Gardens Alive! to Close Former Zelenka Location

Chris Beytes

A WARN Act (Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification) notice submitted to the state of Michigan on May 31 stated that Indiana-based online and mail order retailer Gardens Alive! would be closing the 1,745-acre nursery in Grand Haven for good on Friday, August 3, and laying off 300 full- and part-time employees. According to the notice, the closing is “due to current and expected future losses.”

Gardens Alive! acquired the property when it bought the former Berry Family of Nurseries (BFN) in 2016. BFN, for its part, got the facility in 2003 after Zelenka Nursery declared bankruptcy. John Zelenka founded that business in the 1940s. No word on the status of the rest of Gardens Alive!, which owns Weeks Roses, Iseli Nursery, Spring Hill Nursery and several other seed and bulb companies. GT