Our Plant Nursery
All the plants we offer are those that we have growing on our site in our own food forests or areas of native regeneration. Seeds and cuttings for new species are collected as locally as possible or from sources we know & trust to have the same ethics we do.
In our plant nursery we base everything we do on the principles of Permaculture and letting nature do what it does best. Our nursery is also our garden so we make sure that all plants are treated the way we would want ours to be treated.
Social Enterprise
We are a social enterprise which means that we are equally involved in helping the community as we are in making a profit. This year we have started our local food security project, Grow It Local, which seeks to improve local food security by re-connecting people to the source of their food. For every plant ordered through our online store, the same number of plants enter our Grow It Local project.
Organically Grown
We interfere as little as possible in the growing of our plants. We do our best to physically protect them from pests like snails & rodents but we don’t use pesticides or other sprays. ‘Weeds’ are also removed manually – no herbicides allowed! In terms of fertilisers we also keep things as natural as possible. No synthetic fertilisers here. Just natural products like blood & bone, seaweed fertilisers and our own home made composts & compost teas.
Compostable packaging. Zero Waste
We are continually striving to reduce our consumption & waste, especially single use plastic & plastic in general. While we still use our existing supply of plastic pots for growing seedlings, none of these leave the site & they are all reused over & over until they break. As they break, we are moving away from all plastic pots & moving towards soil blocks & air prune beds for all our nursery stock. All potted plants we sell are supplied in compostable pots while our bare-rooted trees & cuttings are packaged in compostable materials. We use cardboard for shipping with paper tape & jute twine to hold things together where necessary.
Renewable Resources
We live off-grid and so do all our plants. All irrigation is from rain water collection and pumps are solar powered. We use shade houses and mulch to minimise our irrigation requirements – we know what a precious resource water is & we don’t like to waste it.
Packaging & Postage
When you choose to buy plants from us, you are choosing to keep plastic out of the waste stream. No more piles of plastic plant pots & tags piling up in your backyard or being thrown in the bin.
Our live plant material is sent bare rooted & wrapped in paper (if dormant deciduous type) or growing in a compostable plant pot that gets planted in the ground along with the plant itself. To read more about the pots we use and their benefits, follow the link here.
Plants are then packed in cardboard & sealed with brown paper tape. Occasionally we also use jute twine to keep the plant material in bunches for transport or to attach plant labels. All packing material can be placed directly in your compost bin once your plants are unwrapped.
All plants are sent with damp soil & paper to prevent drying out in transit. They are packaged & posted on a Monday or Tuesday so that all parcels arrive before the weekend and don’t spend any extra time sitting in a courier depot.
Seeds & bulbs are packaged in a similar manner – paper, cardboard & paper tape. No plastic courier bags.
Managing our Stock
We do not offer the same plants all year around. We want our plants to be in the best condition for planting when they get to you and so we only offer them for sale when the time is right. As a general guide deciduous plants, especially larger fruit trees, will be available in winter (with a few exceptions) and we close down live plant sales every summer to take a break while the weather is hot and dry. Evergreens and smaller plants are available most of the year.
Check our online store to find out what is available in each season, what can be ordered for delivery now and what can be pre-ordered for delivery in future seasons.