‘Made In The USA’ Room

Lets Hollandia Customers Buy American

BETHEL — Below a large American flag pegged to the ceiling at Hollandia Nurseries Gift & Garden Center on Stony Hill Road in Bethel is a room filled with USA-made gardening items only — something new since the spring.

“A lot of people said it was going to be impossible,” said owner Eugene Reelick. He and his business partner Ken Kolwicz noted the red, white, and blue labels on the American-crafted items, including birdhouses, gardening shoes, compost bins, garden decorations, and more. Assembling a collection of made-in-the-US-only products was not impossible, but, he said, it was “very difficult to do. Very.”

But he managed by this spring to find and stock enough items to fill a room in the Gift & Garden Center, at 95 Stony Hill Road, which he also adorned with flags and banners that announce, “Made in the USA.”

“I can support people in our country,” he said. All products are dedicated to gardening, and help make an investment in US-made items. Although he has difficulty finding suppliers for all items he would like to stock, he has an array of wind chimes, birdhouses, and more.

Mr Kolwicz lifted a handmade wooden birdhouse from the display, explaining that a man from the Adirondacks makes the wren houses. Noting the detail of a small twig polished and tacked below the house’s entry hole, and the house’s design, both he and Mr Reelick agreed that the people who make things in the United States “are proud of it.”

The American-made room has been well received since it opened. “I find it entices customers, they like to hear [that items are US-made],” Mr Reelick said. He also likes the room. “I want to support our vendors or manufacturers. The cost is a little more, but the quality is there.”

The room dedicated to items made in the USA is open seven days from 9 am to 6 pm. The Gift & Garden Center also sells plants, outdoor furniture, grills, garden gifts, supplies, and accessories.

For more information, call 203-792-0268 or visit www.CTgrown.com to learn more the two Hollandia locations, both within the Stony Hill section of Bethel.

Hollandia Nurseries was funded in 1964 by Hans and Sally Reelick in, according to the nursery’s website, “a small two-car garage in Bethel … next to the Burger House Restaurant in the Bank Plaza on Grassy Plain Street in Bethel.”

Today the nursery and garden center operates from two locations. The larger location, at 103 Old Hawleyville Road, includes Hollandia’s growing facilities and has become one of the largest premier garden centers in Fairfield County. Staff members grow premium annuals, perennials, shrubs, trees, vegetables, herbs, and exotic plants among its 20 acres that also includes landscaped gardens, barns, giant gazebos and quaint shops. They also provide landscaping design, gardening supplies, gifts, statuary, and more. The nursery can be reached by calling 203-743-0267, and is open daily from 8 am until 5 pm.