​The below historical account of the founding of Willoway Nurseries was written by founder Marilyn Demaline and each chapter originally appeared in a series of newsletter articles to commemmorate the 60th anniversary of Willoway.

​In 1935, Les Demaline, owner and founder of Willoway Nurseries, Inc. was born in Cleveland, Ohio to parents, Evelyn and Leland Demaline. In 1944, the family moved to Westlake to a home on Bradley Rd. that had a nice yard and additional property on which the family grew a large garden, raised chickens and had a jersey cow and a pony. Since this was during the WWII, most families had victory gardens in which they grew their vegetables for eating and canning. Les loved living in the country and worked in the vegetable garden as a young boy. At the age of 11, he proudly learned how to operate the family‘s David Bradley cultivator. Les’ dad and mom opened their own bakery in North Olmsted in 1950 and Les along with his younger brother helped in the family-owned business. But when he turned 16, Les told his parents he wanted to work outdoors and he began mowing lawns for his summer job. He got his driver’s license, bought a pick-up truck (a 1940 Chevy) and borrowed the family lawn mower and trailer. When the high school principal learned of Les’ love for working with plants, he introduced him to a local greenhouse owner who hired Les to help in the greenhouse on Saturdays.

​Les purchased his first tractor, a 1940 vintage Ford Ferguson, in order to fit ground for planting some of the taxus liners he had propagated. He soon realized that if he wanted to establish a production nursery he would have to find land to buy as the rented property was only leased from year-to-year. And our family was quickly outgrowing the apartment. We began looking in the Avon area of Lorain County. Through a local realtor Les and Marilyn were introduced to Frank and Rose Wysocki who owned a 20-acre farm on which they had grown vegetables for many years. Tractors had never been used on this property as Mr. Wysocki did all his farm work using horses. To supplement income, he had built a small greenhouse in which he grew cucumbers for the local market. This was during the infancy of the greenhouse vegetable era that was started in the Cleveland area. Because of his age and the fact that his land would continue be used to support growing crops, Mr. Wysocki agreed to sell us 10 acres of the farm. The title transferred to us in June, 1958. This acreage provided us the land to start the nursery as well as build our home. The land purchase included a barn, a very small greenhouse, a coal-fired boiler, and a small pond. Oh, what we learned in those early years. The dirt floor of the boiler room was below the driveway level so when it rained hard or the ground thawed, it would flood. We lost electric power often which meant that the coal had to be hand-shoveled to keep the boiler heating. The pond water that was used to water the plants in the greenhouse was always stopping up the water pumps with algae so we had to keep extra pumps handy. In looking back at all these adventures, one soon realized that a nurseryman, much like a farmer, has to have a knowledge of many trades in order to survive, eg., engineer, plumber, electrician, mechanic, chemist as well as a grower. Continuing to learn and face the everyday challenges became a way of life for our whole family.

​In 1960, we built our home and moved the family and the business entirely to Avon, Ohio. By this time we had already planted some of the acres with taxus liners and began to remodel the greenhouse structure by buying used glass to expand the growing area. We continued to shovel coal, though, until we built the cement block boiler room that still stands today. At that time we purchased a used boiler and converted to natural gas for heat when it became available. We sure didn’t miss the coal!

During this chapter of the business history, we were bitten by the flower show bug. Les helped he owners of Perkin’s Greenhouse design and install their garden displays at the Cleveland Home and Flower Show in the old Cleveland Public Hall in downtown Cleveland. He really enjoyed the challenge of forcing plants to complete the garden displays that were quite an attraction for the general public. He worked very hard and eventually was invited to install a competitive garden display entry by Willoway Nursery. We participated in spring indoor garden displays installed in the Old Arcade Building on Euclid Avenue at this time as well as summer display gardens at the Cuyahoga County Fair in Berea. Display gardens helped Les to grow the landscape side of the business. But propagation of and growing plants took a great part in the time spent developing the nursery side of the business. Les was also able to do custom work fitting and grading yards for other landscapers. This helped pay for the equipment. Through these early years since our busiest times were in the spring and summer, we hired mostly high school students to work. We didn’t have sufficient work for a full-time staff until later.

Some trivia from those early years: when we started buying bare-root tree liners from Oregon, the plants came to us by rail as did the bales of peat moss shipped from Canada. The cars carrying these items were parked on a siding track at S.R. 76 (now known as Rt. 83) and the Avon-Avon Lake line and we took our truck to the site to unload the product and bring it to the nursery.

​In the second ten years of business, we began to “GROW” Willoway Nursery in many directions. We purchased the remaining 10 acres of the Wysocki farm and with that acreage and some leased property across the street from the nursery, we expanded our field production. By the end of this period we were certified by the State of Ohio Nursery Inspector for approximately 30 acres of growing field stock.

​Irrigation of the fields was done by laying out 30 ft. lengths of 4” aluminum pipe on each field that required water. Risers with sprinkler heads were fit into the pipes. Water was pumped by using gasoline-powered portable pumps or a hydraulic pump connected to a tractor. The pumps were placed by a pond and the water lines were connected to the pump. Each move to cover all the fields required that the pipe and risers be moved by hand to each location as needed. Special trailers were built to haul the pipe to the different farms.

