Our Nursery Today

The Hughes family have been helping people to enjoy life from their gardens since 1932 and have grown the business considerably since Stanley’s Hughes’s initial three hectares. 

Our vision for the future

Our goal is to be the leading distributor of quality, innovative, new and exciting garden and landscape plants for the New Zealand Market.

About Family 290A7995

Today, three generations work at Blue Mountain Nurseries. From left: Denis, Olivia, Chris and Rebecca Hughes. Denis’s son, Chris, is at the helm of Blue Mountain Nurseries as General Manager supported by a team of between 10 and 18 staff members, depending on the time of year. Denis continues to provide information and guidance and works on future breeding programmes.

We have a team of plant craftspeople that are dedicated to providing our customers with innovative, new and exciting garden and landscape plants.

 All staff for website 2018

Profile Chris 290A7984 ppProfile Rebecca 290A8002 pp2Profile Denis 1290A7977

Today the nursery has 10 hectares in production and produces over 4,000 varieties of plants for national distribution to other nurseries, parks, landscapers, garden centres and gardeners throughout New Zealand. The nursery specializes in the propagation and growing on of hardy trees and shrubs, rhododendrons, azaleas, conifers, climbers, natives, perennials and pleione orchids.

Key production lines for 2018 include 373 varieties of rhododendrons, 89 varieties of azaleas, and 207 different tree species.

Key achievements over the last decade include launching a sales service to our wholesalers, where the Nursery calls on clients each month with a selection of plants that are in season and ready for planting. Wholesalers can order from the visiting sales van, or go online and order from the “virtual van”.

We have also;

• Launched a new online shop at www.bmn.co.nz
• Continued to load quality colour photos of plants for the online shop
• Doubled our production of rhododendrons
• Developed export markets
• Developed import lines
• Established a Sophora collection as a nature corridor at the base of the Blue Mountains, Tapanui
• Increased pleione orchid production
• Increased snowdrop production
• Launched Broad Bean Hughey via Egmont seeds
• Launched Pseudowintera Limelight
• Launched Cornus capitata Silver Lining
• Continued development of breeding programmes
• Conducted overseas trials and licensing of growers
• Launched a monthly retail newsletter
• Hosted local and international groups with tours through the Nursery