FORREST KEELING NURSERY
Come Grow Something That Matters.
For nearly 80 years, Forrest Keeling Nursery has grown plants with a purpose—native trees, shrubs, and perennials that restore habitat, strengthen landscapes, manage water, support wildlife, and create places that perform for decades.
Today, the opportunity is bigger than ever.
As demand for native plants grows, Forrest Keeling is well positioned to significantly expand our business and impact. We’re building the team that will help us reach new markets, strengthen our growing operations, bring our expertise to more landscapes, and help shape what comes next for the native plant industry.
We’re not simply filling positions. We’re building the team for Forrest Keeling’s next era.
We’re seeking three exceptional people who want more than a job—curious, capable, collaborative individuals excited by the opportunity to help a respected, nearly 80-year-old company grow into an even more consequential future.
Nearly 80 years of knowledge got us here. Come help us grow what’s next.
Career Opportunities
PROPAGATION & PRODUCTION MANAGER
Less than one hour from St. Louis, Missouri | Full-Time
Grow What the Future Will Need.
For nearly 80 years, Forrest Keeling Nursery has been growing plants with a purpose.
Native trees, shrubs and perennials that restore habitat. Strengthen landscapes. Manage water. Support wildlife. And create places that perform for decades.
Today, native plants are becoming an increasingly important part of how communities, designers, conservation organizations and landowners think about the landscapes of the future. Forrest Keeling is positioned for an extraordinary next chapter—and we’re looking for an experienced horticultural leader who wants to help grow it.
This isn’t simply a position managing plant production.
It’s an opportunity to help shape what Forrest Keeling grows, how we grow it, and how we prepare the next generation of people and plants for what’s ahead.
The Opportunity
As Propagation & Production Manager, you’ll lead the people and processes behind our native perennial and woody plant production—from seed collection and cuttings through greenhouse and field production to finished plants ready for our customers.
You’ll work with a team that brings decades of practical growing knowledge to the nursery while helping us continually improve our systems, efficiency, quality and capacity.
This is a hands-on leadership position. You’ll be in the greenhouse and the field, working alongside people, solving problems, planning, and making decisions.
We want someone who doesn’t simply manage today’s production schedule but asks:
How can we grow better tomorrow?
What You’ll Lead
You’ll oversee the daily work and long-term coordination of our propagation and production teams, including:
- Native perennial, tree and shrub propagation and production
- Seed collection, cuttings and other propagation methods
- Greenhouse and field production
- Production scheduling and labor planning
- Daily crew leadership, training and mentoring
- Inventory and production-goal tracking
- Plant quality and consistency
- Safety and production standards
- Coordination of plants through final preparation for shipping
- Continuous improvement of production methods and systems
You’ll also be able to contribute ideas, share your experience, and help develop the people working alongside you.
What You’ll Bring
We’re looking for someone with strong horticultural knowledge and the ability to lead people well.
The right candidate will bring:
- Proven experience propagating and producing woody plants and/or native perennials
- Strong working knowledge of greenhouse and field production
- Fluency in both English and Spanish, with the ability to communicate, teach, and lead effectively
- Experience scheduling labor and managing daily production goals
- Strong organizational and problem-solving skills
- A commitment to plant quality, workplace safety and continuous improvement
- A collaborative leadership style that builds knowledge and capability within a team
Most importantly, we’re looking for someone who is curious, capable, and ready to take ownership—someone who sees opportunities, shares knowledge, and wants to help build something lasting.
Why Forrest Keeling?
Forrest Keeling Nursery, a family-owned nursery founded in 1948, is nationally recognized for its work with native plants and ecological restoration.
We’ve spent generations learning how to grow plants that not only look good when they leave the nursery—they perform in the landscape for decades.
Now we’re building on that experience for what comes next.
You’ll join a company where horticultural knowledge matters, ideas are welcomed, people work together, and the work we do has a visible impact far beyond the nursery.
Nearly 80 years of knowledge got us here. The next generation will take it forward.
Compensation & Benefits
- Competitive salary
- Health benefits
- Paid time off
- Beautiful rural working environment less than one hour from the St. Louis metro area
- On-site living quarters available for the right candidate
Come Grow Something That Matters.
If you’re an experienced grower and people leader seeking more than your next job—if you want to contribute your knowledge, build a team, and help shape the future of native plant production—we’d like to meet you.
Forrest Keeling Nursery
Restoring the earth’s ecosystems one tree at a time.
Sales Executive — Native Plants & Ecological Solutions
Elsberry, Missouri / Hybrid | Full-Time | Regional & National Travel
Help Shape What Gets Planted Next.
For nearly 80 years, Forrest Keeling Nursery has been growing plants with a purpose.
Native trees, shrubs and perennials that restore habitat. Manage water. Strengthen landscapes. Support wildlife. And help create places that perform for decades.
Now the market is catching up.
