Johnston Nursery has been around a long time and with that comes a few noteworthy things. The 1970's held the highest single year wholesale Christmas tree sale which was around 18,000 in one year. The highest amount of seedlings the company ever sold came in the 80's at just over 1 million.The most notable item on the list would be that my grandfather, Beryl, is largely credited as the inventor of what a lot of people know today as the Christmas tree baler. He built the very first baler of its kind in 1959 and over the next ten years built and sold roughly 100 balers in total. Today, Johnston Nursery still uses the first and the last baler that he built at the farm to process every single Christmas.
Times and markets change. Presently Johnston Nursery is 387 acres split between four properties. Approximately 50 acres is reserved for the seedlings business everything else is planted with Christmas trees or soon to be. Not much to be said about our seedling business anymore but the Christmas tree business is our passion. We still do a healthy dose of wholesale orders as well as run two retail lots - one at our home location and one at the Meadows ice cream shop in Indiana, PA.
