B MEET YOUR GROWER
HIGHWAY HORTICULTURE Based in Southwest Michigan, Highway Horticulture has built its reputation on a 'seed-to-sale' philos- ophy that pairs state-of-the-art technology with a deep-seated love for the state’s unique culture. To peek under the hood of their huge cultivation facility, we sat down with Chief of Operations Blake Maddox and Cultivation Manager Drew Hollingsworth. How did you get started in growing? What resourc- es, experts or otherwise did you use for direction? Blake: I really started in college, I would visit a good friend of mine who was attending Oaksterdam. is was during the Measure Z days. While he was in class I would hang around the student union and e Bulldog. Talking with other students on break or people popping in and out. I also spent time working on the hill trimming and harvesting, or up in Eugene in the indoor and outdoor scene learning for some old heads. A lot of my friends are well known glass blowers that I would hang around their shop and put in work around their grows. A er I graduated from school in Florida, I went to Colorado where I grew as a caregiver in South Park County, eventually making my way into the legal market, growing commercial organic indoor ower, and running ower ops in an acre of greenhouses in Boulder. When the Farm bill passed we set up green- houses and ran acres of hemp in South East Michigan for smokable ower and CBD isolate production for a few seasons. Since then I have been designing and running facilities in Puerto Rico, Miami, Colorado, here in Michigan, and currently designing builds in South Africa and the Bahamas. Drew: I’ve had a connection to the plant from a young age and it wasn’t quite legal yet. Youtube was a newer thing so there weren't a lot of restrictions on content. I learned a lot from the people on there, books, and High Times magazines. Chat rooms! I wasn’t running
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14 MAY/JUNE 2026
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