About Us

The Dirt on Baker’s Nursery:

In 1980, Henry and Nelly Baker embarked on a retail nursery experiment, Baker’s Nursery, to augment their income and keep themselves busy during their first years on a broiler chicken farm near Bayfield, Ontario. It became apparent to their son, Todd Baker, that chickens weren’t for him but plants were! Following his formal studies in Horticulture at the University of Guelph and hands on training as an employee at retail and wholesale nurseries in southwestern Ontario, Todd established a wholesale tree farm and the evolution of Baker’s Nursery began.

Todd convinced his future wife, Susan Lehnen, to join him in the nursery fields following her education at University of Guelph. (She thought Todd was pretty special so maybe farming would be too.) Well, Todd and Susan enjoyed working together and successfully developed international markets and innovative harvesting techniques and Baker’s Nursery Ltd. prospered as did the Baker Lehnen family which increased by two daughters.

The arrival of the emerald ash borer in 2003 bit into the significant depth of ash stock grown by Baker’s Nursery Ltd. The skies were darkened by the smoke of the tree funeral pyres on which 100 000’s of ash trees where burned. This loss coupled with a downturn in the American market for trees lead to another change of focus for Baker’s Nursery Ltd.

Over the past few years, Todd and Susan have been rebuilding and recreating with fresh enthusiasm for the green industry. The decision to specialize in young plants and liners called for renewal and investment in their greenhouse production space. New technologies have been investigated and installed to optimize the health and vitality of the liners produced for customers of Baker’s Nursery Ltd.