Barnes Nursery began as a small rose growing family business in 1950. At that time, the business was owned by brothers. In 1957, one brother bought out the others. This was the beginning of change for Barnes Nursery. The ability to diversify and expand with the needs of their customers has allowed Barnes Nursery to flourish for almost 50 years.
This business is unique in its diversity. They maintain 400 acres of wholesale nursery and container stock. They have 9-12 landscape crews and additional 9-12 maintenance crews. They also offer large tree service and liquid lawn care. They operate two retail garden centers for do-it-yourself gardeners. And, lastly, they've added a composting division, Soils Technology, LLC. The business employs about 200 people during peak season.
All of these services are entwined to work together to offer their customers, commercial and residential, as few or as many horticultural options as they need. This is a benefit for both their clients and their business.
This system works for Barnes Nursery because of the dedicated team of leaders in each division. They work well together, and independently, as necessary for each division. Many of these leaders are members of the Barnes family. Their working relationship seems exceptionally good.
The largest division of the Barnes Nursery is the Landscape Design/Build. There are three designers and one sales/designer. At this time, all designs are drawn by hand, but they are gearing toward the use of CAD (Computer Aided Design) at sometime in the near future. The designs are very customer-oriented. They want as much customer input as possible, not only to involve the customer, put to put together a design that suits the customer's needs. Current trends in landscaping are toward low-maintenance gardens and trees.
An advantage that Barnes Nursery has over the competition is that the customer can go to the nursery, see many different plants and actually choose the plants he wants. These plants are then tagged and set aside until they are needed. The advantage for the business is twofold. First, they have incentive to produce an extensive variety of quality plants for use in their landscape design. And, second, they have a ready market for their plants.
Designers work directly with the Installation foreman every step of the way. This communication makes for a better working relationship between divisions and leads to better organization on the job site. The Installation Division also offers a variety of carpentry and masonry, including custom designed paths, retainer walls, terraces and decks.
Once a job has been designed and installed, Barnes Maintenance Division provides a wide range of services to keep the landscape in top condition.
The newest addition to Barnes Nursery is its compost division, Soils Technology, LLC. This venture is a prime example of a company that is willing to expand and change. Not only have they found a way to deal with their own plant waste products, but they are also accepting plant waste from cities and pre-consumer food waste from Cedar Point, a neighboring amusement park. This brings in additional revenue and the end product is used as soil amendments for their own use in landscaping, retail sales at their garden center and wholesale compost for other landscapers. Again, this is more revenue generated for the company and it provides a valuable community service in terms of the environment.
Barnes Nursery serves commercial and residential clients over a wide area from Toledo to east of Cleveland and south as far as Columbus. Additionally they serve customers in Michigan and Pennsylvania. Their customers are split about 70%/30%, residential and commercial, respectively.
Generally, our speakers recommended classes in landscape architecture, design and plant identification. They also urged us to work on installation crews to have firsthand knowledge of how the work is actually done. All of the division leaders had some type of higher education, either technical or bachelors degrees.
My personal impression of Barnes Nursery is that it's a first-rate business run by knowledgeable people. Everyone was extremely professional and, yet, honest about the long hours and manual labor involved in this type of business. Everyone who spoke to us conveyed how rewarding they find their jobs to be.
I was especially impressed by the way they've made use of diversity. The divisions can make money for the company individually and, better still, can all be combined to make them almost independent of all outside sources for materials or labor. They've really made the business work to their advantage.