Windmill Nursery to Close After 15 Years

Family owned , Carmichael’s only independent garden center, is closing its doors after serving the Carmichael and Fair Oaks areas for 15 years since March 1996. 

This past weekend, the parking lot on Windmill Way was full and business was brisk with customers coming and going. This didn’t look like a business that was closing but the activity was amplified by their going out of business sale.

The closing of this nursery is ironic in that they were voted the best garden center in 2010 by the KCRA A-List by earning the most votes from customers in the Sacramento area. 

“Longtime customers of Windmill Nursery from Carmichael have expressed their sadness at the closing of the nursery,” said Andrew Neimann, the co-owner and manager. 

In a general statement to the public, Neimann along with his father Paul said, “After many years of a poor economy and bad weather, we are no longer able to stay in business.” 

There is a time tested barometer in the nursery industry that is known to all garden center owners. The economy can be bad or there can be a recession but if Mother Nature rains on their Spring Parade they can chase the sales dollars all year but will never catch what they lost in spring.

The largest flux of cash flow for the garden center business comes from spring.  There is no other season like it.  Fall generates the next largest amount of sales but even so it doesn’t come close to what spring produces. 

“This year spring sales were dismal,” Andrew Neimann said. “It is true that in a bad economy if we experience the usual booming spring gardening season, we manage for the rest of the year.  Not only did this year’s spring fall below expectations because of rain but so did spring 2010.”

On the reverse side, if the economy is doing fine and spring is so-so, garden centers can usually wade through the year. The weak economy with all of its ups and downs during the last five years has taken its toll on so many businesses in Carmichael. Windmill Nursery, like so many others, embraced strategic planning to try and stay ahead with appropriate cuts in inventory and by downsizing or eliminating certain departments in the garden center. It wasn’t enough. 

Other factors were at work that did not bode well for the nursery. When one understands that garden center sales are discretionary sales like going on vacation, or buying a new auto or new furniture, then you understand what happens when the economy slows. Those purchases don’t happen because customers don’t have to buy plants, take a vacation or buy a new car. They have to pay rent, buy food and clothes.

Windmill Nursery served a community that is well established as far as housing goes. New customers need to be harvested via word of mouth bolstered by reputation for quality plants, service and selection. 

You only need to read the online praises of Windmill Nursery to know this is what they gave all of their customers. They also believed in the community. 

In fact, the owners of Windmill Nursery were dedicated to being involved in projects important to Carmichael. This is evidenced by their recent commitment which raised $6,437 for the Jan Park project.

If the factors mentioned above were a cake, the icing on the cake is the sales lost to "big box" stores who use plant material as "loss leaders" to get customers into their stores. 

“You just need to know when to fold,” Andrew Neimann said. “We can’t thank our loyal customers enough for all of their support over the years we have been in business. Thank you Carmichael!”

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