Last week was all about searching for new stock for both this year and next year on our partner nurseries. Although we have a fully functional production nursery in Caragh sometimes it is impossible to grow everything so on the nursery we grow stock that is great demand, deciduous trees in all sizes, hedging in a wide range of sizes and a good range of shrubs and plants but we do find it necessary to bring stock from the continent on occasions and we have great fun choosing the plants and trees to bring onto the nursery.

We work with 3 partner nurseries, 2 in Holland and 1 in Italy and we have a really strong relationship with these nurseries, getting the best quality stock at reasonable prices that mean we can keep up the supply of top quality stock to you, our customers, at the best possible prices.

Why do we need to go to Holland and Italy when we have great trees and plants here? Well the first reason is one we know all too well here in Ireland and that is weather but more particularly heat, in Holland the soil is good and the summer heat means they get more than double the growth we get here in Kildare so from our first nursery which is about an hour from Amsterdam we get similar stock to what we can provide here in Ireland but slightly bigger stock at a better price so this means when we start to run low on certain stock items that we couldn’t produce quickly then we have this nursery as back up, this works well for us and means that we can keep up with the growth in demand without extending what we are growing on the nursery beyond our means.

The Second nursery in Holland which is closer to the German border and is a much smaller but specialised nursery growing shaped stock, its in such high demand right now and is a real labour of love and this nurseryman has made it his life’s work to create such works of art that we are always blown away by his creations. The reason again that we go to this nursery is that Ari puts the time and long term effort into these, this is his specialism and he has been doing it for 30 years we couldn’t in the short to medium term create what he does so as long as he can keep producing and keeping his prices reasonable then we will keep using his expertise.  So last week we made a trip to Ari’s nursery and handpicked two complete lorry loads of shaped specimens and more unusual plants, we have people coming countrywide for these beauties and we are lucky to be the only stockist in Ireland or the UK of these wonderful pieces, we are both happy and proud that we have built this relationship to where it is now and he trust us to be the custodians of his artwork even for just a short time until it reaches it forever home with our customers.

The stock arrives in this week, it is like Christmas when we open the doors of the two articulated lorries to  reveal what we took the time to pick out for the nursery that we can’t wait. However we won’t be releasing the stock on general sale for a week or two as we have a lot of our customers who have already shown interest so we will be releasing the stock to our existing database of customers that receive our newsletter first as lost of them have been eagerly awaiting this new stock so it is only fair that they should see it first but if you want to be included in this list of customers, sign up to our newsletter and you’ll be included.

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We also took a trip to Italy to book stock for both this year but more importantly decide on some new stock for next year too that is now in production, I’ll tell you all about that in the next post, Spring is such an exciting time and we hope you like what we have taken time to pick out and now we will pot and display and over the next couple of weeks put whatever remains after our preview sales have been delivered up onto the website.