News » 19.06.2025 - CAN: Evolving from livestock growing to a floral empire

As De Goey's Nursery and Flowers prepares for its next generation of leadership, the family-run business in Leamington, Ont. stands as a thriving legacy of hard work and adaptation.

"It really started from small beginnings," says Julie Mills, who handles De Goey's sales, purchasing and production, describing the early days of one of Ontario's largest nursery operations, now supplying over 200 stores and exporting seasonal arrangements into the U.S, and producing more than 110,000 hanging baskets each spring.

Her father, John De Goey, immigrated from Holland in 1953 at age seven and was raised on the very farm where the nursery still stands. His father grew vegetables and raised pigs, which John did for many years. He was selling his produce at the Eastern Market in Detroit when he made an observation that would change De Goey's trajectory.

"He was working so hard for this $2 basket of tomatoes," Julie explains, but when he saw his counterparts selling hanging baskets for five times as much, something shifted and John began propagating cedars in their basement, moving the business from farming food to growing beauty.
 

 

Source: www.floraldaily.com

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