One nursery saved from development

Picked this up from the e-mail newsletter of Chicagoland Gardening magazine: Beeson McHenry County Nursery is one that won't be gobbled by development, thanks to a conservation easement, according to a story in the Northwest Herald.

Once upon a time, the Chicago area was studded with little family owned nurseries; you can still drive down main drags in the farther-flung neighborhoods or inner-ring suburbs and spot the often tumbledown remains of small greenhouses. You may wonder, "How did that get there? Why would anybody build a greenhouse in the middle of the city?"

Well, the greenhouses were there first. Nursery businesses grew up on the edge of the city in the 19th century and then were overtaken by new subdivisions as the city's edge moved outward. For example, I learned from Cathy Maloney's book "Chicago Gardens: The Early History" that Peterson Avenue on the North Side is named after the owner of a big 19th Century nursery business that was far outside the city then.

As the suburbs sprawled, nurseries moved farther out, but they never can seem to move far enough. The Ball Horticultural Co. world headquarters out in West Chicago was way out in the country once, but now there's a subdivision right across the street. A few years ago, a nursery owner in near Philadelphia who had just sold the bulk of his growing land for a Home Depot (and has now sold his garden center to a chain) told me, "the main thing you need in the nursery business is a real estate license."

Who can blame a nurseryman whose land has come to be worth far more for development than he could make in his life selling plants at retail? But it's still tough to see venerable plantsman's names, such as Vaughan's in Western Springs, disappear under shopping centers. The truly dedicated nursery people, such as the Beesons, try to fight it off, or try to find a place far enough out to be safe for a couple opf decades but still close enough to sell their plants to metropolitan gardeners. But it's tough.

Maybe the real estate recession will slow the process down some, but it won't stop. But as long as there have been cities, they have been growing, and farms and nursries have been either pushed further away or simply subsumed by sprawl. London's parks were farms once.

Got a garden question? I recommend you call or e-mail the Plant Clinic of The Morton Arboretum in Lisle, the Master Gardeners of the University of Illinois Extension or the Plant Information Service of the Chicago Botanic Garden in Glencoe.

All contents of this post are copyright Beth Botts. Feel free to link or share a brief excerpt with a link, but please do not reproduce photos or any other part of this blog without my express permission.