As McShane’s Nursery closes, the property gets in line for a new business: cannabis.

Poinsettias, an ornamental Christmas plant, usually require placing orders months ahead. But when Steve McShane got a call from his poinsettia supplier in early August, he knew something was up.

“He tells me, ‘If you’re gonna get poinsettias this year, get your order in now,’” says McShane, owner and general manager of McShane’s Nursery on Highway 68, just outside Salinas. The poinsettia grower was losing 30 percent of his floor space to a cannabis grower; his landlord could make better money that way.

It was a parallel to changes underway at McShane’s, where after more than a decade in the nursery business, McShane and his business partner/landlord, construction magnate Don Chapin, agreed to close down. (McShane will keep the “hardscape” side, selling large rocks and landscaping supplies, but is losing the nursery, roughly two-thirds of the space.)

And cannabis is coming in. Grupo Flor submitted an application to the Monterey County Resource Management Agency on March 31, proposing cannabis cultivation in greenhouses, “in a similar manner as previously used for the cultivation and processing of cut flowers.” Grupo Flor has also applied for a permit to open a dispensary on the well-traveled road, one of three pending applications the Salinas company has for its East of Eden Dispensary business.

“It’s a model that is not seeking to emulate what they’re doing in the cities, but rather create a look and feel that is comfortable for more ag-based communities, like Stockton, Salinas, Fresno,” says co-founder Gavin Kogan. “A lot of dispensaries in Oakland and San Francisco are going for that Apple Store look. Our feeling is that’s a little bit cold, and not really what cannabis is about.” (They also have pending applications for dispensaries on Work Street in Salinas, and San Juan Grade just beyond city limits on the opposite end of town.)

McShane says he expects Grupo Flor will make good neighbors, and as word got out that his business was closing, he got inquiries from everything from salons to car dealers interested in the property.

Chapin says the decision to close was not related to the promise of pot revenue as much as a mom-and-pop nursery industry beset by competition from big-box stores like Home Depot. “We kept thinking, next year will be a better year,” Chapin says, “and then it just doesn’t bear fruit. The decision was, we just need to get out of the nursery business.”

Chapin says cannabis isn’t his thing, but it’s good business: “I’m not a cannabis guy, but at the end of the day, it’s here and it’s going to be here.”