Native plants are moving from a specialty category to the center of urban landscape design, agroforestry, conservation, restoration, stormwater management, and resilient site development. Forrest Keeling has the plants, production expertise, industry relationships, and generations of knowledge to help lead the way in what’s next.
We’re looking for the person who sees that opportunity—and can’t wait to go after it.
The Opportunity
As a Sales Executive at Forrest Keeling, you won’t simply sell plants.
You’ll help customers solve problems.
You’ll work with landscape architects, contractors, municipalities, conservation organizations, developers, environmental professionals, and other customers to understand their goals and connect them with native plant solutions that can improve their projects’ long-term success.
Some relationships will already know Forrest Keeling.
Others won’t.
We want you to change that.
You’ll have an established company behind you, a respected name to open doors, strong marketing support, deep horticultural expertise, and a growing market for native plants in front of you.
What we need from you is the energy to turn those advantages into relationships, opportunities, and sales.
What You’ll Do
You’ll develop new business while building long-term relationships with current and prospective customers.
That may include:
- Identifying and pursuing new sales opportunities in target markets
- Developing relationships with landscape architects, contractors, developers, municipalities, conservation organizations, landowners, and environmental professionals
- Following up on qualified leads to turn interest into conversations—and conversations into customers
- Helping customers identify appropriate native plant material and practical solutions for their projects
- Reviewing project needs, specifications, and plant lists, and working with our team to recommend alternatives when appropriate
- Developing proposals, bids, and contract-growing opportunities
- Maintaining consistent, thoughtful contact with customers throughout the sales process
- Collaborating with production, marketing and leadership so customer opportunities don’t get lost between departments
- Representing Forrest Keeling at selected industry events, conferences, trade shows and customer meetings
- Keeping customer activity and opportunities current within our sales and CRM systems
- Looking beyond today’s order toward the next project, the next relationship and the next opportunity
What You’ll Bring
We’re looking for a relationship builder with a sales mindset.
Someone who sees possibilities where others see obstacles—and has the initiative to turn those possibilities into opportunities.
Someone who enjoys meeting people, asks thoughtful questions, and figures out what customers need. Someone comfortable making the first call, following up after the fifth, and building the kind of trust that turns one project into a long-term customer.
The strongest candidate will bring a combination of:
- Successful B2B sales or business-development experience
- Experience in horticulture, nursery production, landscape architecture, ecological restoration, construction, environmental services, or a related green industry
- Working knowledge of native plants—or genuine curiosity and the ability to learn quickly.
- Confidence in communicating with both technical professionals and practical, boots-on-the-ground customers
- Strong organizational and follow-through skills
- Comfort working independently and being accountable for results
- Ability to identify opportunities rather than waiting for them to arrive
- Willingness to travel for customer meetings, industry events and business development
A degree in horticulture, landscape architecture, ecology, environmental science, or a related field is valuable.
But curiosity, initiative, relationship skills, and the ability to deliver results matter just as much to us.
How You’ll Work
This isn’t necessarily a five-days-a-week-behind-a-desk position.
The right person needs to know Forrest Keeling—our plants, our people, our production capabilities, and what sets us apart. Regular time at our Elsberry nursery will be important, especially as you learn the business and collaborate with the team.
But customers aren’t all in Elsberry.
We want you where the opportunities are.
That may mean working remotely, visiting customers and project sites, attending industry events, developing new markets, and spending regular time with the Forrest Keeling team in Elsberry.
We care about connection, communication and results—not simply where your desk happens to be.
Why Forrest Keeling?
Forrest Keeling Nursery is a family-owned nursery founded in 1948 and nationally recognized for its work with native plants and ecological restoration.
For generations, we’ve developed the plants, production methods and practical knowledge needed to make native landscapes work.
And we’re not finished.
The native plant industry is entering an extraordinary period of opportunity. Forrest Keeling intends to be more than a participant in that growth.
We intend to help define it.
That means reaching new customers, entering new markets, building stronger partnerships, sharing what we know, listening to what the industry needs next, and continuing to develop solutions that make better landscapes possible.
You’ll have the opportunity to help make that happen.
What We Offer
- Competitive base salary
- Performance-based incentive/commission opportunity
- Health benefits
- Paid time off
- Flexible/hybrid working structure appropriate to the position
- Travel to customers, projects and selected industry events
- A respected company with nearly 80 years of experience behind you
- A collaborative team with deep native-plant knowledge
- The opportunity to help build the next era of Forrest Keeling
Come Grow Something That Matters.
If you’re looking for a sales position where success means more than moving product—where you can build relationships, open new markets, help customers create better landscapes, and have a real hand in where a company goes next—we’d like to meet you.
Forrest Keeling Nursery
Restoring the earth’s ecosystems one tree at a time.
Integrated Pest Management Manager
Less than one hour from St. Louis, Missouri | Full-Time
Protect What We Grow.
For nearly 80 years, Forrest Keeling Nursery has been growing plants with a purpose—native trees, shrubs and perennials that restore habitat, strengthen landscapes, manage water, support wildlife and create places that perform for decades.
