Deb Pella Keen, Executive Director of Maple Leaves Forever had the honour of attending the celebration of Somerville Nurseries’ 75 years held on September 12, 2025 in Everett, Ontario.  Over 350 family, employees, business partners, planting agencies, vendors, and neighbours attended the event held at their headquarters near Everett, Ontario.

Fred Somerville, President of Somerville Nurseries and one of the sons of the founder John Somerville, described how over the past 75 years, Somerville has grown into one of Canada’s major tree producers. The operation includes three divisions covering ~5,000 acres of Christmas trees, ornamental nursery stock, and bareroot seedlings. Their seedling division has some 20 million trees in the ground at any one time, producing approximately 48 different species annually (including native maple trees!). Following the closure of the Ministry of Natural Resources seed plant in Angus in 2019, Somerville also developed the capacity to store over 300 million seeds. The land holdings include several hundred acres of sustainably managed hardwood forest, some family‑owned since 1908. Fred went on to say that Somerville was easing into a generational change and noted that “It’s the duty of the present to convey the voices of the past to the ears of the future.”

Fred: “It is often stated that a company’s most important assets are its employees. I would definitely agree with this, for these are the loyal, dedicated men and women who show up every day and really make things happen. However, I would also agree that it takes a village, for it takes the contributions of people like you to nurture a business like ours to grow and thrive. I believe that everyone present here today has in some way contributed to our success, be it our family, our friends.”

James Somerville, Propagation Manager, and grandson of the founder John Somerville, compared the ecological networks of mycorrhizae fungi, and microbes to human relationships — noting that the  customers, landowner, staff and family  are connected and enabled the company to grow by supporting  and learning from one another.  James added, “the people at this company have provided me with purpose, community, and a sense of pride. You teach me, listen to my ideas, challenge me to better, and inspire me to never stop growing. When I look around and see the dedication from our team, I know that we all share in this experience.”

Ryan Tyce, Operations Manager got to the heart of what staff do at Somerville, including harvesting over 100,000 trees in four weeks and lifting, packaging, and shipping millions of seedlings each year.  They do this with a skilled and diverse workforce field technicians, pest managers, crane operators, sales, mechanics.  He added a motto that helped contribute to this success:  “The best employees act like owners and the best owners act like employees!”

Rob Keen, past CEO of Forests Ontario (now Forests Canada) spoke about the 25 year history of working with Somerville Nurseries. Somerville was a significant contributor to private land tree planting in Ontario being the largest supplier of high quality seedlings for the 50 million tree program.  

Mayor Scott W Anderson – Township of Adjala-Tosorontio welcomed everyone to beautiful community of Everett. He thanked the Somerville family and their employees for their great work and support of the community. We were happy to hear that Somerville recently donated 12 native maple trees for the Township’s  office yard!

We certainly saw a deep appreciation for employees and community and  a respect for past generations.  Staff emphasized the many connections and collaborations that contributed to their resilience and would be essential to support future growth. 

Thank you Sommerville Nurseries for including Maple Leaves Forever in your 75th Anniversary.  We hope to be one of your collaborators for many years to come!

Part of the MLF Fall 2025 ENews – Subscribe for quarterly news right to your INBOX!