Description
Over twenty years ago my family and I began Springvale Nurseries. Read our story here . Over the years Springvale grew to be Nova Scotia's largest wholesale nursery. For many years we didn't sell to the general public. We supplied only the garden center and landscaping industry markets. Changes in the industry and increasing competition from non-local nursery products made us reassess our marketing direction. Because of such an influx of box stores setting up temporary garden centers, many good locally owned businesses were forced to close. Look around and see for yourself how many great small businesses have been destroyed because of this dangerous trend. Nowadays you can shop in the same store, for the same stuff, in almost every town, all over Nova Scotia, Canada and The United States. The small, family owned shop, with personal service and unique products is a lot harder to find than it used to be. Many of these great, small companies all over Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, PEI, Newfoundland and even the French islands of St Pierrie et Miquelon were our wholesale customers. Some still are, but times have changed, many have closed, and sadly this market is not able to support our business. We had to make a change ourselves and since we have the advantage of being growers ourselves, we made the switch from "wholesale only" to opening our doors to the public and making our own garden centers into great shopping destinations in their own right. We began with a garden center near Halifax which eventually moved to a location at Hammond's Plains , owned and operated by our daughter and son in law Cathy and Daniel Oulton. We then opened our store in Bible Hill and this year we have converted over half of our Berwick production nursery to a retail garden center. Springvale's New Berwick Garden Center is now located at our production nursery on Highway #221, north of Berwick. So, we are a local, family owned business with quality products and great service, supporting up to 60 local jobs, these are all great buzzwords for today's more responsible, more ethical shopper. We have had amazing response from our customers who have called us "Nova Scotia's most unique garden center" but"¦what makes our garden center so unique? Well, it's huge for one thing. You now have access to most of our container production area and our new retail store is backed up by 75 acres of field production of hardy, locally grown trees. When you are looking at a type of flowering shrub or perennial, you often have 40 or 50 plants to choose from. The visual effect of looking down through the nursery at full blocks of plants in bloom is stunning and surreal. Springvale, as it is, is located in the middle of a very beautiful countryside. The backdrop of the North Mountain, changing season by season, fields of livestock and crops, all of which can be seen from our nursery yard, adds to the experience of being here. It is a lovely place. More unusual yet, is the "drive in, drive around" facility which makes it fabulous for those with health or mobility problems. This means what it sounds like.