Gary came to see me for a few days, so enjoyed showing him around the city. He was taking a course in the New Glasgow Vocational College (Equivalent of U.K. tech. ) We kicked around the idea of maybe starting a landscape business together, when he had completed his course. Meantime I needed to return to my familiar field.
There was a shortage of qualified horticulturists within the Toronto Parks Dept. so I was able to secure a position relatively easily. I was ensconced at James Gardens in Etobicoke, a very nice city park in a good area.
After a period of routine tasks, I was put to work building a bowling green from scratch. This was something new for me, so I enjoyed the challenge. I had precise specifications to adhere to.
Cost was no object. This was also something new to me.
Then the area is staked out and bordered, followed by installing a drainage layer.
Then many loads of top quality top soil trucked in, which had to be spread around, working a section at a time.
After much rolling, watering and mowing within a few weeks, it was ready for play.
When the bowling club assumed responsibility for the green, the players accolades where quite gratifying.
The rest of the season was back to routine park work, but then I was offered a position as foreman, to run the park over on Toronto Island. There is a staff of 10 to 12 through the Summer, reducing to a skeleton staff in the Winter.
This was a well paid position with all the benefits and privileges and it is a very impressive park. One would have to take the ferry over to the island everyday. It was a very enticing proposition, but Gary and I had already made plans to launch the landscape business.
When Gary came to Toronto we started the search for a more suitable apartment. Enter Claire Bell. She was a lovely, classy, older lady. Hopelessly overweight but a heart of gold. She was residing with her, soon to be separated husband, in a pleasant bungalow on the lake shore.
We moved into the basement apartment, which are much more common in N.America, as the houses are all raised a few feet to facilitate this phenomenon. We quickly developed a rapport with her, which led to her sharing her problems with us. Her husbands failure to make it home some nights, led her to suspect he was straying from their matrimonial bliss.
She formulated a plan, which involved renting a car, and the three of us staking out the hangout bar her husband frequented. I was the designated driver, which was easy to take, being the latest model Ford Fairlane.
Sure enough, as the bewitching hour approached, out comes Harold with a lady on his arm.
I followed at a discreet distance, through the quite lanes, leading up into the Caledon Hills. Then Harold pulled into the driveway of a desolate cabin. We gave them an hour or so, to get things steamed up and then Claire made her move. Wow was she ever fired up. When she beat on the door, I was concerned for the integrity of the cabin, as it wrenched open. There ended the Bell marriage. Gary and I attended at divorce court a couple of years later, as material witnesses.
We now all had to rethink our accommodation options. Harold retreated to the cabin to let the dust settle.
Claire brought a detached bungalow on Morningside Dr. in Malton (Near the Airport). She asked us to go with her and rent the basement there. It was not really finished, having block walls, but as there was a bathroom and kitchen hook up we agreed.
As spring approached we ordered stationary with a cute little logo and started distributing fliers. in high end residential areas.
We started to receive calls, which I followed up with meetings.
I also started cold calling industrial prospects, in the West End of the city.
As Spring sprung we had a very encouraging work load. Two very large industrial contracts made up a good part of our work load and remained loyal to us for almost 3 decades. MacDonald Douglas adjacent to the airport was just minutes away from where we were living and Domglas about 15 min away.
Domglas had a distinctive logo depicting a glass bottle, so I proposed laying out a floral logo on an elevated bank by the office entrance. They liked this idea, which we repeated each year for 25 years plus.
We purchased a used Toro Triplex mower, with liftable wings that with boards, we could drive into the pick up along with smaller and ancillary equipment.
Several residential accounts came on stream. The most prominent being a Mr.Peter Silverman. A lawyer, Q.C. he also owned Dominion Trust and a 5 story department store in Sudbury. He lived in a large mansion in the exclusive forest hill district. His large lawn was bent grass (bowling green quality) and he had difficulty finding a local contractor with specialized knowledge to care for it. We where a good match.
He had his own greens mower and over the years, his successive son's would walk alongside as I mowed, holding one handle (helping Mr.Dxon) until they outgrew the practice. His mother had a penthouse apartment, the patio garden becoming our responsibility.
Periodically he flew us up to Sudbury in his private plane to execute landscape upgrades on his lake side house in that city. On one occasion he flew us down to New York city, for an outing.
Another prominent residential account was the home of the President of Stelco Steel (A huge steel plant in Hamilton). Along with some further smaller industrial and residential accounts, we where very happy with our Summer schedule.
One day we got talking to a man in our local restaurant, who indicated he owned the Highway 7 Garden Centre in nearby Brampton and was trying to retire.
But already having a full program, now we desperately needed some help. My thoughts turned to Anne Strangward, who was currently teaching in the U.K. At this time we where approaching the long summer break, so she received a call asking how she would like to work it through in Canada. Her positive reply was repeated on about a dozen occasions, before the end of the millennium.
Now we where really cooking. The landscaping was going better than expected, applying some of the techniques learned over the years, to produce expedient results. Both Gary and I worked very hard driven with enthusiasm and now another cash influx was opened.
