News
From Humble Beginnings
We were now ready to open our doors to the public one Saturday morning 26 years ago by 
placing a sandwich board in front of our house. Our first customers to take those tentative steps into our new business were Ken and Marg and our takings for our first weekend of business was $22. We were ecstatic, we were now a business and this was cause for celebration.
Our first customers have long since left the district, but the nursery has stood the test of time. From those humble beginnings, Treehome Nursery now grows 200,000 native & indigenous trees, shrubs, herbs & grasses and over 100 different plant species each year. Small on advertising and big on service we have always taken an active interest in our customer’s projects and get a real buzz when we hear about the success of their last planting.
The nursery has seen many changes over the years. In the beginning we grew all our stock in pine veneer tubes that needed to be rolled and stapled. This became a source of income for our children and many of their friends (and parents) who lived in the area. When our young workers interest changed, we contracted out the work to a sheltered workshop in Colac. Due to lack of supply of the old pine veneer we have streamlined our production by using the very convenient and reusable Hiko trays, which has made planting for us and our customers very much easier.
You may have noticed us with our old trusty yellow Toyota Ute collecting seeds all over the district. We collect all our seeds within the Golden Plains Shire, always taking note of the conditions that the plants are growing in. While seed collecting we also see some beautiful and isolated places and this is where we find local plants as they probably were hundreds of years ago. It seems that the more rugged and inaccessible the site, the more likely we’ll find a rich and diverse mix of plant species. One of our favourite sites is on the Leigh River where the river has cut a deep gorge through solid sandstone. There are some very rare plants surviving there that were once wide spread during the last ice age.
Stephen has recently published a book, “Recreating the Country” - A blueprint for the design of sustainable landscapes. This book describes how to design plantings that will last for centuries and bring wildlife back to gardens and shelterbelts. We use these principles when we advise customers on how to get the most out of the trees and shrubs that they are planting.
We are still here 26 years later, the black bushy beard is now a neatly trimmed grey goatee, and may I say kindly we now have ‘many smile lines’. Feel free to call us and we will enjoy helping you to choose the best plants for your garden or shelterbelt.
by Lina Murphy
Treehome Nursery,
39 Carr St, Teesdale, Victoria Australia.
Phone 03 5281 5254
