BUSINESS RETAIL Fresh growth underway
Connon merges locations, Harper’s changes hands
Change is coming for two of the city’s major garden centres
Fresh growth is underway in the city’s garden centre industry.
A more than 100-year-old nursery has plans to merge two of its locations because of space constraints, and new owners have taken over a long-standing family operation in Ancaster.
At Connon Nurseries in Waterdown, the Highway 5 location where it has been based for 85 years will close next year.
Company vice-president Terry Vanderkruk said the nursery has outgrown the 3.75-acre property, plus they have another sales yard less than a five-minute drive away on Robson Road where the public will still be able to buy plants.
“Since we are growers and wholesalers of over 250 acres of plant material, we need much more space to display and market our product,” Vanderkruk explained in an email.
Connon Nurseries sold the Dundas Street property to Mikmada Homes. That location will remain open until June 17, 2017.
On Wilson Street East, meanwhile, Harper’s Garden Centre has changed hands.
For the first time in its 68-year history, the independent garden centre is owned by someone other than a Harper.
It started as a small farm back in 1948, founded by Bruce and Ruth Harper.
But in January of this year, 26year-old Michael Simone bought the operation along with five business partners. Simone may be new to Harper’s, but he’s not new to the garden centre industry. He said his family has owned a privately run garden centre in the Markham area since 1969.
Rumours were swirling that Harper’s had been purchased for development, Simone said, but that’s not the case.
“The family started and have continued and created quite a legacy. We’re here to continue it on. Same name, but new style.”
It’s still early days when it comes to potential changes, but Simone said plans could include expanding merchandise lines to include home decor, clothing and handbags — the “one-stop shop” side of garden centres.
“It’s kind of a year of discovery. We’re learning all about the staff, we’re learning about all the roles, learning about what the Harpers did on a whole.”
Claire Kostyshyn of the Mount Hamilton Horticultural Society said the local garden centre industry has “exploded.”
“I think there’s more garden centres than there ever were,” she said, noting there are probably one-third more than when she first started planting about 15 years ago.
Within the city’s agricultural sector, greenhouse operations are the highest-value commodity group, producing almost $45 million of the $225 million in gross farm sales in 2008. Nursery products and sod make up close to $34 million.
Overall, the economic impact of Ontario’s horticultural industry is close to $7 billion.
In the Hamilton area, some of the expansion comes from established chains opening more stores. Take Terra Garden Centre, which opened its fifth location on Highway 20 in 2015.
The variety of plants available to home gardeners has also broadened in recent years, Kostyshyn said.
“When we first started gardening, you could hardly get anything other than an ordinary spruce tree, and now you can get just about anything.”
More people are interested in harvesting their own vegetables and learning how to grow plants in smaller places, such as on a balcony, Kostyshyn added.
Extensive selections of plants, combined with the knowledge of experts is what keeps garden centres in business when many grocery and hardware stores are also selling plants in spring and summer, according to Simone.
“You definitely feel it, but I think that’s where the customer service and having the product knowledge and the unique product is what separates us from those corporate companies.”