Anne's arrival eased much of the pressure and her efficiency was an huge asset to the team.
The area around Brampton was going through explosive residential development, with new estates springing up everywhere. Every home came with only a patch of grass, just begging for embellishment. We offered everything, from trees and shrubs, patio stones, interlocking brick, fertilizers, hoses, sprinklers. annuals, perennials. fresh flowers, top soil, gravel, planters, tubs.
On weekends and evenings our large parking lot was packed. Gary was a big hit with the gay, surreptitious, husbands and frustrated housewives. He would wave them goodbye as they pulled out with their cars over flowing with stock. Trees sticking out of the windows, trunk or tied up on the roof.
During the week, when Gary and I where landscaping, Anne would manage the garden centre with a couple of helpers. We carried pagers if needed, mobile phones not yet having made their appearance.
We delivered hard landscaping products, such as slabs, top soil etc. for a small fee.
We introduced Anne to some of the typical N.American pastimes, such as a drive in movie (soon to join the annuls of nostalgia) and donut stores with their large selection of tasty treats.
The annual Canadian Exhibition, was a must do, but the heat did nor work so well for Anne.
The Summer passed so quickly, and Anne returned to U.K.to her teaching duties, job well done.
As with anything that seems to be too good to be true, such was the providence of the garden centre. Apparently our lessor had defaulted on his obligations and we where caught in the middle. Upon legal advise, having met our obligations, we walked away, and left them to fight it out.
While it was unfortunate we would not be able to trade there next year, we had enjoyed an extremely profitable Summer, exiting just before the long slow season and decreeing to ourselves that we had to set ourselves up, at some point with another garden centre. (But never did) Oh well, so much to do and only one life time to do it in.
One of the most contentious, is snow. He hates the stuff, I love the stuff.
Most Companies prefer to work with the same contractor year around rather than have one for snow and a separate one for landscaping. I concede the snow business is extremely demanding, requiring 24 hr surveillance and some long hours.
After you mow the grass, you know you will not need to do so again, for about a week. But clear the snow and work your butt off for 24hrs straight, it may need doing again the next day.
It was now quite obvious, we could make some significant money through the Summer, but if that level of income is not sustained year around, you loose the advancement gained.
But for now, the snow is on hold. An opportune time for us to each visit our respective families.
When I walked into Warrenby, kimbo went nuts. I think Dad had been physcing him up, telling him I was coming home.
It was great to see everyone again, but I soon started getting bored. I had a car rental so would drive around neighbouring towns, but seemed to be back so quick. I did keep busy when the weather was O.K. helping Dad catch up on the garden work and built him a work shed on the back of the garage.
I Visited with Anne in Peterborough and Ian and his family in Rushden.
Early in 1973 Clare moved to be near her family in Owen Sound, and we moved to another basement apartment, this time in Miississauga (A few miles South).
The bungalow was owned by a very pleasant young lady Sandra Cox, with whom I would become very close, over the years. We consolidated the landscape business and added a few more accounts, when we could work them in.
Claire owned a house in Scarborough which she had been renting out, but wanted to sell. When we had scraped together enough cash we made her an offer and closed the deal.
This was a perfect set up for us, with a one bedroom apartment on the main floor, a studio apartment upstairs and a basement apartment downstairs.
just completing a wonderful wallpaper job
with the help of Sandra. As you can see,
we are so pleased it is finished.
Sandra visited some weekends with her young twins Dean and Coreen. The company she worked for where upgrading their vehicles and she connected us with a great deal on a Buick Station wagon, 2 years old, but like new.
Ian Sharpe decided to immigrate here, so stayed and worked with us for awhile, until he moved to Jackson Point (Lake Simco) with his wife and baby boy.
Max Factor ran a facility, just up the road from us, so we went after that and gave them a deal they could not refuse, along with a couple more on this street. We took over two locations for Rothman's Cigarettes.
Markham is just North of Scarborough, where a large number of cream accounts where locating. The first one we secured there was the Volvo plant, followed by Steelecase, Honeywell, Hyundai. for starters. More help was quickly needed, especially when we landed the 2 year contract for 32 Schools with the Scarborough Board of Education.
Meantime Peter Silverman kept us very busy with new projects. We planted a $5,000. Japanese Maple tree for him, and redesigned all the beds.
Installed lawn sprinklers throughout with liquid feeding system. Tore out all his driveways and laid interlocking bricks, interlaced with flagstone design paths.
Anne came over whenever she could and knocked our books into shape, between entertaining Peter while weeding his bent grass.
To secure the contracts we now had, it was essential to also offer snow service. I lived the snow service, taking it very seriously. Gary's disdain was tempered, when he saw the financial potential.
Our next contentious issue was building. I always wanted to build our own house. Gary was dead against the idea.
My plan was for me to build part time over a few years, during the Summer months. But this would require Gary to run the landscaping while I was away building. My idea was to buy a double lot and build two semi detached homes. Close them in and work on finishing one, sell that one to finance finishing the second one.
One day I was flipping through a book of house plans and Gary said "If we could build that one I wouldn't mind." "You got it" was my reply.