Van Essen Nursery, Lebanon’s largest nursery hidden in plain sight, has reduced its inventory from millions of plants to nearly zero as its owner prepares for retirement. Situated on 300 acres off River Drive, Van Essen has operated for 45 years as a wholesale supplier of ornamental shrubs and perennials to garden centers across the United States and in Canada. Pat’s Green Thumb in Lebanon was one of the few local retailers to buy from them.
Owners Dave and Leanne Van Essen planned for this very moment in time two years ago. “We’ve been in the shutdown mode for two years because you don’t shut down a five-year plant factory overnight,” Leanne said. On top of the delicate process of shutting down a large business, the Van Essens were faced with the pandemic, which threatened their final year, she said.
At first, they thought they might get shut down by the governor’s orders last year because they would not be deemed an essential business. As it happened, they were considered agricultural, which made them essential.
Then they were concerned that if an employee got sick, the state could quarantine the whole crew. So the Van Essens split their crew in half to work at different locations, just in case, but no one got sick.
The third threat was that their customers nationwide would cancel orders if they couldn’t be open. But home-bound people began working in their gardens more, and garden centers couldn’t keep their shelves stocked.
“The pandemic was a silver lining, in that it went from a big threat at the beginning to a silver lining for all of the nursery industry,” Leanne said. “It’s been an amazing year.” Starting in the late 1970s with plants like boxwood, arborvitae and juniper, Dave didn’t have the Internet to find buyers for his inventory. “I’d load up my pickup and just drive up and down the valley,” he said.
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