Maple Grove garden center to reopen after arson

Lynde Greenhouse & Nursery in Maple Grove is set to open for the season on Monday, March 20 although space and inventory will be limited.

Five months ago, parts of the garden center facility went up in flames and police investigated it as arson.

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The fire destroyed the facility’s boiler system, which heated the entire facility. It also destroyed the electrical service and phone lines. Derek Lynde, owner of Lynde Greenhouse, said the infrastructure that was burned to the ground was probably the most critical part of the building.

“In October, we had a fire to our main warehouse building and production area and it destroyed two of our original pole barn buildings that we had here and one of our 20,000 square foot structures that was used for primary growing ranges,” Lynde said.

Perseverance and help from the community helped the Lynde greenhouse stay rooted. After the fire, hundreds of people worked to move surviving plants to a safe place and to preserve the business that’s been in operation for over 100 years.

“What kept driving me was everybody who counted on me for their paychecks,” Lynde said.

The rebuilding process will take about a year, but in the meantime many of the plants will stay in other garden centers until the rest of the facility is back in operation.

“It would have been easy to say it’s too big of a hurdle to overcome and we were going to close up shop and end this 100 plus year journey the Lynd family’s been on,” he said.

Lynde said the garden center will reopen in time for spring but it also would have also been his late father’s 75^th birthday.

Spring sales in May alone generates almost half the greenhouse’s revenue each year. They’re now blossoming with hope for what’s to come.

“We’ll be battling our way through an interesting era. It’ll be different from everything we’ve ever done before,” said Lynde.