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Sheridan Nurseries is a Canadian garden supplies company based in the
Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...
area. The company has over of land for growing plants and eight garden centers. Employment varies seasonally, but during peak periods it has over 1,000 staff.


History

The British landscape architects Howard and
Lorrie Dunington-Grubb Lorrie Alfreda Dunington-Grubb (1877 – 17 January 1945) was an English landscape architect. She moved to Canada in 1911 with her husband and business partner Howard Dunington-Grubb where they founded Sheridan Nurseries. She was active in garde ...
founded Sheridan Nurseries in 1913 in the hamlet of Sheridan outside
Oakville, Ontario Oakville is a town in Regional Municipality of Halton, Halton Region, Ontario, Canada. It is located on Lake Ontario between Toronto and Hamilton, Ontario, Hamilton. At its Canada 2021 Census, 2021 census population of 213,759, it is List of tow ...
. They bought of land, of which only about turned out to be suitable for ornamental plants. The Dunington-Grubbs hired Sven Herman Stensson to run the nursery after he responded to an advertisement in an English paper. By 1926 the nursery had grown to , with a wide range of trees, shrubs and perennials. The first seasonal garden centers were opened in the early 1920s near the Yonge and Bloor intersection in what is now downtown Toronto and on Southdown Road in
Mississauga Mississauga ( ), historically known as Toronto Township, is a city in the Canadian province of Ontario. It is situated on the shores of Lake Ontario in the Regional Municipality of Peel, adjoining the western border of Toronto. With a popul ...
. Sheridan Nurseries has been involved in finding or developing hybrids suitable for the harsh Canadian climate. They acquired seeds of the hardy Korean boxwood in 1922, and first listed it in their catalog in 1939. It became a great success. The company's 1939 catalog described the
Alpine currant ''Ribes alpinum'', known as mountain currant or alpine currant, is a small deciduous, dioecious shrub native to central and northern Europe from Finland and Norway south to the Alps and Pyrenees and Caucasus, Georgia; in the south of its range ...
as "the most satisfactory shrub for a deciduous hedge" and called the Japanese yew "the best shrub available for an evergreen hedge of moderate height." In the 1940s, Sheridan Nurseries was one of many Ontario employers who used Japanese labourers interned in camps after being forcibly relocated from British Columbia during the Second World War:
Sheridan Nurseries hired 22 Japanese internees in 1943 and their business records show the men were not slave labour, but paid employees. While the Caucasian workers were paid 48 cents an hour, the Japanese internees received 44 cents.
Starting in the late 1960s the Sheridan Nurseries began developing hardy alternatives to the English box for hedging. They are crosses of ''
buxus sempervirens ''Buxus sempervirens'', the common box, European box, or boxwood, is a species of flowering plant in the genus ''Buxus'', native to western and southern Europe, northwest Africa, and southwest Asia, from southern England south to northern Morocco ...
'' and the very hardy ''
buxus microphylla ''Buxus microphylla'', the Japanese box or littleleaf box, is a species of flowering plant in the box family found in Japan and Taiwan. It is a dwarf evergreen shrub or small tree growing to tall and wide. Description In the case of ''Buxus mi ...
''. Sheridan Nurseries also developed Mountbatten Juniper and Ivory Silk Japanese Tree Lilac.


Recent years

As of 2010 three of Herman Stensson's grandchildren were senior managers in the company. The company had more than of land, including of container growing. The company had about 280 full-time employees, rising to around 1,000 in early April. It was suffering from difficulty finding workers for the farms, where conditions in the Ontario summer can be extremely hot and humid. About 100 workers from Mexico and Jamaica were being employed on the farms each year. By 2012 the company was the largest garden center retailer and grower in Canada. That year Sheridan Nurseries won the International Grower of the Year award from the
International Association of Horticultural Producers The International Association of Horticultural Producers (AIPH / IAHP) is a trade association dedicated to promoting horticultural producers and held the international garden / flora festivals or expositions. AIPH aims to put flower, plant and l ...
. The company celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2013. In May 2013 the company said it would donate 1,000 plants to communities in the Greater Toronto Area that had a severe need for green space or plants, and was asking the public to suggest areas to be considered. As of 2014 the company had nine garden centers in Mississauga, Georgetown. Toronto, Unionville, North York, Whitby, Scarborough and Kitchener-Waterloo.


References


Sources

* * * * * * * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Sheridan Nurseries Companies based in Ontario Garden centres Retail companies established in 1913 1913 establishments in Ontario