Bruce Jensen - A story about a life well lived.

Posted on August 13, 2021 By Flowers Canada Posted In Announcements

Bruce - such a well-known name in the interior landscape field - chose to leave us on July 15th at Advent Hospice in Orlando, Florida. Bruce was 80 years old by exactly one week. He had not expected to achieve this milestone but achieve it he did since Bruce, his whole life, was a total achiever. Born into a Scandinavian family in Toronto in 1941 - a greenhouse facility family - out in the countryside of Scarborough where he grew up and attended school. Bruce loved and participated in all sports - likely the smallest hockey player ever - but he eventually settled on motor racing as his first love. He participated in motor racing all across North America for decades, ending up with club racing in Central Florida until he had to call it quits a couple of years ago. Most of his many race cars were painted with a big green leaf - the logo of the business - to represent the nurseryman that he was. It was called the great big green racing machine and proudly promoted Jensen Exotic Plants.

The equal love of Bruce's life was our foliage nursery business and Bruce's beloved farm in Newcastle, Ontario which had replaced the old family greenhouses in Scarborough in 1974. Bruce had the dual talents both as a greenhouse grower and also his impeccable eye for design which caused him to be pre-eminent in the interior landscape field, becoming one of the most sought-after and well-respected members in this field, fulfilling major contracts throughout Canada and the USA - most of which are proudly home to many of his plants and trees today. Now the Florida nurseries provide the highest quality foliage of all sorts and sizes to the current interior foliage industry.

His very first jobs at the start of this new industry were Yorkdale shopping center in Toronto and the brand new Toronto airport. These were scheduled for installation the first week after Bruce and Barbara were married in 1965 so any possible honeymoon did not exist - it was off to work for Bruce as a married man of four days. This began perhaps three decades of interior landscape work throughout Canada and the United States and the opening of company offices in many major centers such as Halifax, Montreal, Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver, and Boston, Denver, Minneapolis. If you have a minute, here are some of the installation highlights:
  • The John Hancock tower in Boston
  • The Minneapolis zoo in Minnesota
  • One Denver Place in Denver
  • The Bank of Canada and Rideau Centre and the majority of all government buildings in the Ottawa/Hull metropolitan area.
  • IBM head offices in Toronto and Montreal
  • Expo67 in Montreal, as well as Point Claire mall.
  • West Edmonton Mall in Edmonton, Alta, Calgary Centre, and the Red Deer Mall as well as many others in Alberta.
  • BCE Place in Toronto, Commerce Court, First Canadian Place, the Sheraton Centre, the Weston
  • Centre, GE head offices, and Sun Life Centre as well as almost every other office tower in the
  • city.
  • Square One shopping center in Mississauga, Ontario as well as 28 other large and small shopping centers throughout the major Metropolitan Toronto area Scarborough Town Center and Scarboro City Hall
  • The Sun Princess for Princess cruise lines as their first foray into bringing green spaces into their cruise ships.
Before turning the interior landscape business over to others in 1995 and choosing to concentrate on growing the finest foliage for the interior landscape industry, Bruce had over 650 weekly maintenance contracts and a staff of 85 doing their very best to make sure that Jensen plants were very well cared for in the Jensen tradition.

Bruce and Barbara loved to explore our world and visited all seven continents. With all this traveling, Bruce learned many new ideas from interior gardens in other parts of the world which he brought back home to integrate into his designs. Seeking out head gardeners for a myriad of installations, he was welcomed with open arms to show off their ideas, such as the Shangri-La hotels worldwide wide which always had extensive plantings - and even Balmoral Castle greenhouses in Scotland - one of the Queen's residences.

Bruce's two children - Jill and Eric - continue in the family tradition - Jill running the foliage business in Florida as a grower of plants for the interior landscape field. Jill is now the third generation of the family in the foliage industry in North America since Bruce's Dad first emigrated to Canada in 1929 as a grower from Denmark. Eric has followed his Dad into motor racing where he now coaches young future drivers. Eric has two wonderful daughters - Chloe and Siena who were the light of Bruce's eyes. He loved them both unconditionally. He was currently so proud of Chloe who will be attending university this fall in London, England.

And Barbara stays behind to make sure everything Bruce loved so dear will be well cared for and nourished. He physically will be missed forever but he will always be in the hearts of many.

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