About Us

Baker Lake Nursery is a wholesale grower of shade, ornamental, and evergreen trees. It is a registered partnership business between Randy Klaphake and Donna Hoffman-Klaphake.

We are a family owned and operated business that officially formed, for the record, in the spring of 1996. However, off the record, I’ve been growing trees since about age 14 on my Dad’s farm in central Minnesota. My first successful tree transplant operation was a white oak that I dug out of a nearby woods and is today about 25 feet in height and growing.

Donna and I meet in 1989 and our first date consisted of a stroll thru the fall colored pathways surrounding St. John’s University. It was here that we discovered our common interest in trees. We exchanged nuptials in 1992 and since have welcomed Ethan and Emmett into our lives. Their robust and energized attitudes keep us busy when we’re not occupied with work.

As many of you have probably experienced, growing is a passion that cannot be easily dispelled once initiated. It is not something that we consider that we do for a living, but rather something we live to do. There is a peaceful serenity that accompanies being able to coax nature into growing its splendidly displayed diversity. What originally began as a curious transplant operation at age 14, now consumes most of our interest and time.