East Sac plant shop celebrates 50 years. Meet family behind Little Italy anchor
As the cultural background of Sacramento’s Little Italy Historic District has become diluted in recent decades, one small business in the area is celebrating a major milestone and still honoring its Italian roots.
Talini’s Nursery & Garden Center has sat on the corner of Folsom Boulevard and 56th Street in East Sacramento for 50 years, through a financial crisis, a pandemic and a massively changing business landscape.
Kevin Johnson, the nursery’s co-owner and nursery manager, said the family-owned shop won’t go away anytime soon.
“We’ve just been a staple in the community, being able to provide just all the plants, flowers, vegetables, soils, for people to enjoy for their gardens, and our plan is to be here for another 50 years,” Johnson said.
Johnson has only worked in the large Talini’s nursery for about six years. But he’s been in the family business fold for more than two decades. He married the nursery founder’s granddaughter, Luciana Talini — now Johnson — in 2003, and learned everything he knows about gardening and horticulture from the Talini family and their business’s longtime employees.
Though Johnson is acutely aware of the drastic changes to the nursery industry’s landscape, he said the family-owned plant store’s longevity in the region and role during difficult times has helped cement it as a community cornerstone for years to come.
“We have good customer loyalty,” Johnson said. “It’s about being dependable ... and I think people have gravitated to that.”
In honor of 50 years running, Johnson said Talini’s will host occasional sales throughout the year on nursery goods, which will be announced online ahead of time.
From Italy to Little Italy: Talini’s Nursery’s history
Italian immigrants Pietro Talini and son Luigi Talini established their family nursery business in 1976, roughly 30 years after moving to the U.S.
The elder Talini didn’t speak much English, but he knew a significant amount about horticulture from his time as head groundskeeper of The Vatican. He worked in the asparagus fields in the Central Valley after immigrating, but his ultimate goal was to get a business license for a landscaping operation.
“(Pietro Talini) got his business license by being able to label (the plants) around the Capitol in Latin,” Johnson said. “(State officials were) like, ‘You are more than qualified.’ ... So he got his business license not speaking the best English at the time, but knowing the knowledge.”
The Talinis set up a space at 5601 Folsom Blvd. to store their landscaping equipment and excess plants while they launched their business. According to Johnson, Pietro Talini found a deep love for selling flowers and other plants. The business naturally pivoted, becoming a “full-blown” retail plant store and nursery in its budding days.
Pietro Talini died in the early 1980s and Luigi Talini took over, establishing the nursery as a place for Sacramento gardeners and homeowners to find high-quality plants and helpful service.
“There’s still some people that come that have been here since the beginning,” Johnson said. “They remember (the space’s history) because it used to be an old rose shop.”
Luciana Johnson grew up around her grandfather’s plant store, and now her daughters are the fourth generation of Talinis who spent ample time of their childhood among the seeds and starts in East Sacramento.
“My kids grew up walking here,” Kevin Johnson said. “It’s fun to see people bringing in their kids, their little toddlers, and they’re just bopping around and seeing all the flowers and learning — it’s just awesome.”
The modern-day plant shop
With five decades of presence in East Sacramento, Talini’s is one of the oldest Little Italy Historic District businesses, and the oldest nursery in town, Johnson said.
Though big-box plant stores and global retailers have threatened to price out small nurseries in the area, Johnson said Talini’s serves a niche purpose for gardeners that has helped protect it.
“Ourr focus is to be unique in the fact that, whatever plants that you need, there may be a different variety that you’re not accustomed to, so it creates a lot of curiosity,” Johnson said. “We’ve been able to be a little unique in what we bring in and what works in our climate, right.”
Most, if not all, of the vegetables, fruits, flowers and other starts in the nursery are sourced from California or somewhere in the West Coast. With the earlier-than-usual springtime weather this year, Talini’s was already replete with blossoming tomato starts in late March. One section of the nursery was exclusively heirloom tomato varietals from Wild Boar Farms in Citrus Heights.
Johnson said the nursery also serves the community’s mental health, which was best seen during the COVID-19 pandemic. Talini’s was a rare example during the pandemic — as a primarily outdoor business selling items for the home, it boomed in popularity in 2020.
“In tougher times, people want to be around something that makes them feel good, and I feel like that’s something that we can help with,” Johnson said. “People feel good being in their gardens, people feel good planting their own food ... It makes people happy, so I feel like there’s a big space for us to continue on.”
Luciana Johnson does not work in the plant shop — she is a nurse at Sutter Hospital in Sacramento. Kevin Johnson has a background in business, which helped the family decide he should be part of managing the nursery full-time starting in 2020. The couple also wanted to ensure the business stays in the Talini family as Luigi Talini has gotten older.
Johnson said his wife is an only child, so it’s up to them to further the Talini’s legacy in Sacramento. The pair hopes their daughters, now aged 14 and 10, are one day interested in carrying the family business for the next 50 years.
“This weekend, I had them here moving tomatoes around and stuff,” Johnson said. “They were all into that.”
Hidden under a plastic planter box holding flower starts in the nursery is a concrete slab imprinted with the Johnson daughters’ handprints, labeled “2019.”
“The little things, right?” Johnson said. “Family’s everything.”
