Driving north on Interstate 75, just south of Middletown, I noticed the Berns Garden Center sign to the west. The many rows of nursery plants gave me the sense that this was a big operation — not only in number of plants, but in the positive impact that I understood Berns has had on the gardening industry in Southwestern Ohio.

        The Berns family grows and installs its own plant material as part of a family business more than 45 years old.

        Cherie Berns, family matriarch, says her grandparents, William and Henrietta Bohne, met at Wooden Shoe Hollow, a haven for German growers in Cincinnati. In 1937, they went into the greenhouse business in Middletown. Here they grew and sold foliage cuttings through the Florist Review, a national horticulture magazine.

        Their cuttings were shipped throughout the United States and their foliage plants were delivered to Cincinnati and Dayton department stores in the 1940s and '50s.

        After Al Berns, Mrs. Berns' husband, came home from military service in 1947, he worked for Bohne's Greenhouses.

        Almost 10 years later, Mr. and Mrs. Berns purchased an acre of land with two greenhouses to start their own business. She raised the children and nurtured and sold the plants while he worked another job, maintained the greenhouse buildings and planted each year's crops. Opened six weeks the first year, they earned enough money to buy a new washing machine, Mrs. Berns remembers.

        Today, four of the five Berns children and two of their wives — plus 80 employees — are all a part of the Berns “family.” Some have worked with the company more than 30 years.

        The Bernses have extended their sense of„family into the community. Bus tours frequent the garden center, which is accessible to the disabled.

        A 10,000-square-foot post-and-beam floral and gift shop is only part of the facility, already decked out for the holidays. An outdoor covered area — 22,000 square feet — and a 12,000-square-foot greenhouse also will be available to visitors during an open house this weekend.

        The Berns Garden Center Christmas open house will be open 9 a.m.-7 p.m. today and Sunday and 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday at 825 Greentree Road, Middletown. Information: (513) 423-5306.

       Contact Peg St. Clair by phone: 541-4680; Web site: www.gardenersnetwork.org.

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