Cover Story

Member Highlight on Meadows Farms Nurseries and Landscape

All photos courtesy of Meadows Farms Nursery

Meadows Farms Nursery celebrated their 61st year in business in 2021, and is the area’s largest independent garden center. What started as tomatoes being sold door to door in little red wagons has grown to what is now 18 locations surrounding the Washington, D.C. area and a fullservice landscape and hardscape division, as well as a grounds maintenance division and Mosquito Shield franchise. With locations from their Great Big Greenhouse location in Richmond, Virginia to Burtonsville, Maryland and many areas in between, there’s almost always one near you. This includes one location in West Virginia.

Meadows Farms Nurseries is managed from the top down, starting with President Jay Meadows. Decisions are made there and passed down through collaboration with the Vice Presidents, who also serve as regional managers over the nurseries, who have their own management staff to oversee day to day staff and operations. In this way, the nurseries are all managed in a similar fashion, with everyone working from the same blueprint.

Meadows Farms’ retail nurseries offer a great selection of plant material, as well as hardscape material, including bulk and bagged rock, flagstone, bulk and bagged mulch and soils, sod, and a full selection of quality plants of every kind. Meadows also offers a significant discount to Landscape professionals and is happy to special order for companies in need. They can also offer special pricing for large volumes of their products. This flexibility continues to grow the wholesale side of the business, as well as the retail and landscape sides and stems back to the roots of the company.

The late Bill “The Farmer” Meadows was born and raised near Beckley, West Virginia, where he married his childhood sweetheart, Betty, and enlisted in the Army. When his enlistment was up, Bill and Betty returned to West Virginia and enrolled in Marshall University. After receiving their degrees in Education, the Meadows moved to Fairfax County, Virginia, where Betty worked as a librarian and Bill as a Physical Education teacher and football coach.

Bill “The Farmer” Meadows

During his ten years of teaching, Bill developed a plan for keeping his students and himself productive during summer vacations. He would go to the Farmers’ Market in Washington, DC and buy tomatoes, which his students would then sell door-to-door from the little red wagons that you would later see for many years in the nurseries. The vendors in the market gave Bill the nickname “Farmer,” and the name stuck.

Roadside Stands

Several years into the business, Farmer began setting up roadside markets in the Northern Virginia area, which eventually led to their first permanent produce stand in Sterling. The produce business proved to be quite lucrative, so Farmer eventually gave up the teaching and coaching that he loved so much, in favor of being a full-time “Farmer.” Betty continued working and keeping books in the evenings after work, until it became too large of a job to do part-time, so Betty resigned from teaching in favor of working alongside her husband.

The produce era was short-lived, however, as they began to explore other avenues of expanding their product line, including the addition of a line of nursery stock. What started with a distressed load of plants, working after dark to unload with a few rough signs in front of every group became the nurseries that surround the metropolitan area today. That first weekend with plants was phenomenal, leaving the till full and field empty. From there, Farmer began ordering plant material every week and selling it at a very low mark-up, which gave him his “discount” reputation. Selling to their niche of value-minded customers is a philosophy that stays with Meadows Farms to this day.

Jay Meadows, President and Owner of Meadows Farms Nurseries

In the fledgling state of the nursery business, Farmer noticed that local nurseries priced their stock beyond the means of many average homeowners, making the acquisition of landscaping a luxury. The possibility of working with a designer was unimaginable. Farmer’s dream was to make landscaping a possibility for everyone, which resulted in the Landscape division being born. In addition to offering the best plants at the best price, he pioneered the idea of free landscape consultation for his clients, and later a Lifetime Warranty on installed plants. While the inhome consultations have increased in price slightly over the years due to popular demand, seasonal free design service at the retail nurseries and lifetime warranty on installed plants has remained. Meadows Farms Landscape division has grown over the years to include housing 39 designers and sending out well over 70 crews a day, who put in more than 3,500 landscape projects a year.

South Riding location in Chantilly, VA

Meadows Farms Grounds Maintenance was launched in 2006, opening the door to another area for Meadows Farms to work its magic. This division allows clients access to professional lawn and garden maintenance, delivery and planting of smaller plant orders and garden enhancements using annuals and perennials.

While Meadows Farms has grown significantly over the years, some basic philosophies have not changed. This includes the courtesy of saying a simple “thank you” at each stage of the checkout process at the nurseries, including a sign thanking each person for being a “Meadows Farms Person.” This policy was set when Farmer noticed that many businesses he dealt with didn’t seem to appreciate his business and that clerks and staffers often neglected to thank him for his business. Meadows Farms is thankful for not only the retail and landscape clients who frequent their nurseries, but for all of the re-wholesale clients who continue to come in each season. They continue to offer the best prices possible for all of the quality products they carry and to serve their customers in the best possible way. During the pandemic, this has included offering “safe” shopping spaces, with outside checkout in many cases, as well as curbside pick-up and delivery.

Landscape Designed and Installed by Meadows Farms (designer Hugh Perry, installed by Florentino Calles and Jaimie Molina and their crews)

Meadows Farms has been a member of VNLA for many years, and they were “very appreciative in the work that VNLA did that allowed nurseries to be deemed ‘essential’ [in 2020 and 2021].” That distinction allowed them to have one of the best years in their history and to avoid what would have been a “complete disaster,” had they been shut down. They “would like to thank VNLA for their efforts to make this happen” as it “truly benefitted all nursery operations in the state.”

Meadows Farms hopes everyone in our industry has a great year in 2022. They are cautiously excited about what the year will bring. As always, they will continue to work with their valued partners that supply their products, many of which are located in Virginia and Maryland, which brings great value to all of their customers. These relationships are very important to them and vital to their operations. They are “very appreciative of the longtime relationships” with all of their suppliers and “look forward to continuing these well into the future.” They would like to add a simple “thank you” to all of the growers and other vendors and all of the companies that shop with Meadows Farms on a re-wholesale basis.

Part of the rock and bulk area selection