Margaret Manbeck and her brothers, Forest and Christopher Duplessis, grew up at Pooh Corner Farm Greenhouses & Florist, the business their parents started in Mason Township in 1984.

Carole and Richard Duplessis established the garden nursery and florist shop on 100 acres at 436 Bog Road, just off off Route 2 near the Bethel/Gilead town line. He died in 2021.

Carole, Margaret and her husband, Roland Manbeck, have operated the business the past six years.

But this spring, the Manbecks are moving the florist and gift part of the business to Bethel, while Forest Duplessis and his partner, Lainey Tate McDaniel, will join Carole with the greenhouses and garden nursery, which will open May 2.

The Manbecks hope to open Alden & Co. at 2 Main St. by late April. The full-service florist and gift shop will take over the former Maine Adaptive office.

They will expand the gift shop with a “curated mix of home decor and gifts from other small businesses, some local to Maine,” Margaret Manbeck said. She’ll add ready-made arrangements and bouquets, too.

“I will still be focusing heavily on weddings and events,” shea said. “I’m very excited to expand the commerce on Main Street and become a part of the in-town community. Like most small businesses, this a family affair. My son, Walker, who is three, is very excited for the new flower shop. He got to help with the first day of demolition. Abigail and Samantha (9-month-old twins) will, like me in my parents’ business, grow up spending days with us at the shop.”

“Since moving back to Bethel in 2020, I wanted to bring more commerce back to Main Street and downtown Bethel,” Margaret said. “I was just waiting for the perfect location.”

She said she’d always thought she would name one of her children Alden, “but I guess when you’re a small business owner that business really becomes another child.”

Alden is Manbeck’s middle name and her mother’s maiden name.

POOH CORNER FARM

“Working closely with my amazing mom at Pooh is a big reason we feel comfortable taking on this new and exciting challenge,” said Forest, who took naps in the greenhouse when he was a baby.

“We’re fortunate to have had traffic come down (Bog Road) for 40 years and we want to continue to cultivate that,” he said. “It’s back to our roots and our roots started here with the focus on the grown items.”

Besides plants and flowers they will sell garden tools such as trowels, soil, seeds, pots and gloves and will order trees and shrubs for customers. Christmas trees and wreaths will return during the holiday season.

Forest previously worked in motorsports and as a graphic designer; McDaniel worked in the sales and events industry.

“I’ve never had to wear two pairs of pants, before ” Lainey McDaniels, of Texas, told Forest’s mother. It was one of her first lessons about spring in western Maine.

The farm has always been a family place. Footprints of children and animals remain set into the foundations of some buildings. Buddy, one in a line of Pooh Farm corgis, greets visitors. A previous dog, Danny, was known for guiding hikers up nearby mountain trails.

“We had pooh animals, too,” Carole said.

Forest said they will not bring back the wide range of animals once kept there, though there may be a pot-bellied pig in the shop.

While the farm’s name came from Carole’s favorite book and stuffed animal, she added wryly, “It didn’t really work because people thought we were a day care or nursery.”

Four decades on, the name remains — and the family business continues, now in two places, each building on the same Pooh Corner roots.