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Saskatchewan based home and garden shop Dutch Growers is celebrating a significant milestone.
It is turning seventy years old after being founded in 1953 by the mother and father of Rick Van Duyvendyck.
“Immigrating from Holland coming to Canada and starting from scratch and build it up to what it is so, it’s quite a legacy,” he said.
Van Duyvendyck explained that the business has changed throughout the years.
He said it started with his parents mainly selling plants in the spring and fall when you could dig in the fields.
“My father then started growing things in containers and selling them all summer and then changing from there to the next generations (that) came up and then starting into other things,” Van Dyvendyck said.
He now offers clothes, gift wear and clothing and different types of plants.
Van Duyvendyck said he is also getting more into the greenhouses.
“In the last seventy years it’s been a huge change from when we started,” he said.
Van Duyvendyck also explained that it’s not just the business that has changed gardening has too.
He said back when the business first started it was a lot of native species.
“”(We’re) expanding to a lot broader type of plants you can put in and to all kinds of ornamental plants to hydrangeas now that are good for our zone. Where before when my father started the business you could only see Hydrangeas in British Columbia or Ontario,” Van Duyvendyck said.
He said there has been more research on plant material, breeding and the way that you can grow plants.
Van Duyvendyck also explained that there’s a lot more plants available that have changed gardens all together.
As for canning and pickling there was a point where people weren’t doing that as much but he said it’s starting to come back a little bit.
“In the last four to five years seed sales have gone through the roof and a lot of people are growing in containers now. Even in apartments and condos are growing in containers because they’re seeing the cost of food now,” Van Duyvendyck said.
During the pandemic he found that more people were starting to pick up gardening as whole.
He said raised gardens and gardens into people’s yards were becoming more popular.
“Now we’re seeing a big come back of the part of growing your own food and having that food security of having the food available within a few feet of your door rather than going to a grocery store,” Van Duyvendyck said.
Dutch growers is now in its third generation of owners which Van Duyvendyck believes that the business continues to be improved.