Director of Amenity Sales Nigel Coultas, comments; “The rapidly changing market and its requirements for just-in-time availability mean it makes strong economic sense to transfer production to our own land adjacent to the main nursery and central distribution hub, rather than continue to utilize rented land 30 miles away.  We still benefit from the excellent soil and growing conditions in the Vale of York and have the same experienced growing team to manage the crops.  Our customers will continue to receive the incredibly strong, fibrous rooted plants they have always known but now it is backed up with an even sharper order fulfillment and distribution service associated with being part of our central operations facility.”

Andrew Richardson, Joint Managing Director adds “Over the past 5 or 6 years the cost of our rented land has risen to a point where it is becoming uneconomical to grow low margin products on.  With the demand for growing high value food crops increasing we expect rental values to increase further and therefore the time was right to begin to maximize the use of our own fields and thus ensure we remain the leading grower and supplier of hedging and hardwood forestry stocks”.

We have seen a large increase in sales of seedlings and transplants in each of the last 2 years despite the harsh winters experienced and currently have over a million plants in contract grow production alone as well as annual sales of over 4 million plants.  In addition the nursery continues to grow container plants on five bespoke nurseries within the Vale of York for sales to the landscape and retail markets and operates two trade plant centres at Whixley in York and Chobham in Surrey.