In the beginning man was directed to "till the ground from whence he was taken." (Genesis 3:23 KJV) Once the soil has stained your hide, your destiny in the business of Agriculture, specifically "The Nursery" is very hard to get away from.

Great grandfather, Louis Leopold Milarch began by growing Gladiola bulbs on 35 acres of ground in Copemish, Michigan. He called his business Mish a Mish Gardens, which means "Grandmothers Gardens" in Indian language.

As the family grew and new families were formed, the pull of the big city and all its money eventually drew most of the children to it. The Edward L. Milarch family started out in Farmington, Michigan in 1946. The Union shop only worked 40 hours per week and left one with enough spare time to begin raising nursery plants (i.e. perennials and pansies) to satisfy the original call into this business. As hobbies often do, it grew into a "take up all of your spare time" and then to a "take up all of your time" business. This process spanned the years of 1952 to 1971.

The actual growing and selling was both time and space intense, so the focus shifted to buying mature landscape plants and making them available to local landscape businesses.

In the spring of 1972, a new partnership was formed between Bob Rogers and Roger Milarch. Operations were headquartered on Parkville in Livonia, Michigan on 2 ½ acres of land in a residential area.

Two heads are always better than one, so we decided to expand the business and provide better service for our customers. Expansion from Detroit went west or north. Roger and Sharon lived in Wixom, Michigan, west of Detroit, so the decision to move westward was an easy one. We began to do business at the Haas Road location on 10 acres of land in the Spring of 1973. Progress was slow and it seemed we were a bit too far west to be in the flow of the landscape trade, so we called this place our farm to supplement our Livonia location.

This arrangement worked well for 10 years or so. The density of the population in the residential area finally took its toll and we had to relocate our headquarters to Keego Harbor (north of the Livonia location). Rogers Garden Center was formed in 1988 and was prompted by Bob and his brother Ron, working together in retail and landscaping. Roger, Sharon, Terry and Tim retained the Wixom farm and kept the Milarch Nursery Inc name doing wholesale sales to landscapers and some area homeowners. Our daughter Tammy worked with us for a number of years until she married and moved north to Hadley, Michigan. We enjoyed such a booming economy that we found ourselves hard-pressed to manage the business without additional inside help. Our daughter Lee Anne joined us in 1997 to make the business more manageable. Michael, our youngest son, has joined us here in 2003 to help with our outside sales. In the 30+ years of operation at this place, we expanded to 25 acres of land, and have enough business to satisfy all our needs as a family, and enough friends to keep us happy for the rest of our productive years.

As of this date, we have six grandsons and nine granddaughters (two of which are currently working part-time in the business). Two of our children are still having children, and once they get their fingers in the dirt, who knows how long it will take to wash their hands of this business……….