It takes a skilled gardener to successfully uproot a well-established perennial and replant it in a new garden, especially when that perennial is more than half a century old.
Since 1962, Royal City Nursery has closed each winter and reopened every spring at 305 Woodlawn Rd. But that cycle changed with the Ontario government’s plans to extend the Hanlon Expressway further north.
“When my mom was going through the old notes, she found the original letter to my grandparents dated 1973,” said Tanya Olsen. “It said the highway is being expanded at some point in time in the future.”
Knowledge of that vague eventuality didn’t prepare them for the ultimate outcome when the MTO delivered the official expropriation notice in early September 2014.
At the time, Tanya's father Peter Olsen was recovering from a double lung transplant, and Tanya herself was recovering from surgery and chemotherapy for breast cancer.
“It has not been an easy ride for the last couple years,” she said. “I could have just as easily said, ‘No, I don’t have this in me. We’re done.’ Ultimately, I am very proud of how far we’ve come.”
On April 1 of this year, Olsen and her husband David White reopened Royal City Nursery at a new and larger location on Hwy 124, halfway between Guelph and Cambridge.
“With the move and expansion our store front has tripled in size and our land space has doubled,” Olsen said. “The other big thing is we have expanded our boutique significantly and are now open year round.”
For Olsen, taking the family business to the next generation was a foregone conclusion.
“I’ve grown up in the garden centre,” she said. “I have been working here for as long as I can remember. This is not a job for me. It’s not a career. It is what I wake up and do.”
Her grandfather, Jorgen Olsen, was a master horticulturalist in Denmark. He and his wife Elsbeth moved to Canada in the early 1950s.
He worked for the botany department at the University of Guelph, and in 1962 bought the property on Woodlawn Road and opened Royal City Nursery.
“My father was one of the first horticulture apprentice students in the province,” said Olsen. “He grew up in the nursery and started the landscape side of the business when he joined in the late 70s.”
Her father also taught in the horticulture apprenticeship program at Humber College and now Olsen and her husband of 17 years teach there too.
“Dave and I met in university at the U of G,” she said. “We both have Bachelor of Landscape Architecture degrees.”
Her younger sister Leah Olsen-Kent is a co-owner of Fleuristic Garden and Flower Studio on Woolwich Street.
Olsen’s parents decided to retire shortly after they received the expropriation notice and ownership of the nursery has since transferred to Olsen and White.
They had to relocate the storefront temporarily and leased a neighbouring shop on Woodlawn Road while they searched for a new location.
They closed the deal on the new property on July 8, 2015 but their joy was tempered with sadness.
“Dad died the day we closed,” said Olsen. “He died at four o’clock in the morning and we closed at five o’clock that afternoon.”
She takes solace in knowing her father was happy about the new direction she was taking the business.
They broke ground in November and were ready to open on time for the gardening season at the beginning of April.
They remain a full-service garden centre and have expanded their products and services to include water features and fairy gardens.
The new Tsuga Boutique offers women’s clothing, jewelry and other accessories, and they have plans to introduce a men’s line next spring.
“Our product and our service is living,” said Olsen. “Landscape is living, evolving and changing and it responds to the environment around it.”
Royal City Nursery
Established: 1962
Reopened at new location: April 01, 2016
Owners: Tanya Olsen and David White
6838 Wellington Rd 124
Guelph, Ontario
519 824-4998
