LAUGHLINTOWN, Pa. — Terry Coyne sowed the seeds for her new floral and gift shop while working as a nutrition researcher for 13 years at the University of Pittsburgh during the late 1980s and 1990s.

Amaryllis and colorful Cape primroses, which are members of the African violet family, crowded her office, thriving behind floor-to-ceiling sliding glass doors that faced east.

"Before long, it was like a nursery," she recalled, adding that for years, she divided pink and white Cape primroses and gave them to friends.

No wonder her new business, which opened this year in a converted two-car garage, is called The Conservatory — Plants and Gifts for Gardeners. Here you'll find herbs and specimens not seen at big-box stores — bromeliads, succulents and air plants.

Customers love the setting, just a short walk away from Coyne's restored 1797 log house next door. The freshly painted white brick building is trimmed with contrasting black shutters and a black door. Inside, there's a large skylight and nine double-hung windows.

Among the most inventive items are bird feeders made out of colorful teacups. Mounted on copper piping, the feeders are created by Chris Kapitan of Jenners, Pa. Rub petroleum jelly on the copper pipe to keep squirrels from climbing up and stealing the birdseed.

Coyne restored her 18th-century log house with help from friends and by studying "The Old House Compendium." Converting a two-car garage was easier. Work began around Labor Day of 2008 and was finished by Thanksgiving of that year.

"I wanted the ceiling high and insulated," said Coyne, adding that a high ceiling allows her to hang flowering baskets during spring and summer. A ceiling fan helps keep things cool.

Rainwater from the building's gutters flows into a large, 150-gallon black rain barrel; overflow goes into a soaker hose near large rhododendrons.

Outside the shop stands a gorgeous yellow buckeye tree. A local gardener suggested that she root the buckeyes in dirt, wait until they sprout and sell the seedlings in the spring.

"They are a little bit particular about where they want to grow. They like really nice soil," Coyne said.

She became besotted with all things botanical in the 1960s, an era when nearly every American kitchen held a spider plant or maiden hair fern hanging from the ceiling in a bead-encrusted macrame holder.

Her passion for unusual plants intensified while she lived in the South Pacific and Australia. After earning her doctorate in nutritional epidemiology in 1998, she spent a year working in New Caledonia, a French island in the southwest Pacific between Fiji and Australia.

"It was a 'Some Enchanted Evening' kind of place," she said, adding that she played tennis, studied French and sampled good French and Australian wines. She was there to update a report she wrote 20 years ago on islanders' nutritional habits.

When she finished, an offer came to teach nutrition at the University of Queensland in Australia. She retired in 2006 and returned to Laughlintown that year.

"Bromeliads were practically weeds in Australia," Coyne said, adding that in Queensland, she had a license to grow 'Goldfinger' bananas, which are a lot sweeter than the supermarket variety.

The Conservatory's last day of business this year was Oct. 18. The shop reopens on May 1. Information: 724-238-2288.

Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service.