Major Home Depot plant supplier closes Maryland facility

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A national flower and plant wholesaler has shipped the last plant from its Howard County headquarters.

Bell Nursery, which sells tens of millions of plants annually to Home Depot, has closed its headquarters and distribution center in Elkridge at 7111 Troy Hill Road, according to a filing with the Maryland Workforce Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Log. The filing also said the firm would lay off 42 employees. Friederike Edelmann, a spokesperson for Bell Nursery’s parent company Central Garden & Pet (Nasdaq: CENT), confirmed the closure but said 27 of those employees have been given jobs at other Bell Nursery facilities.

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The facility closure, which took place on Sept. 26, according to Edelmann, comes as Central Garden & Pet has shuttered physical locations across the country as part of a “cost and simplicity” program aimed at making the company more profitable. Bell Nursery was founded in Maryland in the late 1920s and acquired by California-based Central Garden & Pet in 2018. Edelmann said the company has also faced challenges with extreme weather in recent years, with high temperatures and rain negatively impacting the business.

Read the full story from our partners at the Baltimore Business Journal.

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