s more of a shapely plant. It turned it into a lower-maintenance plant.”

Another common plant found in thousands of local landscapes is the Texas Ranger, a flowering bush that can grow to 10 feet by 10 feet and can take up a large percentage of space in a small yard.

“The size that people want are 3-by-3 and 4-by-4,” Shipley said. “If you have to prune something down every month, that costs money. It’s more labor. It uses more water.”

The breeding program, which uses cross-pollination and cloning to develop new plants, has grown the company into one of the largest growers and wholesale nurseries in the region. The company does business throughout the Southwest as far as Texas and Oklahoma.

The company’s roots extend back to 1998. That’s when Les Shipley and sons Nick, Alex and Chris, along with Chris’ wife Melanie, started a tree-salvage operation. Working with contractors, they identified and preserved large native trees from development sites. Then they boxed them up and relocated them.

Four years later, the Shipleys bought a 70-acre farm near Sahuarita, at 12190 Old Nogales Highway, where new plants are bred and patented. The site employs about 120 people.

Stephanie Vickers, Civano’s sales and marketing manager, said Civano propagates varieties that can thrive in weather in Arizona, California, New Mexico, Texas, Nevada and parts of Oklahoma.

“They need to be able to withstand a little bit of everything and hardy enough to survive a wide range of climate and soil and low rain,” Vickers said. “We have, over the last five to six years, reduced our growing to about 100 items.”

The Civano Garden Center, which opened in 1999 at 5301 S. Houghton Road, offers an abundance of plants. Employees will even deliver and plant them for customers. The team also is knowledgeable on how to design and implement gardens.

Civano is constantly working to streamline its operations, Vickers added. “We’re always introducing better and new selections (of plants) for everyday landscaping.” 

Over the next 12 to 16 months, the company will be focusing on a new sales office, currently under construction. And it will be expanding its planting acreage, allowing Civano to offer more plants to commercial customers who need larger quantities, such as new housing developers who may need 300 to 500 plants of the same variety. 

While there are larger nurseries in the Phoenix area, Vickers said, “hidden near Sahuarita is a little 120-acre gem in the middle of the desert.”

Pictured above Standing in front of a Laredo Texas Ranger, from left – Les Shipley, Alex Shipley, Nick Shipley, Chris Shipley. Photo Brent G. Mathis