Our History...Where Caring Thrives

In the late 60’s Udgar Parsons, a Dentist and Orthodontist, made a career change and moved his family to a remote and beautiful place called Scoraig on the northwest coast of Scotland. There he pursued farming and practiced the art of self-sufficient living off the grid. A fascination with alternative lifestyles that "care for the environment and our fellow humans," motivated Udgar and his family to participate in several alternative community experiments around the world. The success of turning one overgrazed sheep ranch into a self-sufficient oasis led to his interest in cultivating food in challenging situations.

After helping to build a sustainable eco-community in Oregon for four years, Udgar found himself working with the Biodome at the Windstar Foundation in Snowmass, Colorado in 1987. Windstar’s founders John Denver and Tom Crum were mentored by Buckminster Fuller who was convinced that if we learned “to do more with less” we could feed the world and solve our environmental problems. Eight years of research went into their large Biodome model, which was to target large Institutions in marketing.

Inspired by this new knowledge, Udgar founded Growing Spaces along with his wife, Puja. He was motivated to create an affordable dome greenhouse for backyard gardeners and continued to enhance the dome’s efficiency by adding several new features. While pursuing the ideal of sustainability, he noticed that he was a part of a newly emerging business culture, dedicated to the entrepreneurship of creating practical solutions to our environmental challenges. In 1995, the company relocated to Pagosa Springs, Colorado where they remain today.

In 2003, the company also went International and starting selling domes in England and France. The following years, Growing Spaces continued to introduce various sizes of the Growing Dome® - the 26' dome, 51' dome, 18' dome and 12' dome - as their business continued to expand worldwide. By 2009, the company sold greenhouse domes in 47 states and 11 countries.

After more than 1,000 family and backyard Growing Domes® sold, the company will broaden its reach to the community, farms/growers, and educational markets. This course will be further lead by continued product enhancements and sustainable living and education outreach.