Rainbow Nurseries

Rainbow Park Nurseries Ltd is a large, family-involved business focused on importing, propagating, growing and distributing high quality plants for nation-wide wholesale supply. The operate quarantine facilities, five hectares of glasshouses, ten hectares of tree nursery and a fleet of delivery vehicles. They have a strong sustainability focus, recently converting from gas to fully electric heating, and are now planning the use of solar panels and batteries.

Andrew Tayler’s father, Peter, took over a small Mt Wellington nursery in 1975 and started growing cyclamen, polyanthus and other ornamentals. In 1982 he moved the business to its current site at Ramarama.

The company started developing two main sides to its business: specimen trees, and house plants, for supply to nursery retailers, councils, developers and landscapers. Early on there were also some export sales but they became “tricky” while the local demand had grown, so they focused solely on that.

A major part of the business is importing new varieties weekly from plant breeders through laboratories in countries like the Netherlands, China and India. Rainbow Nurseries receives these higher value, colourful plants, like bromeliads, orchids and anthuriums, as tissue cultures.

“They are a bit like a miniature plant in agar, and they come in a sealed cup. It’s a sterile process and there are no problems in getting them through border inspections,” says Andrew. “We grow them in plugs initially and once they reach a certain level of maturity we transfer them to their final pot.”

Growing tissue cultures this way represents about half of the company’s production. The other half is importing whole “mother” plants through quarantine. “We select the genetics for the plants that we want to grow from the big breeding houses and bring them in through our own quarantine facilities which is a three- or six-month process, and very rigorous,” says Andrew.

Products in each quarantine facility are checked regularly by MPI. Once the quarantine period is finished the plants are brought back into regular glass houses. Cuttings can then be taken and grown into plants for sale.

To meet demands for volume and quality the company has invested in advanced control systems that monitor temperature, humidity and light.

It has become a big business involving 90 staff plus seasonal workers producing 1.8 million tissue culture plants and 1.5 million cuttings annually. The glasshouses are modern in design and include moving tables and some automation.

To handle timely distribution of this volume of products the company has its own fleet of trucks delivering weekly from Kerikeri to Invercargill.

A recent focus is a $2.5 million investment in reducing dependence on fossil fuels. This has involved total replacement of gas boilers with heat pumps for fully electric heating, and storage tanks for 300,000 litres of 80º C water. They also capture and recycle all rainwater. They are now planning the installation of solar panels and battery storage along with potential electrification of the transport fleet.

Andrew says that close relationships with international suppliers, their expertise in importing and propagation, along with control from production to delivery and its focus on sustainability, give the company its strength. It remains a family affair with Andrew now at the helm, his father still a director, and his sister Anna managing dispatch.