Independent Nurseries Are Dying Off

After shopping at Mordigan’s Nursery for more than 20 years, Wilshire Park resident Mary Ann Austin fears she may soon have to find another place to buy her favorite potting soil or seek advice on tending her roses.

Mordigan’s, a family-owned garden center that sits next to Los Angeles’ landmark Farmers Market, is threatened with closure later this year as a developer moves forward with plans to build a high-end shopping center on the site.

“I don’t think we need another shopping mall,” Austin said. “We get personal attention here. It has Old World charm. I would be lost without it.”

Austin may soon join the growing ranks of Southern California gardeners left to mourn the loss of their favorite independent neighborhood nursery, often the source of rare plants and horticultural know-how.

Once common roadside fixtures, independent nurseries have dwindled in number over the years as rising land values and chain store competition have led many to sell out and shut down. The pace of closures has recently accelerated as the regional real estate market has rebounded, permitting many elderly, cash-poor nursery owners to sell their property at top dollar.

As many as 80% of the area’s independents have closed in the last 25 years, according to estimates by owners and vendors. Many of the remaining 125 nurseries in Los Angeles and Orange counties are no match for Home Depot, Target and other mass merchandisers, which often overwhelm their smaller rivals with cut-rate prices and fat advertising budgets.

“It’s pretty much a national trend,” said Bruce Butterfield, research director for the National Gardening Assn., headquartered in Burlington, Vt. Chain store garden centers “pretty much offer a full range of products at comparable quality for less money.”

Ironically, the shrinking number of independents comes as gardening has enjoyed a resurgence in popularity, with nesting baby boomers spending lavishly on everything from glossy garden magazines to English-made garden spades to $125 containers of exotic bamboo. Retail plant sales in California alone top $5.5 billion annually, according to industry statistics.

But few of the longtime “nurserymen”--many of them the sons and daughters of pioneering Asian immigrants--have figured out how to cater to the new generation of highly sophisticated and demanding gardeners.

“I’m sure there will just be a handful of independents in 10 years,” said Michael D. Kunce, president of Armstrong Garden Centers, a regional chain of 35 stores that has grown primarily by buying family-run nurseries.

The old nurseries have met with a variety of fates: Armstrong purchased the Ten Ten Nursery in Laguna Beach, the now defunct Palos Verdes Begonia Farm in Torrance is destined to become a condominium project, and Kimura’s Nursery in La Verne has been bulldozed to make way for a hardware store.

The list of extinct garden centers seems to grow by the month. At the end of February, for example, Southern California Garden Center in Culver City closed after about 50 years in business. In its place will rise a small retail center.

The alarming rate of closures has led Lili Singer, editor of Southern California Gardener, a popular newsletter, to start a regular feature showcasing independent nurseries. The big chain stores may beat the independents on price, she said, but they fall short on providing advice.

“Everybody likes to save money,” said Singer, who used to manage a Santa Monica nursery that was bulldozed to make way for shops. “What you are missing is someone who knows how to grow those plants.”

Many longtime owners have gotten huge sums of money for their properties, which are usually rare islands of open space in developed urban areas. One Los Angeles-area nursery owner who declined to be identified said he recently netted about $8 million from the sale of two properties.

“They are great sites,” said land broker Craig Atkins. “They are flat. There are no endangered species. There are no environmental issues. They are perfect.”

Independent nurseries thrived for decades in Southern California, where a mild climate permitted year-round gardening and a seemingly endless supply of new houses in need of landscaping.

The industry was home to many Japanese and other turn-of-the-century immigrant entrepreneurs. In the 1920s, Sawtelle, a West Los Angeles neighborhood, began to develop as a hub of Japanese immigrant-owned nurseries that numbered more than 50 during the postwar years. Today only a handful of Sawtelle nurseries remain.

The region’s independents began to lose their grip on the market as chain competitors, urban development and old age caught up with many of the owners.

Along the Pomona Freeway in Hacienda Heights, the 90 flower-filled baskets that had spelled out “Treats Nursery” in 12-foot-high letters were replaced two years ago by a plain “For sale” sign after the landmark nursery closed.

Owner William Joseph Treat, a former mechanical engineer who opened the nursery 35 years ago, said he was no longer physically able to run it. None of his four children was interested in taking over the demanding business, he said.

“I cried a lot. It was my life, and I loved it,” said Treat, 71, who has sold part of the property for commercial development and is trying to find a buyer for the remainder.