The Opportunity
As Integrated Pest Management Manager, you’ll help protect the health and quality of Forrest Keeling’s plant inventory across our greenhouse, container, and field production.
This is not simply a pesticide-application position.
You’ll scout, diagnose, document, prevent, educate, recommend, and treat when necessary. You’ll also work closely with our propagation and production teams to understand not only what is happening to a plant but why.
Forrest Keeling was one of eight nurseries selected for the original national pilot of the Systems Approach to Nursery Certification (SANC) and became one of the nation’s earliest SANC-certified nurseries. That commitment to a systematic, prevention-focused approach to plant health continues today.
Our approach begins with good horticulture and careful observation—identifying risks throughout the production process and using cultural, biological, mechanical, and chemical controls appropriately as part of an integrated strategy. Grow healthier plants. Prevent avoidable losses. Solve problems before they become bigger ones.
What You’ll Lead
· Regular scouting of greenhouse, container and field-grown plant material
· Early identification of insect, disease and other plant-health concerns
· Monitoring pest populations and recognizing emerging patterns
· Diagnosing plant problems and distinguishing pest or disease pressure from environmental, nutritional, irrigation or cultural issues
· Developing appropriate prevention and treatment strategies using integrated pest management principles
· Coordinating biological, cultural, mechanical and chemical controls as appropriate
· Planning and overseeing pesticide and other plant-health applications
· Maintaining accurate application, scouting and regulatory records
· Monitoring treatment effectiveness and adjusting strategies when needed
· Working closely with propagation and production teams on sanitation, irrigation, fertility, spacing, environmental conditions and other practices that influence plant health
· Helping train employees to recognize early warning signs and follow sound plant-health practices
· Staying current on emerging pests, diseases, products, biological controls and best practices
· Helping maintain and continually strengthen Forrest Keeling’s SANC program, including required plant-health systems, documentation, internal processes and coordination with regulatory authorities
· Helping continually improve Forrest Keeling’s overall approach to plant health
Plant health is everyone’s responsibility. You’ll help give our team the knowledge and systems to do it exceptionally well.
What You’ll Bring
We’re looking for someone who is observant, knowledgeable and curious.
Someone who can walk through a greenhouse or production block and notice that something isn’t quite right—then has the experience and discipline to determine why.
· Experience with integrated pest management in a commercial nursery, greenhouse, horticultural or agricultural environment
· Strong knowledge of plant pests, diseases and plant-health disorders
· Understanding of woody plant and perennial production
· Experience scouting, diagnosing and developing appropriate treatment strategies
· Knowledge of biological, cultural and chemical control methods
· Experience safely handling and applying pesticides and other plant-health products
· Familiarity with pesticide regulations, recordkeeping and worker-safety requirements
· Appropriate pesticide applicator licensing or the ability to obtain required Missouri credentials
· Strong organizational and documentation skills
· An ability to communicate findings and recommendations clearly to production staff and leadership
· A collaborative approach to problem-solving and continuous improvement
· Familiarity with SANC, systems-based nursery certification, plant regulatory compliance or similar quality-management programs is valuable—but we can teach the right candidate our system
Knowledge of native plants is valuable. But just as important is curiosity—the desire to understand what’s happening, why it’s happening, and what we can do better next time.
How You’ll Work
This is a hands-on role. You’ll spend much of your time where the plants are—walking production areas, scouting crops, talking with growers, examining problems and following up to see whether solutions are working.
Some days will require immediate decisions. Others will be about prevention, planning, recordkeeping, research, and improving systems for the season ahead.
And because the best IPM program doesn’t live with one person, you’ll share what you know.
We want someone who can help turn individual observations into institutional knowledge—building awareness and practices that strengthen the entire Forrest Keeling team.
Why Forrest Keeling?
Forrest Keeling Nursery is a family-owned nursery founded in 1948 and nationally recognized for its work with native plants and ecological restoration.
For generations, we’ve learned by growing. We’ve observed what works, adapted when it doesn’t, developed new production methods, and built a body of practical horticultural knowledge that only decades of experience can yield.
As demand for native plants grows, so does our opportunity—and our responsibility—to produce healthy, resilient plants at the quality and scale our customers need. Nearly 80 years of knowledge got us here. The next generation will take it forward.
And you can be part of it.
What We Offer
· Competitive salary
· Health benefits
· Paid time off
· A beautiful rural working environment less than one hour from the St. Louis metro area
· A collaborative team with generations of horticultural knowledge
· The opportunity to influence and strengthen plant-health practices across the nursery
· The chance to do work whose impact extends far beyond the nursery gates
Come Grow Something That Matters.
If you’re a plant-health professional who would rather prevent a problem than simply treat one—someone who notices, investigates, teaches and continually looks for a better way—we’d like to meet you.
Forrest Keeling Nursery
Restoring the earth’s ecosystems one tree at a time.
