South Auckland Field Trip - 18 August 2011

Fantail Nursery

Ardmore Open Ground

Ardmore Container

Icon Advanced Tree

Kings Wholesale Tree

Seaview

Plant Wholesalers

With wild weather hitting most of New Zealand in the lead up to the South Auckland field trip, those attending did not quite know what to expect. After all, very light snow had fallen in the area in the previous days and Auckland was still experiencing some very cold temperatures.

Fortunately, Thursday 18th dawned fine, if not a little cold, for the field day and despite being held on a weekday, 27 turned up at the Auckland Botanic Gardens with Mark 'Brownie' Brown making it all the way from Dunedin.

Our first stop was Fantail Nursery owned by Steve & Kristin Parkes. Although the nursery started 27 years ago contract growing for Ardmore, the Parkes have been out on their own for the last 10 - 11 years with the nursery covering 2 ½ acres.

Production is based around trees, shrubs and grasses with production in both containers and in the field, although Fantail is moving away from producing large deciduous trees. Some plants will still be done in the field, such as Daphne which are started off there before being lifted into containers and sold.

Plants are sold through garden centres and nurseries with some contract growing as well. A few gate sales are also made, although this is not encouraged and only to those who know what they want.
We then moved across the road to Ardmore Nurseries where we were welcomed by John Beaumont and his son Richard, a former New Zealand rower who has just come into the business. He is the 4th generation Beaumont to be involved in the nursery business.

The nursery covers 13.5 hectares with 10.5 for open ground production and 3 for container lines. With 16 equivalent full time staff, the nursery produces up to 300,000 plants a year with Ardmore propagating approximately 2/3rds of them and the remainder brought in as GOLs.

We toured the open ground production area and were given an overview of the production process. Ardmore has been growing open ground plants for many years, aided by highly productive peat loam soil and a high water table. It is warm in summer and cool in winter which makes it ideal for open ground production.

Wrenching of deciduous trees start in June but evergreens occur much earlier, as early as February/March. A certain amount is taken out each year allowing what is left more space and the root pruning promotes a good root system. Plants are wrapped in hessian and tied up ready for dispatch. Ardmore are actively promoting this for landscapers as all they have to do is untie them and put them in the hole - no containers to dispose of and quicker to plant.

John and Richard gave an overview of the pros and cons for field production. They have three staff who do all the field production but it is physical work "a young man's game" and done in all weather conditions. The labour cost is much lower but it has a higher capital outlay for land which is expensive. There is also a limited window of opportunity for sales and hence the turn of stock is much less than other nurseries - some of the trees sold are 3 - 4 years and Ardmore's are reluctant to bag-on trees.
We then moved to the container area, not before, in true IPPS spirit, morning tea was served and then we were free to wander around the wide range of container grown plants.

Mike Cato was on hand to greet us at our next stop, Icon Advanced Trees, at their new site at Ardmore. The 50 acre site is gradually being developed with 7 acres already developed and more blocks planned over the next two years.

The nursery has been built to comply with stormwater discharge criteria set down by the council which Mike outlined to be an expensive, time consuming process and it is something that all nurseries may face in the not too distant future. There have also been other challenges such as one of the blocks sinking and needs to be rebuilt soon.

Despite the challenges, the nursery was looking very good. Stock is sold to the landscape industry and resellers with sizes under production ranging from 15 litres or similar up to 400 litres, with just over 40,000 trees. Production includes natives and exotics with a good number of fruiting plants included as well. The nursery has five staff, but are looking for 1 - 2 more.

It was then onto Beaumont's Nursery where David and Clair Beaumont gave us a rundown of the nursery before lunch was handed out. Beaumont's were established in 1990 and covers 12.5 hectares of land and like the other nurseries in the area, production is both field and container based. The nursery has 11 staff plus has holiday students as well over the busy times.

Beaumont's are increasingly producing more in containers and have recently made the switch from PB bags to hard pots. A new potting machine is on the way as well.

The nursery has recently put in a new Redpath greenhouse to increase the amount of its own propagation. Currently 30% is done in house but looking to increase this to around 70%, they have always wanted to do more but have thought that it needs to be a separate department within the nursery.

The nursery initially started out selling mainly to landscapers but now sells 80-90% to garden centres and the big box stores.

An innovation of Beaumonts is the use of wire frames to keep plants upright. As we all know, picking up plants has to be the biggest time waster around in nurseries. Beaumont's began playing around 4 years ago, first with the wire frames then they looked at polystyrene blocks and then went back to the wire frames again. They also use Daltons carry trays as well, which are not as long lasting and have the same cost per plant.

From there it was onto Kings Wholesale Tree at Takanini to look around their expansive retail outlet where they sell a great range of plants at wholesale prices. Probably one of the best selections of plants around, well laid out by type e.g. hot ‘n dry shrub, groundcovers, with plants like hebes and pittosporums having their own areas. There was plenty of colour close to the main door and plenty of fragrance in the air with daphne, boronias and flowering hyacinths all very tempting.

We also got a look around the nursery with Geoff Goodwin. The nursery only produces for the other Kings branches around Auckland and for landscapers, but still produces a significant number of plants.
It was then onto Seaview Nurseries, now owned by Clive Wallis. Roger White, the nursery manager showed us around the nursery.

Seaview specialised in perennials, houseplants, Flower Carpet roses and some potted vegetables. The nursery covers 10 hectares with 7000m2 covered area for houseplants and another 5000m2 in crop covers with the rest outside standing out areas. The nursery employs 19 people including 2 sales reps and 3 in the propagation department which propagates 95% from cuttings and another 5% from tissue culture.

Approximate production is 1.5 million plants per year. In the perennial lines, approximately 300 varieties are produced with 20-30 core lines available most of the year.

5 years ago the nursery had a fire which devastated part of the nursery, but it was good to see the damaged parts have been rebuilt.

Our final stop of the day was to Plant Wholesalers who operate a plant market at Manurewa and also in West Auckland. Kevin Peach, the sales manager greeted us and explained how the site works. 38 nurseries are involved at the market which is open for trade only sales, mainly to landscapers. Nurseries place product in their sites, put a price on it and maintain it unless they pay Plant Wholesalers to do it for them. Nurseries pay a rental and also a commission is paid to Plant Wholesalers for each sale made. While there were stands with much the same plants, it often comes down to quality as to what customers choose to.

It was back to the Botanic Gardens to end a great day out. Special thanks must go to Lyndsey Hatch (Joy Plants) for organising the day and to whoever arranged for the great weather.

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South Auckland Field Trip - 18 August 2011

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