LOCAL

Blackburn Nursery closes after 83 years

Tim Hrenchir
threnchir@cjonline.com
Suzy and Brett Blackburn discuss the operation of one of their 10 greenhouses at Blackburn Nursery during 75th anniversary in 2011. [2011 file photo/The Capital-Journal]

After 83 years doing business in Topeka, the family-owned Blackburn Nursery has closed.

Business owner, president and CEO Brett Blackburn confirmed late Monday he was selling the business property at 4100 S.W. 40th to Schendel Lawn & Landscape, which had put up for sale its headquarters at 4707 S.W. 6th Ave.

Blackburn said his nursery, which has historically been closed for much of the winter, did its last day of business in mid-December.

Deals are being worked out through which Topeka-based Jackson's Greenhouse would honor continuing one-year and five-year warranties on plants Blackburn Nursery has sold, Blackburn said.

The 57-year-old Blackburn said he was ready to put an end to decades of often working as many as 140 hours a week.

He said Schendel Lawn & Landscape is purchasing 5.7 acres of the property at the business site, including all its buildings, while he'll continue to own about 26 acres there.

Blackburn, who has a degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Kansas, also served from 2005 to 2009 as a Topeka city councilman.

He noted that he and his wife, Suzy Blackburn, have two grown children, who don't plan to work in the nursery business.

Their son, Michael Blackburn, is an assistant district attorney for Sedgwick County while their daughter, Nikki Blackburn, works at the Shawnee County District Attorney’s Office and is also a radio personality for KDVV-FM "V-100" radio.

Blackburn Nursery was established in 1936 as Blackburn Lawn Service by Brett Blackburn's grandparents, Tom and Ruth Blackburn. Employees included Tom Blackburn's father, Mike Blackburn.

"With a borrowed rake, shovel and wheelbarrow they set out to become 'the name' in the lawn, garden, landscape and maintenance business," says the Blackburn Nursery website.

It says the business quickly became a great success while focusing on installing landscape plantings, trimming trees and shrubs, mowing lawns and even installing one of the first irrigation systems in this part of the country.

The business was located at S.W. 17th and Hope until 1951, when it moved to S.W. 29th and Wanamaker Road.

Ownership shifted in 1973 to Brett Blackburn's parents, Jim and Barbara Blackburn. They changed the name to Blackburn Nursery and Lawn Service to better reflect the direction the business was going.

The business was then bought in 1995 by Brett Blackburn — a third-generation owner and fourth-generation nurseryman — and his wife. They moved it in 2001 to its current location.

The business website says Blackburn Nursery has grown and expanded over the years, offering a full-service nursery and garden store — including thousands of annual and perennial plants in the greenhouses — as well as landscape design and installation, lawn irrigation, landscape lighting, site planning, lawn renovation and retaining walls.