Jenkins Lawn and Garden Center sold
Courtesy of Lisa Jenkins
Lisa and Jim Jenkins are gradually moving into retirement from the lawn and garden business.
Courtesy of Lisa Jenkins
Jim Jenkins Lawn & Garden Center has been sold to Bennett Phelps of Phelps Nursery and is now known as Phelps Nursery USC.
An era is coming to an end in Upper St. Clair.
Jim Jenkins has sold Jim Jenkins Lawn and Garden Center on Painters Run Road to Bennett Phelps of Phelps Nursery.
“He’s bringing in different things that we never handled,” Jenkins said. “He has his own nursery and he grows a tremendous amount of stuff. Whatever it is they want, it seems like he can come up with.”
Phelps Nursery USC (Upper St. Clair) becomes one of four Phelps Nursery locations in the Pittsburgh area, in addition to a wholesale nursery in Ohio.
Phelps said the Upper St. Clair nursery already has increased the inventory of shrubs and flowers, as well as the bulk business and added decorative stones to the operation.
“It will be a good retail store for us, a good outlet for our product,” Phelps said. “We’ll have more to select from. I think the public will benefit from a larger nursery coming in. Hopefully, we’ll fit into the community. I already do a lot of homes in the Upper St. Clair area.”
That doesn’t mean Jenkins, a lifelong Bethel Park resident, is retiring.
“My wife, Lisa, and I are still going to be there this year on a part-time basis for transition to show them how we did things,” Jenkins said. “When you’re too old to play, you coach. I’m going to coach for about six months or so.”
Jenkins, 63, and his father, Jim, started Jim Jenkins Shrubs-N-Stuf in Bethel Park in 1973. “This is basically all I’ve done since I was about 12 1/2 years old,” he said.
His father first attempted to buy the nursery business on Painters Run Road in 1972, and plans were in the works again for him to purchase it in 1981. The deal was just about complete when the elder Jenkins died unexpectedly of a heart attack at the age of 51. “My dad was my hero,” Jenkins said. “It was shocking.”
A year later, the former Stampfel’s Lawn and Garden Center became Jim Jenkins Lawn and Garden Center. Jenkins was just 22 when he bought the business.
It has flourished since, taking care of people’s lawn and garden needs, as well as offering snow plow services in the winter, something Jenkins said he will continue.
Jenkins said the time was right to sell.
“It got to where it really wasn’t fun anymore,” he said. “Lisa was getting to the point where she was asking how much longer we were going to do this. I want to start cutting back and doing more of the other things that I’m involved in.”
Those other activities include involvement in the Bethel Park Historical Society and Bethel Park Shade Tree Commission.
He also belongs to a national group that maintains antique fire apparatus and owns an antique fire truck. He will appear in three Memorial Day parades with his truck.
“Mine is actually a former Bethel Park truck,” Jenkins said. “It still says ‘Bethel Park’ on it. Kids love it.”
Lisa Jenkins recently received citizen of the year honors from Magisterial District Judge Ron Arnoni. The former nurse at St. Clair Hospital also has a number of outside interests, including participation in the Bethel Park Trolley Beautification Program and Bethel Park Historical Society.
They also intend to spend more time with their 6-year old grandson, Aiden.
He said he will miss parts of the business.
“I have a lot of great friends, both in the industry and customers, that I’ve met over the years,” he said. “We’ve had people that have come in here over the years and they come back and say ‘We used to come in here with our parents and get our Christmas tree, now we get our Christmas tree here,’ just a lot of things like that. We’ve had a really good core group of employees here that are kind of like family. We’re still going to be around on a limited basis at least this year and we’ll see what happens.”