Spreading fragrance, colour for 50 years
When I entered the main greenhouse at the Van Egmond family’s Hudson Greenhouses Ltd. the other day, I thought for a moment I was walking into a sea of tranquility. Or a Wordsworth poem.
There were flowers. Flowers of every colour, flowers sitting on floors, flowers standing like toy soldiers on tables, flowers suspended from gutter shelves, and even flowers kneeling on racks above, or so it looked. And all was bathed in silence.
Mesmerized as the afternoon light danced across the structure’s translucent rooftops, I began to appreciate just what it is that has kept the Van Egmond family anchored to this same spot for the past 50 years, doing what they do best.
They grow flowers for the wholesale market.
Located, for all this time, on Cote St. Charles in St-Lazare, the Van Egmond family today is continuing the long-held dream that their father (and grandfather), the late Jan Van Egmond, brought with him when he and his wife Catherine emigrated from the Netherlands in 1949.
Van Egmond opened his first greenhouse in 1968, and today the business is recognized by flower-shop owners and garden centre experts everywhere as one of the finest wholesale operations in the area.
Always a family enterprise, Jan Van Egmond established it as such to include his immediate family — his sons, and his wife Catherine.
Today it is operated by John Van Egmond, with daughter Lisa, a recent graduate of McGill University, preparing to take over the reins. They are aided by a slew of efficient part-time workers who step up smartly whenever the season demands.
This venture, which began slowly with four greenhouses and where work was all done by hand — everything from seeding and planting to packaging and delivery — is today a horticultural model of efficiency and preparation.
In the past, ordering cuttings and other garden materials involved the Van Egmond family sitting around the kitchen table, checking out catalogues, and filling up forms until the order was complete.
Today, it’s all done via email and the telephone.
Hudson Greenhouses Ltd. remains open all year long. It is one of the few wholesale growers to provide flowers for every major holiday, from Valentine’s Day through to Christmas, with Passover, Easter, Mother’s Day/ spring planting, and Rosh Hashanah accommodated in between.
“These seasonal moments come and go very quickly, so we havetohaveourplantsinfull bloom at the right time. Some years, especially when Mother Nature doesn’t co-operate, it’s tough to hit the date bang on,” said John Van Egmond.
Of all the plants in the greenhouse, the Van Egmonds are most proud of their tulips. “Everybody loves tulips and they seem to really love ours. In fact customers tell us that the tulips we grow are the best you’ll find anywhere,” said Lisa Van Egmond.