​A review of an early Price List - two mimeographed pages, dated Fall, 1967 and Spring, 1968 - listed balled-and-burlapped plant varieties such as taxus browni, hicksi, capitata, and intermedia; juniper compact andorra and blue hetzi; ilex crenata convexa, crenata hetzi, and rotundifolia; along with varieties of boxwood, mahonia,, deutzia, euonymus, viburnum and syringa. Evergreens sold between $3.50 and $8.50 per plant. Broadleaf evergreens and flowering shrubs were priced between $1.50 and $6.00, depending on size. Maple trees such as acer rubrum and acer saccharum and pin oaks sold for $15.00 per inch of caliper. And flowering crabapple trees, 5-6’ brought $7.00 per plant.

The B&B plants, all dug by hand, were used on our landscape jobs or sold to local landscapers in the early years. After the plants were dug they were put in a holding area which was under an apple tree and next to the greenhouse.

The greenhouse area was expanded by rebuilding two used greenhouses that had been salvaged from another location, building the cement block boiler room (that still exists) and installing a larger, up-dated, used boiler that could be converted from coal to natural gas.

​Beginning with display gardens at the Cuyahoga County Fair in Berea, the Demaline family enjoyed participating in installing the show gardens. Tom and Cathy spent many hours at the fair helping the show directors, Joe Kern and Dick Howell set up displays of the cut flowers entered by local citizens into the annual Fair competition and then putting the appropriate ribbons on each entry after the judging was completed.

​The Cleveland Home and Flower Show Gardens were a highlight for Willoway Nursery and the Demalines. Each year the Show Floor of the Cleveland Public hall was designed to accommodate from 8 to 10 competitive display gardens which were installed by local greenhouse growers and landscape companies. Each grower drew his site “out of a hat” and then the company was free to design their garden for the space they drew while matching the theme selected for that year’s show. In 1967, after many years of Les’ helping other growers, we were invited to participate in the 1968 show as a competitor. For many years, we spent each winter designing and forcing the plants for our display at this very popular annual event that usually occurred in early March of each year. It became a family effort and Tom and Cathy were able to help and participate a little more each year as they grew older. The first few years Marilyn would pick them up at school on the day before the show opened. They would go to the show and help put the finishing touches on the display and then Les would take them out to dinner. This became an annual ritual we all enjoyed. As the years passed, Tom assumed design of the garden display and Cathy grew and forced the annuals used while everyone helped with the forcing of the trees and plants and the construction involved in the display. While Willoway no longer enters a garden display in the annual show, our employees continue to be responsible for forcing and delivering many plants to the show for use by the current competitors.

​The “GROWING” of Willoway also included Les and Marilyn’s home. In 1965, a garage and an office were added to their home so Marilyn could move the company bookkeeping responsibilities from the kitchen table. With this move, an ADDOMETER dial vintage calculator that used a stylus to enter numbers into the machine and given to Les by his mom, was set aside when Marilyn splurged on the purchase of a used mechanical BURROUGHS adding machine that performed addition and subtraction functions by entering the numbers on a key board of 72 number keys. Once the numbers were entered the operator pulled a hand-operated crank and the entries were accumulated to obtain a total. Electronics were not yet on the horizon! Along with the use of a portable typewriter (non-electric,) Marilyn was able to set up an efficient office while remaining at home while the children were small. The office provided Les a desk area, too, for planning and drawing the landscape plans for that part of the business.

Of course, we did not have available any sophisticated forms of communication in the 1960’s. We started with a Lorain Telephone Co. wall phone in the kitchen that was expanded to accommodate a line to Cleveland, known as a foreign exchange service to better serve our customers in the Cuyahoga County area. An old cast iron dinner bell, which Les found, was renovated and put on a post outside the kitchen door. Marilyn rang this bell when she wanted Les, Tom or to Cathy to come to the house. This bell remains today outside the side door of Tom’s home.

​We also continued to “GROW” as we became members of the Nursery Associations located in Lorain, Cuyahoga and Lake Counties along with the Greenhouse Growers of Cleveland, the Ohio Nursery Association and the Ohio Florists Association. All of these groups were supported by the Ohio State Cooperative Extension Service and the memberships were comprised of growers and representatives of horticultural enterprises in the northern Ohio area. By being part of these groups our areas of education were expanded to include seminars and research provided by the Agricultural and Horticultural Agents of the Extension Service. Agents were also available to help members with specific growing problems such as identifying plant diseases and/or insects while helping to locate the appropriate treatment. This education is available to growers to this day on any appropriate subject or problem that pertains to the current times of the nursery and greenhouse business.

Through the trade associations, as our plant inventory grew and in order to meet new customers, Willoway began to participate in trade shows. Les, our first and only salesman at this time, was always able to sell our plants, but he often oversold the inventory. This prompted Marilyn with Tom’s help to begin seeking an “inventory control system.” The first inventory was done manually, of course, using a catalog card system. We all know that inventory continues to be a never-ending venture for growers, but with the coming of computers and electronics it seems to improve each year.