Houston, Harris County
Teas Nursery Company traces its history to 1843, when John C. Teas (1827-1907) began selling apples out of his back yard in Indiana. After moving the business to Missouri in 1868, Teas became a nationally prominent horticulturist. In 1908 his son, horticulturist Edward Teas, Sr. (1870-1951), met developer W. W. Baldwin who was then planning the community of Westmoreland Farms and the town of Bellaire in southwest Harris County. Baldwin hired Teas to execute the planting designs for Bellaire Boulevard and adjacent streets. Teas started work in Bellaire early in 1909. The next year, he moved his family from Missouri to this site and opened Teas Nursery Company. Initially specializing in the sale of fruit trees and flowering shrubs and plants, the business was later expanded to include landscaping services. The company's early projects included the landscaping of Rice Institute (now Rice University) and the River Oaks subdivision. By 1951 Teas Nursery had planted over one million trees in the Houston area. Edward Teas died the same year, leaving ownership of the nursery to his descendants. (1993)