/ About Us /

A little background first...

My wife is a fanatical gardener. She would have a garden in every room of the house if she was allowed!

I retired from the Queensland Police Service in 1971 after 17 years of service and together with my wife Karen, we opened a hardware store in Yandina on the Sunshine Coast with the Thrifty Link Group. Karen also worked in aged care in the nursing profession and later became qualified as a phlebotomist with Queensland Health. She still works casually in this profession.

We lived in the beautiful town of Nambour and naturally, had a large garden. In 1999 we sold our Nambour home and purchased a macadamia nut orchard at Chatsworth just north of Gympie.

Guess whose eyes sparkled with 45 acres to play with!

There were no gardens at all on the property but it did not take long before it was on. Fences were pulled out, ripping tynes were put on behind the tractor and away we went.

We are very prone to frost during the winter months and the temperature and humidity can get very high during the summer months, not speaking of the drought that we have endured since 2001. Considerable purchases were made from a nursery at Monto for “Pelargoniums”. These cuttings used to arrive in the mail and away she would disappear to her little nursery behind the machinery shed. These plants really took to the conditions and really beautified the gardens with there different colours.

Early in 2006 we travelled with friends to Cania Dam outside Monto to go fishing for a couple of weeks. Karen and Rita approached Blue and I to go and see the Pelargonium Nursery at Bancroft near Monto.

We met Joan Derrick the owner of The Retreat Pelargonium Nursery and after some wonderful hospitality we headed back to our caravans with a car loaded with cuttings and rooted plants. We became very good friends with Joan and when she decided that she was thinking of selling her nursery the rest became history.

We saw in a gardening magazine that Christine Toyer who was the owner of Buds and Blooms Nursery at Wallarah in New South Wales was about to close her Pelargonium Nursery. We contacted Christine and travelled to Wallarah were we purchased the remainder of her stock.

We built a double tunnel house of some 600 square metres in size and relocated both lots of stock to here. It is absolutely beautiful when you walk in and see a massive flowering of all shapes and colours.

We'd love to show you our nursery, so feel free to give us a call on (07) 5483 2551, or +617 5483 2551 (international) if you are ever in our area and we'll help you get here.

We hope that you enjoy browsing our website and that it inspires you to try some of these wonderful plants.

Sincerely

Rod and Karen Emmerson