Carrick’s Garden Centre wraps up 60 years of service in LaSalle

John WilsonFebruary 10, 2023

14 2 minutes read

Carrick’s Garden Centre wraps up 60 years of service in LaSalle

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It’s the end of an era for a popular LaSalle institution that’s been selling home-grown plants and vegetables and seasonal items for 60 years.

Carrick’s Garden Centre, a family owned business located on Malden Road in the heart of LaSalle, served generations of local families since 1963.

But owner Joan Carrick, who spent 60 years operating the roadside centre with her family’s help, has called it a day.

Carrick made the decision to retire late last year and the centre closed just after the Christmas season.

“It was busy,” said Carrick, who at 78 years of age wants to slow down, relax and enjoy her hobbies and her grandchildren.

It’s just time to move on

“Our customers were good. But they were more than business, they were like family,” she said. “Like I watched their kids grow (and) their kids grow.

“It was like family here. It was nice. But enough is enough.”

Carrick worked surrounded by her own family. Sons Randy and Mark, who is a long-serving LaSalle councillor and former deputy mayor, pitched in as did many of her grandchildren.

Carrick’s mother, the late Bernadette, lived next door and sold vegetables from her fields at a roadside stand while Carrick’s brother Earl Meloche, 85, sold plants from his greenhouse across the street.

Meloche retired about 10 years ago.

“(Customers) would buy here and one would buy across the street and it was nice,” Carrick said.

The garden centre was the place to pick up a Christmas tree or cedar garland for the holidays, bedding plants, herbs and flowers in the springtime, fruits and vegetables all summer long and mums, pumpkins and squash in the fall.

With only a few weeks off every January, Carrick would be back to work in February.

“If I was back into it I’d be starting the greenhouses the middle of this month,” Carrick said. “So I would only have a few weeks off for the years. And I worked seven days a week.”