Twixwood Nursery

ILCA Selects—

Twixwood Nursery for Distinguished Supplier Award

by Nina A. Koziol

It will come as nosurprise to long-

Beginnings

time customers of Twixwood Nursery that ILCA bestowed them with its Distinguished Supplier of the Year Award. This premier wholesale grower of herbaceous plants in Berrien Springs, Michigan, aims to please and has done so for 54 years.

Twixwood is well known for its tried-and-true groundcovers, but scan the catalog and you’ll find everything from Scotch moss and nearly 70 types of Sedum to more than 40 kinds of sedges, dozens of coneflower cultivars, and a whopping list of heavenly hellebores, hostas and daylilies. And, that’s just for starters. It’s a candy store of plants for landscape designers and horticulturists.

“They are a class act, whether you are talking about the owner Tom Kimmel, taking his time to show you plants, to Steve and Shelly taking care of our needs, and Wadia shipping our material when we need it,” said Kevin McGowen, operations manager for Kaknes Landscape Supply. “Twixwood and their many great people make our business better.”

Melissa Conroy of Elite Growers in Ingleside, Illinois, has known the firm for 20 years. “I respect Twixwood because as a company they are constantly striving to do better and improve themselves. It’s easy to sit back and just keep doing the same things, but it takes effort to evaluate yourself and make changes.”

Over the years, the nursery has grown from 33 acres to 363 acres spread across six properties with one million square feet of poly-house space and much more in field-grown plants. And, its future looks very bright indeed.

Tom Kimmel’s parents, George and Lou Kimmel, started Twixwood in 1968, potting periwinkle on a picnic table in their front yard. Lou was 50 years old. They’d been vegetable and berry farmers and after they subdivided their 80-acre farm, they built some houses and landscaped them with junipers and yews they grew in their nursery along with groundcovers. “Dianne married me in the spring of 1978 and she immediately went to work at the nursery learning everything from my parents,” Kimmel said.

The nursery still grows some popular products from the early days, like periwinkle and pachysandra, but the catalog’s offerings have vastly expanded. Vernonias, ornamental onions, catmints, geum and a host of grasses and native perennial cultivars fill the pages. “Tom grows a really nice liner,” said Steve Raczak, who joined the company in 2004 as the first outside sales rep. Before that, sales were done by phone. “My job is to convince the buyer to give us a chance at helping them. Our production people grow a strong product line.” When comparing Twixwood to other growers, Raczak says, “We offer the core of what they want. We’re not the first or the last in line, but we pride ourselves on having a broad product line and we bring in new plants. People know they can depend on us. We try to go beyond the sale and add value.”

Homer Trecartin, Jr. is Twixwood’s manager of sales and production planning. When Kimmel’s parents retired to northern Michigan, they built some greenhouses and started growing ivy and pachysandra. Trecartin began working for them on his 15th birthday. “Mr. and Mrs. Kimmel taught me all they

could about the nursery business, which I put to good use as I moved around with my family from California to a mission stint in Africa and back to Georgia and Tennessee. I worked my way through college in greenhouse and landscaping businesses.”

He credits the couple as some of the most influential people in his life. “They were pleased to find a willing student.” When his family moved, he stayed in touch. “They told me if I ever wanted to have a career in the nursery business, to come back and see them. However, I took Theology in college and followed my dad into pastoring. Eventually, though, life led me to Berrien Springs, and in need of a job, so I came back to Twixwood and rediscovered my love of the perennial nursery business. Now I couldn’t imagine doing anything else.”

Quality and Customer Service

From the beginning, Twixwood has sought to produce the best product possible. “I remember Mrs. Kimmel actually telling us to slow down when producing and caring for the plants because she didn’t want to sacrifice quality,” Trecartin said. “She ingrained that into me. Twixwood may not always be the cheapest or the fastest, but we do strive to make sure that the plants we send are high quality.”

The intense focus on quality and maintaining its own plant stock has positioned Twixwood for a very rosy future. “We have acres of field stock,” Raczak said, “and 80 percent of what we sell is from our own fields.” Crews take cuttings from 200-foot-long rows of field-grown plants, which are then manually potted up. Millions of Twixwood plants end up in landscapes throughout the Midwest each year.

“In these days of supply chain uncertainties and skyrocketing prices, having control of all or most of the process allows us tremendous flexibility,” Trecartin said. “We can increase or decrease without as much dependency on others.” It also creates challenges. “Maintaining the full cycle means we are a labor-intensive business. We have a very loyal crew most of whom have been with us for many years, but they are also aging, and the cold, snowy Novembers make them think about Texas and Mexico.”

Partnerships

Peter Orum, founder of Midwest Groundcovers in St. Charles, Illinois, met Tom Kimmel in 1974 when he arrived with plants that Orum needed. “I had a big order and we didn’t have enough groundcovers so we bought loads from them,” Orum explained. “We’re friends and competitors and some people ask how is that possible. If you tell other people what you’re doing, they’ll tell you what they’re doing and Tom has been very open.” Orum has visited Twixwood and the two men have shared mistakes and success stories. “Twixwood does a lot of interesting things and Tom is very innovative and so are his people.”

If there’s one thing that Twixwood does better than many other companies, it’s working with their customer base. “We go beyond writing and filling the orders,” Raczak said. “We find a way to become part of the customer’s culture so we understand what their objectives are.”

“The relationship between Twixwood and the Pizzo Group was established about 15 years ago,” said Mandy Leifheit, sales manager of Pizzo Native Plant Nursery in Leland, Illinois.

“Twixwood deserves this award because everyone there maintains great integrity of their product, and they are always honest and flexible. They also grow top quality perennials.”

Challenges

Keeping the business going during the 2008 recession was grueling. “We were lucky to survive,” Kimmel said. “It’s an amazingly cyclical business tied to housing starts. During the pandemic, when business was booming, we were running out of plants and customers wanted to know why.” That is where a crystal ball would come in handy.

“Twixwood ships to us four days a week and we have it first thing in the morning so we don’t miss a beat in sales,” McGowen said. “They have been remarkable in accommodating us with orders that we place at the last minute and they have one of the best customer service people in the industry in Steve Raczak. Steve played an integral role in Kaknes’ perennial inventory.”

Kimmel has retired twice now although Dianne is still involved in the business. “I will step away, but the mechanics of transferring ownership and management is not easy,” he said. The nursery has 80 full-time staff and 80 more who usually work March through November. They offer paid vacations and have a health insurance plan. “The owners and management team have been great about supporting our involvement with ILCA,” Raczak said. “They’re hardworking, pull-up-your-boots people. It’s been a whole heck of a lot of fun.”