The People of Jonker’s Garden

Click on your favorite gardener to go to their bio - then click the Back button to return.

Joanne Avink

Joanne (You can call me 'Jo') has been a part of the team at Jonker's since March of 2001, but she's been in the industry since 1979, seeding, planting, and shipping flowers at Brower Farms in Hudsonville. After 17 years on the growing end of things, she moved to the pretty end, helping local florists make beautiful arrangements. Along the way, she acquired her Advanced Master Gardener and Advanced Floral Design certifications.

Jo has been helping run the Garden Shop, where she gets to choose which flowers and neat stuff we offer to you. She also gets to spend time in the greenhouses, creating beautiful custom arrangements for indoors and outside.

Jo and her husband Rich, who teaches 5^th grade at Pine Ridge Christian School, live in Holland and attend Christ Memorial Church. They both enjoy gardening and travelling.

Deb Elenbaas

Deb started at Jonker's Garden in 1997, and has been going strong since. She works mostly with the perennials, and is on a first name basis with our many varieties of ornamental grasses. Multi-talented as she is, Deb also does a lot of computer work: making plant lists, entering plant information, and making tags and signs.

Deb lives on the north side of Holland with her husband Gregg. They have one daughter in high school, and one in college. She's the President of Holland Friends of Art, and is Chairperson of Art In The Park. For hobbies, she enjoys "doing art" and gardening. She also said she "likes vacations." (who doesn't?!)

Dena Giller

Dena Giller is Jonker’s Garden’s grower. She is responsible for most of what transpires in the greenhouses on a year-round basis. She coordinates as many as 12 workers in the greenhouses, a logistical coup, when you realize that there's only room for one or two persons in the same house at the same time. Dena, with help from her loyal crew, is responsible for the health and well being of literally hundreds of thousands of plants in a year’s time.

Dena started at Jonker’s in 1983, after co-owning a garden center in Kentucky for 4 years. Over the years she has learned a great deal about plant nutrition, pest control, new varieties, and the greenhouse environment. She is our resident plant-growing expert. She takes care of growing the plants; all you have to do is pick them up and enjoy them!

Dena and her husband Bill enjoy boating in the summer, except for a few days every July when she attends a yearly plant conference in Ohio to learn about cutting-edge plant varieties and growing techniques.

Chad Glupker

After joining Jonker's in 2002, Chad Glupker has learned to wear many hats. At any one time he can be absolutely anywhere on the premises, moving trees, repairing hoses, driving the loader, climbing on top of a greenhouse, you name it. Actually, he could be off the premises, too, making deliveries, planting trees, or picking up stock.

When he's not at work, there's a good chance he's on Lake Michigan, riding the wild surf! He's surfed the Great Lakes in every month of the year. A self-proclaimed 'outdoors kind of guy,' he also likes snowboarding and hiking.

Chad's been taking courses through Michigan State University in Landscaping and Turf Management. He just achieved his Michigan Certified Nurseryman Certification (MCN) in 2005.

Nghia Cong Huynh

Neal (He told us to call him Neal, for Neal Armstrong, his hero) has been helping out at Jonker's Garden for over twelve years, doing anything from trash removal and recycling to grass mowing and flower planting.

He came to us from Viet Nam more than 20 years ago. He has been working full time at Herman Miller for that whole time. He bought a house and sponsored the immigration to the US of most of his family. In his spare time he likes fishing from the piers in Lake Michigan, carving duck decoys, and playing tennis.

Jim Jonker

Jim Jonker likes to say he started at Jonker's when he was less than one year old. That's when his Dad, John, changed his diaper on the front seat of the truck at the wholesale produce market in Benton Harbor. When he tuned 5 he rose to the elevated rank of weed-puller, earning 5 cents and hour. As he gained experience, his wage rose to 10 cents an hour in grade school, and by the time he was in high school, he was earning the princely sum of $1.00 an hour.

You can pretty much read the history of Jonker's on this site, and that would be Jim's biography. He currently lives with his wife Joy, Barak the dog, and Sammy and Suzie the cats. Their three boys, of whom they are very proud, have left the nest, but are frequently welcomed back for visits.

Jim and Joy both spend considerable time at the gym, attempting to stall the hands of time. They like travelling, theater, cooking, hiking, and cross-country skiing. Joy enjoys swimming in her pool in the summer, and Jim is usually on the lake on his sailboard whenever the wind is over 15 knots.

Jim is president of Jonker's Garden. His duties include, but are not limited to: running errands, making deliveries, coaching the team, writing the newsletter, paying the bills, fixing stuff, answering plant questions, and last, but certainly not least, pulling weeds.

Greg Kuziak

One of the people you're bound to run into at Jonker's Garden is Greg Kuziak. He was born in Muskegon, graduated from Central Michigan University in 1980 with a degree in business, then spent 20 (mostly) enjoyable years in restaurant management.

Ready for a change, he was hired on as Jonker's Retail Manager in February of 2002. An avid indoor gardener for many years, Greg started frequenting Jonker's for outdoor plants after buying a home in the mid 1990's. His practical education was rounded out when he created several water gardens.

Greg gets to choose most of the neat gifts and garden art displayed in the Garden Shop and throughout the Garden Center.

