While on production nurseries fertilizers are generally associated with growing strong healthy plants, for nurseries looking to ‘maintain’ a wide stocklist, the challenges can sometimes be subtly different.

An independent wholesale supplier of plants, soils and related horticultural sundries, Provender Nurseries operates a busy cash and carry operation from a well-located 17acre site in North Kent.  With an annual turnover of some £4.1million, £3million is attributed to plant sales.

Provender began trading in 2013 following a merger, buy-out and rebranding of former plant nursery Wyevale East Nurseries and East Horticulture – a sundries operation.  With easy access to the M25, M20 and M2, it is ideally positioned to supply the landscape and amenity sector in London and the Home Counties.  Offering a great selection of trees, hedging, shrubs, specimen plants, herbaceous, bamboos, grasses and topiary, the nursery carries over £1million of stock - everything from packs of bedding up to 1500l trees native to the Tropics.

“Buying finished plants from UK nurseries and carefully selected suppliers from mainland Europe, we maintain rather than produces plants,” explains nursery manager Stuart Tickner.  “As a responsible supplier, we work closely with Defra, APHA and Fera to ensure all the plant material we handle on site is clean and has passed through the correct procedures. Working closely with our suppliers, which we regularly inspect, is an important aspect of our business. 

“We need stock to be hardy, robust and reliable. As such, fertilizers need to be proportional to maintain quality, but not always growth. One of the challenges we face is that with several hundred regular suppliers we don’t know when a batch of plants was last fed.

“We generally pot on out of necessity although we do buy some root ball stock.  In the past price was a key determiner in our growing media choice.  That changed when ICL’s Steve Chapman bought three different Levington Advance samples for us to trial last spring.    

“Containing different grades of peat, the Levington Advance mixes had clearly different air filled porosities (AFP).  Our production team identified immediate benefits in ease of handling and having selected one we’re seeing noticeable differences going forward.”

The Levington Advance Solution mix contains Osmocote Exact Hi.End to maintain the plants over a 12-14 month period plus the trace element package Micromax, helping to ensure stock does not suffer from minor element deficiencies.

“When potting on you don’t want a high rate of fertilizer, as this burns the roots off,” explains Stuart. “Potting on in to a mix containing Osmocote Exact Hi.End, with 12-14 month longevity, we are confident the release will start slowly and increase. Plants benefit from the full rate in the spring, when they need it. Thanks to Steve’s training, our production staff have learnt a lot about fertilizer and now think a lot more about what they are doing.”

“In the past we relied on an array of different fertilizers, which could be complicated.  Steve has not only majorly simplified our nutrition programme, but by explaining it to the production team they’ve bought in to it.  With the knowledge they now have, they understand when and what to feed. 

“We’ve seen a big difference this year – a big improvement in plant quality in what proved to be a challenging growing season.”

To maintain plants on the nursery the Provender team rely on a small selection of ICL controlled release and water soluble products.

With high potassium levels, Osmocote Bloom promotes healthy plants that remain compact, which is proving particularly useful for maintaining the topiary.

For hungry crops in 10 litre plus pots, such as citrus, palms and evergreens coming out of winter, Provender now relies on Osmocote Topdress.  For plants in smaller pots, the team applies water soluble feeds - for example Peters Foliar Feeds for Citrus and hungry Buxus to encourage greening up.  Relying on mains and borehole water, both of which are hard with high bicarbonate levels, Stuart and his team have started using Universol Hard Water 225 to promote compact growth and hardening off.    

Provender is so impressed with ICL’s products its now retailing Osmocote PrePlant, a new pre planting fertilizer, helping boost incremental sales to landscaping customers. 

“Our stock is set out like a garden centre and we rely heavily on hand watering – constantly wetting and rewetting,” explains Stuart.  “Steve introduced us to liquid H2Gro – ICL’s wetting and water management agent. It has done exactly what it says – saving a lot of water and fertilizer wastage. 

In 2018 North Kent saw more than a 40°C difference in temperature over just four months - with -11°C recorded in March and +38°C in July. 

“We would expect to see high water use and wastage in a hot year.  2018 proved to be just that – however, our water usage went down,” says Stuart.  

“We’ve noticed that with the science explained to them, the staff understand and take more pride in what they are doing – they take ownership. “Training is valuable as it makes them feel part of the project.   With his industry experience he’s brought plenty of helpful new ideas.

“We now rely totally on ICL growing media and fertilizers which are making a real difference to our operations while making life easier. The products deliver exactly what they say and the technical support over the telephone and visits is extremely helpful.

In conclusion Richard McKenna, Provender’s managing director says; “Green, healthy vigorous plants sell themselves. A good nutrition programme means plants look top dollar, and so pays for itself.   If you get the fertilizer right, the finished plant is right and you save money in the end. Customers can see the benefits. At this nursery every plant is visible to customers – there is nowhere to hide.”