If you’ve been with us for a while, you had to have asked yourself at least once, “What’s with the windmill?” It’s true that we’ve gone against the norm here. Most gardening companies stick to the obvious choices of using flowers, green leaves or even a tomato as their signature. These are all well and good and certainly get the point across. So why does Wayside have a windmill?
The answer is simple: It’s all about history.
Wayside Gardens was founded by Jan Jacob Grullemans, a skilled plantsman and botanical enthusiast who just couldn’t get enough of unusual and magnificent cultivars. He wanted to share that love with the world and with the help of nurseryman Elmer Schultz he did just that! Before bringing Wayside Gardens into existence he had been residing in Leiden, Holland Netherlands where he no doubt beheld more than a few windmills during his time there. There is a certain grace measured with power in the image on the windmill which Jan appreciated so much that we decided it would become his company’s signature emblem. Our founder saw how something can be useful, beautiful, powerful, and elegant all at once. In short – the windmill represents the key elements of gardening. These structures hail from a bygone era, yet they stand as a testament to how human ingenuity paired with the awesome power of nature is a force to be reckoned with.
Nowadays with the implementation of windfarms and other wind-harvesting practices we’ve seen windmills take a new turn (if you’ll excuse the pun). While their styles and purposes have shifted with the times, the windmill is still an important and recognizable figure which symbolizes harmony of man and nature. That is what Jan believed and 150 years later that is what Wayside continues to stand for today.
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