The Lily Nook
- Barrie Strohman
To understand how the Lily
Nook came to be one has to be aware of the events that led up to the
business being formed. This all had its start over forty years ago.
At that time I was a building contractor and owned Strohman
Construction. We built homes farm and commercial buildings as well
as home renovations, cabinets and store renovations in the Neepawa
and surrounding area. I needed a hobby that I could turn to so that
I could relax and unwind at the end of the day and on the weekends.
As I had grown up on a farm a large vegetable and fruit orchard was
a necessity of which I was the custodian weed eradicator. Also as my
grandmother and grandfather Strohman enjoyed a vast perennial garden
I was made acquainted with the flowers and their plant names.
Logically I turned to gardening as a hobby. Thus I would peruse the
seed and plant catalogs to see what I could grow. I became enamored
with the beautiful pictures of the lilies and would order some
bulbs. They arrived a little dried out but I would plant them and
they might give me a bloom or two the first year but nothing
appeared the second year. They were supposed to be perennials and I
had seen some lilies in grandmother’s garden so I wondered what in
the world that I was doing wrong. In discussing my problem with
Alice Moger at a horticultural meeting she said “Barrie,
those are oriental lilies and are not fully hardy for the prairies”.
Alice
who was a teacher and who had tutored our children, graciously
invited me to her lily garden and in a space the size of the back
yard of a city lot there were lilies of all heights sizes and
colours. Years ago she had obtained some early or old lilies from
Skinner and Porter along with some of the Isabella Preston hybrids.
From these few lilies she had crossed, back crossed, and crossed
their progeny which produced a veritable feast for my eyes. “You can
do this also,” she said. Then the idea hit me for here could be the
hobby for which I was searching. I had taken a genetic course during
my days at the University
of Manitoba
and had the basic information that I would require. So I purchased a
few lily varieties to observe how they grew, to see which the
stronger ones were and to see which ones did well in our prairie
climate and conditions. The next year I got a few more, then a few
more until now I have over two thousand named varieties with which I
can use in my hybridizing work. It was fortunate that my father left
me the farm at Hallboro where I had been born. It was here that we
started planting out the lilies as well as the two to three thousand
seedlings a year that were the result of my hybridizing efforts.
In 1972 we
bought my grandfather’s house and moved it to the six acre property
that we had purchased from Jim Farough. This was on Highway 5 and
was two and a half miles (four kilometers) south of Neepawa. Here we
renovated and modernized the home and started to landscape. We moved
our family from town that fall and named our property “The Nook”. My
great grandfather on my mother’s side owned property in Scotland
called “The Nook” and I was in line to inherit it. However
Grandfather Fleming sold it, so in order to keep a bit of history
alive we called our home “The Nook”. In due course as the business
evolved it became known as “The Lily Nook”.
Because of my
collection of lilies and because of the growing interest in lilies
many people would stop in to view them till we had cars lined up and
down the highway on lily weekends. It was at this time in 1990 that
I retired from construction and looked forward to relaxing among the
lilies. A change was in the offing for Strohman Construction as
Nigel did not want to continue in the building business. At the time
of my retirement Nigel had purchased the name Yellowhead Nurseries
from Ron and Lorna Elliott and moved it into our building on highway
#16. He erected a greenhouse and proceeded to sell bedding plants,
perennials, trees and shrubs and garden supplies.
At this time my bother-in-law, Raymond McAllister
phoned from
England
with the words, “It’s about time you did something about those
lilies.” A family conference took place. As I was now retired it was
decided that Nigel would take on this project. Thus the Lily Nook as
a business was formed .Ray came over from
England
and he and Nigel sat down and designed the first catalog. They found
a printer, Leech’s printing of
Brandon
and had 4000 catalogs printed. These were mailed out to folks
belonging to lily societies. The format of the catalog has remained
the same except the content has increased. This is a mail order
catalog and is the only one of its kind in Canada
that offers only lilies.
The first year we shipped into every province in
Canada
as well as the
Yukon
and the
Northwest Territories.
Also in the first year of business we shipped to every state in
United States.
Sales have been expanded to overseas so that our bulbs are shipped
to many countries. In time the lily business grew to the point where
Nigel sold the Garden centre and increased capacity for lily
production and sales at the Lily Nook. Because of the increased
demand for lilies the business was expanded to have cold storage
capacity and the growing fields have been increased to ten acres.
With the cold storage and with the import of newer varieties we now
have the ability to ship both in the spring and the fall. Nigel has
five workers hired for the summer months for planting, weeding and
digging of bulbs. Nigel, Joyce and I look after the packaging and
shipping of about 2000 orders a year about equally divided between
spring and fall mailings. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency
inspects the growing fields when the lilies are in bloom and
inspects all shipments of bulbs destined overseas and to the United States
issuing phytosanitary certificates for these orders. The business is
now entering its fifthteen season.
Since the first catalog Nigel now designs all aspects of each
years offerings. He also has developed his own web site and offers
lilies for sale on the internet. The Lily Nook has expanded parking
areas and has erected washrooms and a sales area for the many
visitors. In the growing fields drip irrigation has been installed
so that first or prime quality bulbs are produced. The growing
fields are open to the public for viewing for the bloom period in
July.
Because the Lily Nook has become a tourist attraction
we now have up to 10,000 people visiting here from July to mid
August to see the lilies in bloom and to see which ones that they
might order. As a result of demand we now pot up over 4000 lilies
that people take home to plant out or enjoy seeing them bloom in
pots. Tour bus companies bring in numerous bus loads of people to
see the lilies so bus parking has been expanded to accommodate three
buses at a time and of course making our summers quite busy. We also
have a gift shop and canteen which offer many unique lily gifts and
souvenirs for visitors to purchase as a gift or remembrance. The
canteen offers cold drinks and ice cream treats for sale.
I still have remained retired and look after the hybridizing and
research part of the business, officially known as the resident
hybridizer.
Three years after the Lily Nook opened its doors during our busy
time when there was a lot of activity a lady from Neepawa Eleanor
Nicholson came out and was amazed to see all the activity and the
interest in the lilies. She said to me “Barrie
every town in Manitoba
seems to have a festival, why couldn’t Neepawa have a lily
festival.” I said “go for it” and she did. But that’s another story.
