August, 5, 2023
This August, we bid farewell to long-time landscape division leader and award-winning landscape designer, Julie Peterson. The fifth child of Maxwell and Carol Sargent, Julie aided in building and carrying-on Sargent’s Nursery’s legacy for the last several decades.
EARLY YEARS
Born in the 1950s, Julie was raised on the Sargent’s property, in the iconic white “Sargent House,” as the family business was growing and changing under her father Max’s leadership. The white house, next-door to Sargent’s Garden Center, was built by her grandfather in 1932 and allowed the family to be as close as possible to their growing business. As a child, Julie enjoyed the environment of the family’s nursery business and soaked up all it had to offer. Her first role was watering trees, and as an adult, while she mastered the Nursery trade, her knowledge and skills expanded and flourished aligning her for a role in the company’s landscape design division.
BUILDING A CAREER
Her father Max had expanded the Sargent’s name beyond the garden center and nursery and developed the company’s landscape design service in the 1970s. After her third child was born, Julie became part of the landscape design team. In 1984, Max’s health began to fail, and he invited Julie to join the family business. She happily accepted, feeling it was her destiny to work alongside him, but just three short years later, he passed away. Their time together in the business was too brief and she had no choice but to embrace the independence that was required to keep her family’s business going.
Having always had a knack for forming positive relationships with clients, Julie provided service with a sincere wish to solve any issue. Whether it was a problem with drainage, erosion, or a desire for more curb appeal, her expertise and creative solutions helped form many friendships with clients over the years and she cherishes each of them. Most clients can likely recall Julie jumping right into digging the hole for their pond or completely rescuing a garden at their home as she made their dreams of beautiful landscapes a reality.
A TRUE FAMILY BUSINESS
Julie worked with a small team of installers and continued to design, sell, and manage landscape installation projects. Her husband, Lloyd, was installation crew leader at the time. The two were part owners of the business from 1984 to 2014 and worked together to expand the landscape department. They spent the next 35 years relying on each other’s talents to produce extraordinary landscape projects and further enhance Sargent’s Nursery’s strong reputation for quality workmanship. (Lloyd retired from Sargent’s in 2014.)
Julie has always been a quick study and became adept in her field, leaning on her artistic abilities to impact her landscape designs. A hands-on kind of person since the beginning, Julie mastered garment alterations at a young age, worked on the farm with her husband Lloyd, and developed extensive and impressive gardens at her own home. It took hard work and fierce commitment to make a good life for her family of six, and in true form, Julie rose to the challenge, creating opportunities and earning success. Julie is always very eager to “dig-in” on any project she can dream up and loves to soak in the beautiful rewards that landscaping offers.
Julie’s Home Gardens
PEOPLE and PLANTS
Having always had a knack for forming positive relationships with clients, Julie provided service with a sincere wish to solve any issue. Whether it was a problem with drainage, erosion, or a desire for more curb appeal, her expertise and creative solutions helped form many friendships with clients over the years and she cherishes each of them. Most clients can likely recall Julie jumping right into digging the hole for their pond or completely rescuing a garden at their home as she made their dreams of beautiful landscapes a reality.
Plants are the key component to Julie’s designs. For many years, she organized the perennial buying, where she’d decide what Sargent’s would grow for the season. That was a good fit, since she’d be the one selling those plants and incorporating them into her designs in mass. She is uniquely talented at creating beautiful plant combinations that truly transform and magnify a space. Her botanical visions have offered creative solutions that provide function, as well as beauty, to her clients. Julie’s understanding of the plant’s growth habits, and the care required for each also helped her provide ample guidance to Sargent’s Nursery’s Garden Care Teams on proper care and quality standards. These standards helped set a high bar for garden care that will be followed into the future.
A RICH LEGACY
Along with the rich heritage of horticultural successes she’s created for Sargent’s, Julie was also responsible for spearheading the annual quilt show that continues to grace Sargent’s Greenhouse each winter (except during the Covid-19 pandemic) for 16 seasons. Each quilt show exhibits handmade local quilts, offers a raffle quilt, and many quilting vendors. The show alternates yearly between work by the Evening Star Quilt Guild of Red Wing and The Plum Creek Quilters, the latter of which Julie is an active member. These quilt shows will remain in Julie’s capable direction, despite her retirement.
We are incredibly proud of Julie’s accomplishments and how she has grown the business her Father Max entrusted her with. She leaves an unforgettable mark on Red Wing, and the surrounding regions. She has been a tremendous leader over the years, helping grow the landscape department to four designers, three full installation teams and three garden care teams. We will forever strive to uphold Julie’s standards and make her proud.