John Reiner

Oakland Nurseries has deep roots in community

By Tim Puet
Catholic Times Reporter

Driving through Columbus’ Clintonville neighborhood, John Reiner sees reminders of his family’s  legacy of more than 70 years operating Oakland Nurseries, a premier garden supply company and landscape architecture business. Reiner is co-president of the business, which has been based at 1156 Oakland Park Ave., just east of Clintonville, since 1950.

His father, Gus, was involved in winemaking and horticulture in Germany. Gus immigrated to the United States in the 1920s and met his wife, Bertha, in Columbus. Together they opened a garden supply store in 1940 on Maize Road. As the city expanded after World War II, Gus grew his business and moved it to its current location. Today, Oakland Nurseries has about 500 employees at retail locations in Columbus, Delaware, Dublin and New Albany.

“When my father first opened this nursery 71 years ago, Clintonville was still a developing neighborhood,” Reiner said. “When I was young, he would drive me around and show me the trees he had planted and homes and churches he had landscaped.

“My mother came from a strong Catholic background. She and my father taught us ideals of hard work, service to others and choosing lasting quality. Bertha also taught us compassion and integrity, virtues that motivated her to help liberate a family of Jews from Nazi Germany. Gus always wanted the finest plants for his customers.”

The couple had four sons, with John and his brother Paul following their father into the business. John met his wife, Sheila, whom he describes as “the calming, serene and sane presence in my life,” when the two were students at Columbus St. Francis DeSales High School. They have been married for 47 years and have three daughters, one son and eight grandchildren. 

Their daughter Genevieve and son Max, as well as Paul’s son Mark, represent a third generation of Reiners involved with the company. Genevieve, an attorney, is chief operating officer and in-house counsel. She also supervises the company’s interior landscape operations. Max is vice president for landscape operations, and Mark is vice president for nursery operations.

John Reiner manages the company’s landscape and design-build division, Oakland Design Associates. He created the design company in 1974, three years after graduating from Ohio State University, where he majored in landscape architecture and international affairs. Oakland’s wholesale business, Acorn Farms, was founded in 1976 and includes 800 acres of shade and ornamental trees and 45 acres of plant stock for customers throughout the East Coast and Midwest.  

“We can do everything for a property except build a house,” Reiner said. “We have eight of the best-trained landscape architects and designers and 22 construction crews. We’re the oldest irrigation company in the region and have separate divisions for ponds, night lighting and urban landscapes.” 

The walls of the company’s office are filled with awards from state and national nursery and landscape design associations. Perhaps the best-known of Reiner’s designs are the nine room-sized landscapes built at the Franklin Park Conservatory as centerpieces of the AmeriFlora international horticultural exhibition hosted by the conservatory in 1992.

Reiner also is active in political and church affairs. He and Sheila have lived in Dublin since 1978, and he is the longest-tenured member of Dublin City Council, serving in that role since 1997. Before that, he was on the city’s planning and zoning commission for eight years. With his experience as a landscape architect, he played a key role in developing the planning rules that have given Dublin a reputation as a well-designed community. As a parishioner of Dublin St. Brigid of Kildare Church, Reiner served on the church’s design committee.

His military service, in which he served as an Army captain, has influenced his outlook on Catholic life.  “From the military, I learned the importance of getting a mission accomplished while taking care of my people at the same time,” he said. “That’s part of my philosophy of servant leadership, which has been refined through the privilege of being involved in Catholic charitable organizations. 

“You get so much from this kind of work than you ever can give back. The late Dr. Frank Dono and his wife, Marilyn, and the late Alan Dekker and his wife, Ellyn, got me involved with those groups, and I’m so grateful to them for the opportunity this has given me to serve.”

Reiner is co-chair with Dan Brown of the Friends of the Josephinum’s annual 4-mile run/walk, which will resume on Saturday, Oct. 2 after being canceled last year because of the COVID-19 pandemic. This year, the run/walk will be entirely on the seminary’s grounds. The most recent of these events took place in 2019 and attracted more than 600 participants, including 36 Josephinum seminarians.

“It’s a great time,” Reiner said. “Besides getting a participant medal for completing the course, those who take part will get free breakfast from White Castle at the start and pizza from Donatos Pizza at the finish, plus goodie bags with a loaf of bread and a bottle of wine or a jar of jam from the Trappist monks, and a race T-shirt.”

Clergy Who Cook, another fundraising event for the Josephinum, allows seminarians and priests to showcase their culinary skills. It is one of the Friends of the Josephinum’s principal fundraising activities. Before those events began, Reiner helped raise funds for the Friends of the Josephinum by auctioning European icons and rare artwork and organizing the Vienna Court Ball in the 1980s and ’90s, at which European nobility mingled with seminarians, priests and guests during a black-tie dinner and dance at the Josephinum.“Members of the Habsburgs (Austria’s former ruling family) or another royal family would come to Columbus and stay for a week. Those balls were the classiest, most wonderful evenings that ever happened in Columbus,” Reiner said. “They never asked to be treated in a special way when they visited but made friends with everyone.” 

He said he is involved with the Friends of the Josephinum because “if you don’t have priests, you don’t have much of a Catholic Church or sacraments. These guys (seminarians) are just wonderful. They were picked by the Holy Spirit to be there, and it’s an absolute joy to know them.”

John is a member of two ancient chivalric orders of the Church: the Order of Malta and the Order of the Holy Sepulchre. Reiner said that a few years ago, he and other active Catholic laymen including Dr. Dono, Robert Morosky, Jack Gibbons, Charles Mifsud, David Martin and Dr. Michael Parker began recruiting men to join them in the Order of Malta’s charitable work. The order’s Columbus region has flourished ever since. 

Its most visible local presence is its Center of Care at the St. John Center, adjacent to Columbus Holy Rosary-St. John Church. The care center opened in August 2017 and operates a free medical clinic open to anyone every Thursday. It also is planning to open a dental clinic at the same site in a few weeks after plans for that facility were delayed by the pandemic.

“The order has a history going back more than 900 years, to the days before the Crusades,” Reiner said. “Its mission always has been to serve the sickest of the sick and the poorest of the poor. We learned a few years ago that Franklin County had the highest infant mortality rate in the state and knew Holy Rosary-St. John was looking for a way to respond to that, so we began making plans for the clinic as a way of continuing that mission. Chuck Mifsud and Jason Thomas have done an excellent job of managing the clinic, and I am grateful for their hard work.”

The Order of the Holy Sepulchre, another Catholic organization with a centuries-long tradition, is devoted mainly to the welfare of Christians in the Holy Land. It sponsors an annual Mass in the Diocese of Columbus and inducts new members during the annual meeting of its North-Central region, which covers six states. 

Reiner was diagnosed with stage IV colon-liver cancer 17 years ago, one year after undergoing surgery, chemotherapy and radiation for colon cancer. After much reading and consultation with experts, he made significant diet and lifestyle changes that have benefited him ever since. Through working with other cancer patients, he said he has come to realize that “terminal illness isn’t the end. I believe God harvests the people He loves in the way that fits His plan for the universe.”

“Some people are cured because they have some kind of purpose yet to be fulfilled, a work God wants them to perform or a way to know Him better before passing. Others have fulfilled that purpose, and God calls them to His side to share His joy.

“What has been great about the people I’ve worked with, no matter which organization they are part of, is that they all have been givers,” Reiner said. “It’s been a wonderful experience to be around such people who care about others first and themselves second.”