Rosehill Gardens

Rosehill Gardens is a garden center, wholesale nursery and landscape firm on East 135th Street in Martin City, and it has been in business in Kansas City since 1914 — one of the oldest continuously operating businesses in the Registry. Four generations of the Asjes family ran it before two long-time employees bought the company in 2007. It is not just a place to buy plants: Rosehill grows roughly ninety per cent of what it sells in Kansas City soil on its own farms, does landscape design and maintenance, and has added a wine bar and event space to the Martin City site.

Description

Rosehill Gardens is an independent garden center, wholesale nursery and landscape company at 311 East 135th Street in Martin City, on the far southern edge of Kansas City, Missouri.¹² It has traded in Kansas City continuously since 1914, which makes it one of the longest-lived businesses in the Registry.

What distinguishes Rosehill from a garden center that buys in stock is that it is a grower. The company operates its own farms and states that roughly ninety per cent of its products are grown in Kansas City soil — a claim rooted in the founder’s conviction that “for a landscape to truly thrive, it had to be born from local soil.”²³ For a customer, the practical consequence is that the trees and shrubs on the lot have been raised in the same climate and soil they are about to be planted in, rather than trucked from a milder growing region.

The Martin City site now carries several businesses at once: retail garden center, the base of a design and maintenance operation with over 150 employees, and a wine bar and event space.² The firm also does irrigation and lighting, and snow removal in winter.²

Goods and services

• Garden center retail — plants, trees, pottery, decor²
• Wholesale nursery and tree farm²
• Landscape design²
• Residential and commercial landscape maintenance²
• Irrigation and lighting²
• Snow removal²
• Wine bar and event space at the Martin City site²

History

Evert Asjes started a small gardening business on Bales Avenue in Kansas City in 1914, tending the mansions of the era — mowing, planting flower beds, maintenance.²³ He expanded from service into growing, raising summer annuals and then hardy trees, shrubs and perennials.²

The second generation, Evert Asjes Jr. and his sister Catherina, were active in the company by 1933, and Evert Jr. took ownership in 1951.² He was known as a landscape designer and plantsman; Catherina and Evert Jr.’s wife Kathryn ran the office and the garden store.² Evert Asjes III joined in 1958 with a landscape design degree from Kansas State University.² Steve Asjes, the fourth generation, joined in 1982 with a horticulture degree from the University of Missouri and became president in 1992.²

The business moved repeatedly as the city grew around it: from Bales Avenue to Holmes Road in 1929; to farms at 157th and Prospect in Belton in the late 1950s and early 1960s; adding a farm at Freeman, Missouri in the mid-1980s; and finally to the current Martin City headquarters at 311 East 135th Street in 1992.²

Steve Asjes died in March 2007 after a long illness. With his blessing, two long-time employees — Gary Weidenbach, a landscape architecture graduate of South Dakota State University, and Curtis Stroud, a CPA with an accounting degree from Fort Hays State — purchased the company.² They remain the owners. Between them they have more than 45 years at Rosehill, so the 2007 transfer moved the company out of the founding family but not out of the hands of people who had spent their careers in it.³

Sources

Links

• Website: https://rosehillgardens.com/
• About: https://rosehillgardens.com/about-us/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RosehillGardensInc/

Footnotes

1. Rosehill Gardens — official site, home page — asserts: the business name, the Martin City location, and current trading as a garden center and landscape firm. Primary currently-operating proof. (Located 2026-08-14.) ↩

2. Rosehill Gardens — official site, “About Us” — asserts: “In 1914 Evert Asjes started a small gardening business on Bales Avenue, Kansas City.”; founder tended mansions with mowing, flower bed planting and maintenance, then expanded into growing summer annuals and hardy trees, shrubs and perennials; Evert Asjes Jr. and Catherina Asjes active by 1933, Evert Jr. took ownership 1951, recognized as a landscape designer and plantsman; Catherina and Kathryn Asjes managed the office and garden store; Evert Asjes III joined 1958 with a Kansas State University landscape design degree; Steve Asjes joined 1982 with a University of Missouri horticulture degree and became president 1992; Steve Asjes died March 2007; “With Steve’s blessing, long-time employees Gary Weidenbach and Curtis Stroud purchased the company.”; Weidenbach holds a landscape architecture degree from South Dakota State University and Stroud an accounting degree and CPA from Fort Hays State; location history Bales Ave (1914), Holmes Rd (1929), 157th and Prospect in Belton (late 1950s-early 1960s), Freeman MO farm (mid-1980s), 311 East 135th Street Martin City (1992); services landscape design, residential and commercial maintenance, irrigation and lighting, wholesale nursery and tree farm, wine bar and event space, garden center retail, snow removal; over 150 employees; grows 90% of products in Kansas City soil. (Fetched 2026-08-14.) ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵ ↩¹⁶ ↩¹⁷ ↩¹⁸ ↩¹⁹

3. Rosehill Gardens — official site, “The Art of Stewardship: Why Kansas City’s Finest Estates Trust a 110-Year Legacy” — asserts: Evert Asjes began the business in 1914 tending historic mansions and “realizing early on that for a landscape to truly thrive, it had to be born from local soil”; four generations of the Asjes family ran the company; “Today, that legacy is carried forward by long-time employees Gary Weidenbach and Curtis Stroud” with “over 45 years of combined experience at Rosehill.” Content reached via search-surfaced summary rather than a direct fetch this pass — see method note. ↩ ↩² ↩³