FIND A JOB YOU LOVE AND YOU’LL NEVER WORK AGAIN

Call into Palmers Plimmerton and you’ll find two acres of inspiration and a team who love getting their hands dirty.

It’s rare to meet someone who enjoys their day job so much they want to do it all weekend long as well.

But at the Palmers Garden Centre in Plimmerton, north of Wellington, the team are so passionate about plants that after a busy week of tending seedlings, plants and trees they can’t wait to get home and dig into their own gardens.

For proud owners Richard and Eloise Persson, the garden centre is a family affair. A third-generation Kiwi nurseryman, Richard has been in the business since he graduated from Massey University with a Diploma of Horticulture with Distinction 30 years ago. Eloise came on board 22 years ago, when the couple purchased their first little garden centre at Mana, Porirua.

Together, the Perssons and their staff bring 150 years of collective gardening experience to Palmers Plimmerton. “The team we have here is wonderful – some of them have been with us for more than 20 years,” says Richard.

Each team member has their own field of specialist expertise, and because they all garden in the local climate they can help with design or plant advice. “We’ve specialised in areas that people find difficult, including water features, big trees, plants for exposed gardens and subtropicals that grow in Wellington’s many microclimates.”

His top tip for local conditions? “For hedging and screening it’s hard to beat the New Zealand broadleaf griselinia, which is native to our local Tararua ranges as well as other parts of the country. Also, any

South African natives – for example the gorgeous bird of paradise plant – tend to do well in our area, which has a similar climate to the Cape Province.”

Eloise says Palmers Plimmerton is more than a garden centre

– it’s an outdoor living destination store, featuring Weber barbecues, a landscape supplies yard, New Zealand-made Trueform spa pools and a décor and gift shop. “We also stock a huge range of top quality outdoor furniture, much of which we have designed ourselves using sustainably grown plantation teak.”

As the largest all-weather garden centre in the region, it’s no surprise that it has the best range of vegetables and fruit trees in the lower North Island. “It’s a great time of year for planting fruit trees now. Some of my favourites are ‘tomcot’ apricot (a huge, sweet apricot that doesn’t need cold winters), ‘luisa’ plum (a drip-off-your-chin-juicy mango lookalike), ‘blackboy’ peach (a plum-flavoured peach that’s not prone to fungus), ‘redgold’ nectarine (incredibly juicy when sun-ripened), and dwarf peaches, nectarines and apricots (excellent for containers and quite formal looking as a patio feature).”

It’s also a great time of year for trimming hedges, dividing and transplanting perennials, sowing a new lawn and preparing soil for summer vege planting – all jobs that are keeping Richard and Eloise busy at their home garden three minutes away from the garden centre. “We live on a clay bank, so it has been fun turning that into soil,” says Richard. “I’ve got a vege greenhouse that is my happy place to potter around, so this spring I’ll be planting up all my summer veges, including a new mini telegraph cucumber and several different hot chilies (‘Carolina Reaper’, ‘Trinidad Scorpion’ and ‘Ghost’ are my favourites for turning into sauce). Eloise has over 50 roses and long lines of clipped buxus in our home cottage garden, and she is eyeing up more David Austin roses and the pretty groundcover bacopa. There are several new petunias due into the garden centre this spring, so we’re keen on trying them out in pots.”

Like most gardeners, who appreciate nature’s cycles of change, Richard struggles to choose a favourite season. “I love all seasons and the variety each new seasonal change brings – each has its own special plants, flowers, foliage and seasonal activities. I like having things to look forward to like the first freesias in our garden, newseason asparagus and brussels sprouts, the native clematis flowering in the treetops when I go tramping, mobs of tui turning up when our old pohutukawa flowers, the hoar frost in Arrowtown and surf at Spirits Bay!”

And when this energetic couple aren’t busy in the garden at work or at home, they’re supporting gardening projects on behalf of the community. “We’re involved in various ways with pretty much all local community groups,” says Eloise. “Most recently we’ve paid for the Pukerua Bay Community Garden to produce a wonderful new garden calendar and been involved with Paremata Plimmerton rugby club upgrade.”

Each team member has their own field of specialist expertise, and because they all garden in the local climate they can help with design or plant advice.