Troy State University student Willie Rivers spent one summer decades ago working a “plant route” with his brother-in-law, Bubba Pope. Together, they traveled across Alabama delivering potted plants to stores on consignment and dropping off whichever plants a particular business had ordered while collecting any that didn’t sell to take back to their supplier.
In 1979, Rivers and his wife Glenda moved to Brandon, Mississippi, and decided to go into the plant business for themselves, partnering with relatives from Alabama and Tennessee to open their own greenhouse to grow and sell plants wholesale.
Rivers Plant Farm, located just off Highway 18 in Brandon on Rockhill Road, grew to encompass roughly 80 greenhouses filled with vegetables, flowering plants, herbs and more. The Rivers’ daughter, Joy Rivers Faulkner, began working on the family plant farm shortly after graduating from high school. By 1987 she decided to expand the business with a retail plant shop called Rivers Greenhouse & Garden (4664 MS-18, Brandon) just a mile down the road from the relocated wholesale plant farm, which used to operate from the property upon which the retail store now rests.
“As someone who grew up loving gardening and shopping alike, expanding in this direction felt like the right fit for me,” Faulkner told the Mississippi Free Press. “People always came by and wanted to buy plants from us, and it gave us the chance to expand into landscaping decor, soils, pottery and other gardening-related items.”
Rivers Greenhouse & Garden sits on 80,000 square feet of land about 13 miles south of Brandon. The shop has 10 propane-heated greenhouses containing vegetables, flowering annuals and perennials and hanging basket plants, as well as an outdoor area for trees and shrubs and a brick building called the “Outdoor Sanctuary” that contains indoor and outdoor home decor and seasonal decorative items.
Faulkner’s son, Justin Fortune, has been working at Rivers Greenhouse & Garden since he graduated from Mississippi State University with a bachelor’s degree in landscape architecture in 2018. In May 2025 he decided to make his own mark on the family business by setting up a koi pond on the grounds using stones from a Brandon-based business called Morgan’s Stone and koi from a fish farm in Mobile, Alabama, called Pond Elegance.
“We’ve raised thousands of flower beds out here over the years, and I wanted to take things a step further by adding a big water feature near our chicken coop,” Fortune said. “Kids love to watch the fish and see the chickens, and a lot of city kids may not have ever seen a chicken coop before. Having these installations for them to interact with animals lets us bring a bit of that farm lifestyle out here.”
Faulkner’s sister, retired schoolteacher Starla Deeds, manages the Outdoor Sanctuary at Rivers Greenhouse & Garden while her brother Bill Rivers operates Rivers Plant Farm. Their mother also still comes in to care for the outdoor gardens most mornings.
“I feel like we’ve been blessed to be able to do a job we all love, surrounded by all this beauty every day,” Faulkner said. “Our customers also get excited seeing all these beautiful plants and outdoor beauty, which surrounds us with positivity every day.”
Rivers Greenhouse & Garden is open seasonally from Feb. 1 until the second week of June and from Sept. 1 until Christmas each year. The store is open from 8 a.m. until 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and from 8 a.m. until 4 a.m. on Saturdays. For more information, call 601-825-9816 or find the business on Facebook.
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