In the Fairfax district of Los Angeles, urban development has once again caught up with Mordigan’s. The nursery sits on leased land owned by the adjacent Farmers Market, which last May announced it had teamed up with Santa Monica-based developer Rick Caruso to build a $100-million shopping center on property that is partly occupied by the nursery.

Mark Gieble, whose family has operated the nursery for about 60 years, has been negotiating with the owners of Farmers Market to relocate to another part of the site, but no deal has been struck. It would not be the first move for Mordigan’s, which has relocated several times as new development cropped up on the land it had been leasing.

“I’ve seen many, many nurseries go out of business,” said Gieble, who gave up a teaching career to run the business in the 1970s. “Who knows how it will turn out?”

Faced with growing chain store competition, the owners of Southern California Garden Center in Culver City had counted on their expertise to attract customers. But in the end, many shoppers simply listened to the nursery’s advice, and then purchased cheaper plants and supplies at the larger stores, said Min Shinmoto, 73, whose family shut down the nursery last month.

“All they want is the information,” said Shinmoto, whose nursery was wedged into a half-acre lot on busy Sepulveda Boulevard. “They would say, ‘Thank you,’ and leave. We knew where they were going.”

The closing of nurseries like Shinmoto’s has troubled many avid gardeners, who say the independents offer more personal attention and a wider selection of plants than the basics stocked at mass merchandisers.

Silver Lake resident Kim Eastwood, who is involved in community gardens and education programs, said her local independent nursery is a place where she can find white flowering lavender and patchouli plants or hear about new products such as autumn sage.

“Things like that are not available through big chains,” Eastwood said. “I’m usually looking for more versatility and selection.”

But many mass merchandisers say their low prices and self-service approach have attracted countless numbers of consumers to gardening, expanding sales for all.

The successful independents “don’t try to compete with the Targets, the Kmarts and the Home Depots,” said Chris Hopkins, who oversees the garden centers at the 52 Home Depots in the greater Los Angeles area. “The little ones that went out of business maybe didn’t find their niche.”

Many in the nursery business--including numerous independent operators--agree with Hopkins and fault many garden centers for focusing too much on plants and not enough on marketing, financial systems and changing tastes. The limited hours and deteriorating facilities of many independents left them vulnerable to new competitors.

“They may be bright about plants, but they have done the same-old, same-old for 20 years,” said Dan Davids, president of Davids & Royston Bulb Co. in Gardena. Customers searching for expertise “are not going if it’s a crappy, run-down place.”

A new breed of garden centers has emerged that caters to affluent customers who can afford to pay for a superior level of service, knowledge and selection unavailable at chain stores. Instead of just selling shrubs and flowers, these nurseries help customers design and “furnish”--as one industry executive put it--their gardens with everything from plants to sculpture to outdoor furniture.

When a massive Home Depot opened a few blocks from Marina del Rey Garden Center, owner Tom Givvin didn’t panic. Instead, he beefed up his stock of plants that would be harder to find at Home Depot, such as perennials and more fully grown items, such as 6-foot-high vines.

“When they can’t find what they are looking for at Home Depot, they come over here,” said Givvin, who added that his sales have grown 20% annually since the giant retailer opened in 1995.

In Pasadena, Gary Jones purchased a moribund nursery six years ago and has transformed it into a stylish collection of outdoor rooms focused on hard-to-find and often pricey plants. Space at Hortus nursery is devoted to ornamental grasses, water gardens and a kitchen garden featuring ruby-colored chard that appears to erupt from stone urns.

“There is no question that they are going to pay more [here],” said Jones, a former studio singer. The higher prices, however, haven’t hurt Hortus’ sales, which have increased tenfold to more than $2 million annually since Jones took over the nursery.

Gardens “have become real places of refuge,” Jones said. “As they have become that, people are willing to invest more time and money.”

Despite Jones’ success, few other independent nursery owners have the money or the will to remake their operations. In October, Ken Kimura, 67, who helped clear away a lemon grove to open Kimura’s Nursery in La Verne, gave away unsold plants to loyal customers and closed his doors after more than 30 years at the location.

Tired of the business’ long hours and shrinking profits, Kimura sold the nursery’s 7.5-acre lot along Foothill Boulevard to a developer, enabling Kimura and his wife, Maye, to retire comfortably. He said he has no regrets--and no interest in tending his own garden.

“The nursery business has been deteriorating for years,” Kimura said. “I’m really happy that this business is all over now. It’s time to hang it up.”