South County Nursery Owner Designs Landscapes and Life Plans

graduated from Mehlville High School in 1974, and despite several scholarship offers to play soccer at the University of Illinois and South Florida, he went to work for Keller Nursery.

“I guess I was just a home boy. I had a big family,” he said. “I kind of regret (not going).”

But Haegele passed on one talent, only to recognize another. He didn’t realize it then, but he was doing more than just digging in the dirt at Keller. He was planting the seeds that would grow into a lifelong career and family business.

Since 1986, Haegele has owned Haegele’s Nursery and Garden Center. The 12 years prior to that were spent learning all aspects of the business from design to indigenous plants.

“He was working in the field for them digging and planting and eventually they started sending him out on jobs to do drawings for people,” said Haegele’s sister and employee, Marty Frohlich.

In the years that followed high school, Haegele developed an eye for the design aspect of landscaping.

“He’s really good at what he does,” Frohlich said. She adds that he can just look at something and see in his head how it should be.

Twelve years later, Haegele made the leap from employee to entrepreneur, when Keller, which used to be located on Mehl Avenue in Mehlville, sold their property to Sam’s Warehouse Store.  

He found an old farm house in South County at 6043 Lemay Ferry Road and began his new livelihood.

“It started as just a landscaping business,” Frohlich said.

Over the years, it has gotten progressively bigger. Haegele added a garden center with a full line of trees, shrubs, perennials, grasses and Christmas trimmings.

And while he’s busy out in the field, supervising jobs and getting his hands dirty, he enlisted the help of various family members, including Frohlich and his wife Barbara, to keep the shop running.

His hard work has paid off, sustaining his business more than 25 consecutive years, even in the face of a shaky economy.

“When everybody else was having hard times, we sailed right through it,” he said.

Perhaps, Haegele is a testament to the “do what you love” philosophy.

“It’s a lot of hours. Sometimes I’m up until 12 or one o’clock in the morning drawing,” he said. “I love that it’s outside for one. And every house is different. It’s always something different. One day you might be putting a wall up. The next day you’re pulling out bushes.”

The forgone soccer career aside, Haegele says that if he hadn’t made a career as a landscape designer, he may have ended up being a carpenter.

“He likes working with his hands... something he can physically see,” Frohlich said. “He likes the finished product.”

His talents have earned him industry recognition and even some awards for his landscape designs. He’s pulled off $150,000 projects and decked the halls of Union Station at Christmas.

But even given all this, Haegele considers his two children, son Jacob, 23, and daughter Sam, 19, to be his greatest accomplishment.

“If I had to do it over again, I may have gotten a little bigger,” he said. “I’ve turned a lot of work away. But the kids were growing up and I didn’t want to take away from that. I’ve coached them both in grade school and didn’t hardly miss any of their games in high school. If I’d had too much on my plate, I may not have been able to be there for them.”

With his children squarely on their own career paths in engineering and nursing, Haegele’s landscaping legacy will not be passed on.

And while there are no firm current plans, one has to wonder if it’s not too late to accept South Florida’s offer.