Theme parks around the world are constantly changing their attractions and offerings in an effort to keep their entertainment lineup fresh and continually draw guests to their parks.  Sometimes additions seem to leave as fast as they arrive, making these short-lived features one-season-wonders at a park.
	It didn't take long for Great Adventure to start feeling the impact of being part of a corporate conglomerate after their acquisition by the Six Flags family of theme parks in late 1977.  Soon thereafter, it was often commonplace for alliance and sponsorship deals which were previously formed at other Six Flags parks to work their way into Great Adventure.  One such marketing tie-in was promoted by the Schultz fertilizer and plant food company.
		During the late '70s, house plants were a "growing" industry and just as much a popular fad as pet rocks and disco music.  To capitalize on this trend, Great Adventure installed a walk-in greenhouse near the fountain located on Dream Street between the Great American Hamburger food stand and the Flying Wave swing ride. The metal and glass structure's interior was lined with wooden planting benches fully stocked with house plants such as ficus, philodendron, spider plants, and ferns.  A wide selection of Schultz planting and growth-promoting products were also available in small portion size bottles.  If anyone doubted that the Schultz solutions actually assisted in growing healthy plants, they only had to go as far as stepping outside the greenhouse to see the beautiful and lush Six Flags Great Adventure landscaping which was nurtured using those same products albeit on a much larger scale.
	The plant shop was staffed by green-thumbed representatives with ties to the park's landscaping department.  Their uniforms included t-shirts that advertised the "Shultz Instant" brand with the proclamation of it being the "Official Plant Food of Six Flags." The location of Schultz's Greenhouse was carefully chosen.  Not only was it ideally located in a high traffic path on the spine of the park, but it was also close enough to the theme park's main entrance and exit so guests could conveniently pick up a plant on their way out of the park.  However, if you happen to spot a plant that you wanted to buy earlier in the day, purchased plants could be held at the greenhouse until you left the park, as long as you arrived before closing time. Although popular, at the end of the 1979 season Schultz's Greenhouse was removed from the theme park and the in-park promotional tie-in came to an end.  The site of the greenhouse became home to a newly constructed snack shop in 1980 called Kiss My Cookies which after several remodels and renamings over the years is now the Candy Apples store. Today, it's curious to ponder if sitting in the corner of someone's living room amongst some robust interior foliage is a thriving plant whose owner can proclaim that they bought "that one" as something just bigger than a seedling at Great Adventure in the seventies!
Original Spotlight:  August 20, 2021.  GAH Reference#:  SHOP-1979-003