Mingo

Jonker’s Gardener: Is Mingo your real name?

Mingo: Yes, it is. My name should really have been Minga, the feminine form, but my Dad always wanted a boy, so “Mingo” it was.

JG: Where were you born?

M: I was born in Texas, where my people moved from Mexico in the early 50’s, seeking a better life.

JG: How old are you?

M: Let’s see. I was born in ’72, so that would make me, uh, 33.

JG: Wow! That’s 187 in human years! You don’t look a day over 18! What’s your secret?

M: I eat Purina Monkey Chow for breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day. I don’t use tobacco or drink alcohol. I enjoy monkey treats in moderation, except in the spring and on Saturdays, when I get so many visitors I over-indulge. For exercise, I run circles in my cage for twenty minutes every day. And, most importantly, I never married.

JG: Do you ever get out of your cage?

M: I did once, many years ago, when I was young and foolish. I thought it would be fun to see the world. Actually, it was pretty scary. Jim finally caught me and gently returned me to my home. I never tried that again.

JG: Do you have any plans for the future?

M: Actually, I always wanted children, but I’ve pretty much given up on that. I’m getting a little too old, and, besides, the thought of dating in this day and age scares the heck out of me! Other than that, I’m planning to just enjoy my retirement here at Jonker’s, eating Monkey Chow, meeting new people, and running in circles.

 Holly Riemersma

If you’ve shopped for bedding plants at Jonker’s Garden at any time since 1993, chances are you’ve been helped by a young lady with red hair. That would be Holly. She’s in charge of bedding plants, from ordering and planting seeds, nurturing her “babies” until they are big enough to transplant into flats and pots, to making sure they all have a tag to tell you what they are. Her final job is to make sure they all make it out to the tables where you can pick them up and take them home to your garden.

When she’s not caring for plants at Jonker’s Garden, Holly tends to her own gardens, filled with 100’s of flower and vegetable plants. That’s one way she figures out what will do well for you.

Holly and her husband Steve enjoy attending church activities, camping, hiking, and motorcycle vacations. She also likes to read and bake, but not cook, "because she has to cook." With her two children in or finished with college, Holly is learning to love the empty nest.

Mary Rudolph

Mary has been at Jonker's since March of 1998. She usually can be found behind the counter in the Garden Shop, or cleaning something somewhere nearby!

Mary lives with husband Al in Hamilton, and they have two children and two grandchildren. She says knitting and walking are her favorite pastimes, but her co-workers at Jonker's think that her baking is more important, as we frequently get to sample her kitchen artistry.

Zandra Talley

Zandra, affectionately known as “Z” (actually, we’re just lazy, and it’s easier to say), manages both the nursery and perennial departments at Jonker’s Garden.

After a stint in the navy from 1979 to 1982, Zandra moved to the Ozark hills, where she started a small herb business to supplement the family income as she raised two young sons. After moving back home to Holland in 1987, she worked at various jobs in construction, but always tended a garden. Z joined Jonker’s in 1991, assisting Dave Jonker in the perennial department. In 1995, Zandra assumed leadership of the entire Perennial Department, and a year or two later, the Nursery Department. She coordinates everything in Perennials and Nursery: a daunting task.

Zandra is multi-talented. Each year she decides which of our 1200 varieties gets to stay in our selection, and which are retired to make room for the 200 to 300 new varieties she finds from over 20 different sources around the world. But ordering new plants is only the beginning. Each year over 75,000 plants have to be planted, tagged, watered, protected in the winter, moved to displays, and sold to customers. What a job! She also gets to pick which trees and shrubs we offer you each year.

During our winter season Z may be found climbing over the greenhouses putting on new plastic, knee-deep in a pond, cleaning up, or sitting at her desk doing paperwork, her least-favorite job.

Ivan Top

Ivan has been helping out at Jonker's for several years. A retired hog farmer, he lives in Hamilton with his wife Connie. He works 'just enough to stay out of trouble': picking up plants, doing carpentry, driving deliveries, and the like.

Cathy Vandermeer

What do you do if your yard is mostly shade? Plant impatiens and complain? No. You do what Cathy Vandermeer did. You get a job at Jonker’s Garden and try all their shade-loving plants and make a beautiful garden.

Cathy started working part-time at Jonker’s in 1995, all the while raising 4 girls and giving moral support to husband Jim, who teaches physical education at Holland West Middle School and coaches football at Hope College. Her specialties are Hosta (I wasn’t kidding about the shade) and all other shrubs and plants that love the shade.

She sings in the choir at 3^rd Reformed Church, quilts, gardens, and attends all her daughters' many athletic events. Cathy is a Michigan Master Gardener, Landscape Design Consultant and Gardening Consultant through the Federated Garden Club of Michigan. You'll see her in the nursery department most of the time, probably because it's shady there!

Copyright 2011;  All rights reserved by Jonker's Garden, the premier garden center in Holland, MI.  We supply gardeners in West Michigan for residents of Holland, Zeeland, Hudsonville, Grand Rapids, Byron Center, Grand Haven, Spring Lake, Muskegon, Saugatuck / Douglas, South Haven, Hamilton, Allegan, and Kalamazoo with a wide selection of annuals, tropicals, perennials, nursery stock, garden art, pottery, fountains, and much more.

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