Sheridan Nurseries

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Sheridan Nurseries is a Canadian garden-supply company near Toronto. Founded in 1913 by Howard and Lorrie Dunington-Grubb, it is based in Georgetown, Ontario, and serves all of Ontario. The company grows plants on more than 375 hectares (930 acres) of land and runs several garden centers across the region. At peak season it employs around 1,000 people.

The Dunington-Grubbs bought 100 acres to start the nursery, but only about 20 acres were suitable for ornamental plants. They hired Sven Herman Stensson to run the operation. By 1926 the business had grown to 250 acres with a wide range of trees, shrubs and perennials. The first seasonal garden centers opened in the early 1920s, near Yonge and Bloor in downtown Toronto and on Southdown Road in Mississauga.

Sheridan Nurseries helped develop plant varieties hardy enough for Canada’s climate. They obtained seeds of the hardy Korean boxwood in 1922 and listed it in their catalog in 1939. The 1939 catalog highlighted Alpine currant as a good hedge plant and called Japanese yew ideal for evergreen hedges of moderate height.

During the 1940s, amid World War II, Sheridan Nurseries hired 22 Japanese workers who were interned in camps; they were paid employees, earning 44 cents an hour compared with 48 cents for Caucasian workers.

Starting in the late 1960s, the company began developing hardier hedging plants to replace traditional English boxwood, including crosses of buxus sempervirens and buxus microphylla. They also developed Mountbatten Juniper and Ivory Silk Japanese Tree Lilac.

By 2010 the company owned more than 375 hectares of land, including 60 hectares of container growing, and employed about 280 full-time staff, rising to around 1,000 in spring. The business faced challenges finding workers for the hot Ontario summers, hiring seasonal staff from Mexico and Jamaica.

In 2012 Sheridan Nurseries was the largest garden-center retailer and grower in Canada and won the International Grower of the Year award from the International Association of Horticultural Producers. The company celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2013 and donated 1,000 plants to communities in the Greater Toronto Area in need of green space.

As of 2014, Sheridan Nurseries operated nine garden centers across Ontario, including locations in Mississauga, Georgetown, Toronto, Unionville, North York, Whitby, Scarborough and Kitchener-Waterloo.