Green Haven – 40 years of Growing with Southern Alberta

Karen and her sister Gail Smith are co-owners and managers of Green Haven, which has been a family business since it began. In 1977, their parents Irvin and Lyla Leishner had the idea to start a garden centre, as a way to remain active when they took early retirement. Irvin was a detective with City Police, while Lyla worked as a loans officer at a bank.

It was fortunate that daughter Karen was developing a horticultural background. She was studying Environmental Science at the College, where her favourite course was botany and the knowledge came in handy when the budding garden centre gained popularity.

Green Haven is still located at its original location, at #5 South Sunnyside Road, just east of the Agricultural Research Centre off Highway-3. The business has blossomed from a few modest buildings to now boasting two large retail greenhouses, with another nine single greenhouses, which cover 40,000 square feet for bedding plants. An expansion in 1998 added a 5,000 sq. ft. store which is attached to a 10,000 sq. ft. retail facility, and a large fenced area adjoins the retail space to accommodate tree, shrub and evergreen stock. Just a few years ago, an open greenhouse was added to handle perennial stock, which can be viewed under the roofed enclosure.

The physical size of the business isn’t the only growth area. For most of the year, Green Haven employees about 20 people but, in the busy spring and early summer period, there may be as many as 50 staff.

On a recent Wednesday afternoon in the middle of April, Green Haven’s parking lot is full and customers are in the store with itching green thumbs – even though it is still too early to plant most things outdoors. Karen says a lot of folks, especially those new to gardening, want to know what the best planting options are.

“They’re looking for their vegetables – lots of vegetable seeds, potatoes, onions — and they’re really wanting the trees and shrubs and want to find out what’s new or they are planting new in their yard and that’s just coming up for us, starting next week, as we get nursery stock.”

While it is still early in the planting season, Karen says gardeners can plant seed that can handle the cooler soil.

“Their actually looking at starting to plant onion sets and some are doing potatoes — not everything has to wait until the long weekend in May but, you need to learn which works and which doesn’t – we get lots who do spinach seed, and strawberry plants can take the cooler weather, but things like tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and squash will need another month before they can be planted out.”

Karen notes that they grow a lot of their own bedding plants on site, which is a big production for them, and in those bedding plants there are new varieties which have already been growth tested.

One of Green Haven’s ‘go-to’ suppliers of annuals is “Proven Winners”.

“Our sales reps actually go to trials, which they just went to last week – California trials – where they see all the new plants for next year. They take lots of pictures and get information, and we look at that information when we do the orders for next year – we do the orders for next year’s plants in August.”

Most of the cuttings that Green Haven brings in come from a grower in Oyen and others on the lower mainland, including Burnaby and Abbotsford, as well as Costa Rica. Karen says no matter where the cuttings come from, they have to be plants that will survive in our growing ‘zone’.

“We still have to go by the tried-and-true, so, petunias, petunias, petunias – they have the same growth habit but, they come in different colours, there are new trailing varieties and there is a new one this year that is called “Night Skies’ – so, it’s dark purple and spotted like the stars.”

“We know that petunias will do well here, as well as geraniums, some impatiens varieties,” Karen added, “And, we are doing a lot more plants in containers, either hanging baskets or on the ground, and those plants can actually survive different weather conditions.”

Karen says there is also a lot of interest in tomatoes.

“Even if someone is doing a vegetable garden in a small space and they don’t have much room, they still want to grow one or two tomato plants and may grow them in their flower beds or in pots and containers on the patio.”

Flower and vegetable growing questions are not the only queries Karen deals with. She has already had quite a number of people come in with sketches and wondering what will work, in terms of shrubs, and she also gets many questions about shade and fruit trees.

When asked if she ever finds it tedious – the answer was an emphatic no. “I love being able to interact with people.”

Karen understands that gardeners want to make the right decisions when they are buying and planting and she noted that she and her staff sometimes will learn information about plants from gardeners who come into the store and share their experiences.

“We answer as much as we can and we have cards with our nursery stock that provides information and there’s lots that we have on our website, which includes an icon called ‘plant finder’ which helps you search the names of plants and find their pictures and other information.”

There has been a gardening trend change over the years. Karen says forty years ago, most people heading to garden centers just wanted evergreens, junipers and ground cover, and mostly the older generation would be doing vegetable gardens.

“But, then we started to see a change where it wasn’t so much all evergreen, people wanted a variety, or they wanted flowering shrubs, so we’ve seen a big change in that, now we’re seeing smaller yards, so it all depends on the yard size.”

“We are also seeing more people going into vegetable gardening, whereas years ago younger people had no interest in gardening and preferred to go to the grocery store and there weren’t as many choices in fruit and vegetable varieties but, now we’re seeing younger people wanting to grow their own because they want to be able to say that they grew this and it doesn’t have chemicals all over this plant – and, of course they’re learning about soil and how to build up Southern Alberta’s clay soil.”

Over the forty years of Green Haven’s growth, it is no longer just a spring and summer business – now operates ear round, transitioning from one season to the next.

“In the spring, it’s always about what people can grow, what’s new on the market and questions about pruning, then in the summertime, we see people who have questions about problems they are having with their plants, and gardeners will bring in samples for us to have a look at and diagnose. In the fall, of course we sell bulbs, and we deal with pruning questions, how to winterize plants and we get a lot of lawn questions.”

As most gardeners and home decorators know, Christmas has now become a major season for the business. When asked how they prepare for season, Karen says it has already been taken care of this year.

“We do our buying in January – we go to gifts shows in Texas and Toronto – we buy all of our Christmas inventory in January, and we get to see what’s new. The suppliers start shipping in August, so there will be a lot of pricing going on in the back rooms and then we bring the product out beginning in October.”

Karen says it’s a lot of work and takes an entire month to ensure everything is ready and set up in the shop by November 1. Along with all the Christmas decorations, Green Haven also sells a variety of fresh cut Christmas trees and bundles of greener, along with artificial trees.

According to Karen, it’s a fun time in spite of all the work and they look forward to the season.

“We have some very talented staff – Gail has a wonderful way of merchandizing and has ideas on how it all get set up and it’s an amazing time of year. Each season can be very busy but, there is a different kind of work throughout the year.”

The one thing that still surprises many people is what Green Haven offers at Christmas, which they have been doing for 17 years now.

“When you say the words garden centre, people are thinking garden-centre-green-houses and plants but, Christmas is an element they don’t think of – we are still working with plants but, different varieties and house plants become a bigger draw during the winter months.”

As the gardening season hits full tilt, Karen predicts vegetables will still get a lot of attention (they have been selling seed potatoes since the beginning of March, as some gardeners will plant them on the Easter weekend) and she also sees fruit producing shrubs and plants becoming a bigger draw.

Karen maintains affiliations with the nursery trades associations and notes that many of the plants purchased at Green Haven come with a one year warranty. No matter what piece of flora grabs a customer’s attention, there is a substantial amount expertise behind the product and Green Haven has a website which provides abundant information on many plants that gardeners may be looking for.

by Dori Modney (@Dori_Modney on Twitter)

Green Haven – 40 years of Growing with Southern Alberta

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