Stark Brother's Nursery of Louisiana, MO is coming back from it's parent company's bankruptcy! Gardens Alive, Inc. purchased the nearly 200 year old nursery out of bankruptcy and has even hired back many of the employees to quickly prepare the nursery stock for the coming winter.

I just confirmed this information with Garden's Alive customer service. The CS rep said they can begin taking orders for the catalog in a month or so. However, they could not yet begin putting together a list of customers. She said it would be fine to post their contact information on this forum if anyone wants to call them in month or so for a Stark Brother's Nursery catalog.

Their contact info is:

GARDENS ALIVE, INC. 5100 SCHENLEY PL LAWRENCEBURG, IN (812) 537-8651

****************************** Here's what happened:

Apparently, Foster & Gallagher Inc. of Peoria, IL was nothing but a damned mail order firm and the parent company of Stark Brother's Nursery, Michigan Bulb Co., Spring Hill Nursery, Gurney's Seed Co., et. al. They had acquired these old firms in just the last few years and proceeded to rape them. Read on.

I found these two article abstracts while searching the web at The Peoria Journal Star:

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Published on September 20, 2001, Peoria Journal Star, "Judge OKs sale of Foster & Gallagher horticulture division -- Secured lenders to get $10.75 million"

PEORIA, IL - The last hope for restoration of Foster & Gallagher Inc. in Peoria ended Wednesday in a Delaware bankruptcy court. A bankruptcy judge approved a $10.75 million bid for the horticulture division. The approved offer was from Gardens Alive Inc., of Lawrenceburg, Ind., an organic gardening products firm. No one at Gardens Alive could be reached for comment....

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Published on September 23, 2001, Peoria Journal Star, "Excessive greed killed F&G"

Re. Mike Bailey's Sept. 2 column: Most of his blows landed squarely on the noses of the thieves who ran off with the hard-earned money of former Foster & Gallagher employees. The high-paid culprits (executives) who raped and pillaged the jobs, the health insurance and pensions of former Foster & Gallagher employees were indeed afflicted with a horrible and probably terminal case of greed. I wish I could say I hope the afflicted will recover and survive....

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-- Steve in So. WI (alpine1@prodigy.net), October 03, 2001

Answers

This is really great news! Thanks, Steve. :)

-- Jennifer L. (Northern NYS) (jlance@nospammail.com), October 03, 2001.

Any idea if the new owners will reimburse customers who were still owed money by Spring Hill?

-- nancy poylo (npoylo@advanstar.com), November 08, 2001.

I worked for Henry Fields Seed and Nursery in Shenandoah, IA until Foster Gallagher purchased us. They made lots of promises on how they were going to expand us and all about how sound their company was. This was in June 1999. In November 1999, they told us we would be out of a job in December. They lied to us. Took our 100+ year old company and raped us of everything we were. All they wanted was our good name and our good reputation. Things that were the cornerstone of our company. To here that Foster/Gallagher declared bankruptcy was not a sad thing for me to hear. They were liars and in the end the truth will come out. It is too bad that they took the good name of Henry Fields with them.

-- Joan Heits (jheits@gvmf.com), November 20, 2001.

Thank God someone is going to revive the legacy of Stark Bros. Nursery. My wife and I visited this nursery all the way from the Himalayas in India in 1989 and was suitably impressed. Idid write to them for their catalogue last year but didn't get any reply. Red Delicious apples were introduced into India by my maternal grandfather, Mr. Satya Nand Stokes, an American Missionary who settled in Kotgarh, in the Himalayas, Shimla Hills, India. He ordered his plants in 1918 from Stark Brothers. He subsequently became a Hindu. A recent book 'An American In Khadi' Penguin (India) brings out his wonderful story. Among other things I maintain an apple orchard which I planted at Rohanda, at an altitude of 2,200 metres in 1971. I have also written a couple of books on apples to take fprward my grandfather's work. If anyone is interested in Indian apple industry, they are welcome to get in touch. Surendra Kanwar

-- Surendra Mohan Kanwar (orchardresort@yahoo.com), February 19, 2002.