Professionals Tamborine Mountain 
Mt Nathan Nursery is a plant sanctuary tucked away in the Gold Coast hinterland. Catherine Williams’s family has owned this wholesale nursery for 25 years and together they’ve braved the elements in their mission to bring a little green back into the world. Find out just what a ‘wholesale nursery’ is and the inspiring story behind this one here.
by Kyle Hitchmough
How did Mt Nathan Nursery get started?
Mum was always in nurseries when we were in school. Then she decided to buy a retail nursery at the Carrara Markets. Instead of buying all the stock, they decided they wanted to start growing it and to start up a wholesale nursery.
Can you define what a wholesale nursery is?
A wholesale nursery is mainly production. We only grow and sell plants, we don’t sell soil. Most wholesale nurseries will only supply to other wholesale nurseries, landscapers, retail nurseries. You tend not to get retail customers come in, but we’re open to that.
Do you have any particular specialties?
We mainly cater for the landscape industry. You should be able to come to us and buy everything you need in the way of plants. We try and grow the bread-and-butter lines of some nurseries. We do a fair few natives here, but then we do other tropicals and exotics as well. It’s stuff that lasts all year round, we don’t have any annuals or perennials. We carry a really broad range.
Do you also educate people about plants? What kind of advice would you give someone just starting out with gardening?
We do talk to them about it, they can bring in their plans or photos and go ‘this is what we’ve got, what can we put here?’ and we will help them to a certain point, let them know what they can plant, but we don’t do any of the hard scape. We can set them on to landscapers, we’ve got a lot of landscapers on our books. We’ve always got somebody who should be able to help them. We can go down to the different soil types, conditions, whether the plants are in full sun or semi-shade or all shade… It just depends on the requirements of what they need.
Are there any plants you sell that are more popular than others?
It depends on what gardening shows have shown. At the moment there must have been something with proteas and hakeas, because we have a lot of people asking for them. We don’t do those here, it’s not cold enough. Most of those programmes are Sydney or Melbourne-based. Sometimes they’ll go through a book and like something, but it doesn’t suit our climate. We do sell a lot of Elaeocarpus eumundi, they are a beautiful tree around the coast. A lot of your industrial areas are growing them now, because you don’t have to do anything with them. They’re a really nice show piece.
Do you have a wide network for sourcing customers?
We get a lot of word of mouth here. We don’t advertise, except on Evergreen Connect, which is a plant sourcing tool and a subscription-based service. We do have a website.
Are you a local? What’s your opinion on the area and the community?
Yes, I am. It’s a fairly close-knit community. If there’s a problem out there somewhere, such as a flood, and you need help, you just yell out and people will come from everywhere. If you need to move stock, your neighbours or whoever’s in the area will come to help.
Speaking of floods, you’ve been majorly affected by them in recent times. Can you tell us more about how you’ve handled that?
We’ve gone through three major floods. We are on the Coomera River, it’s a major river system. Those floods we’ve lost around $350,000 each time, and our insurance does not cover that. With the first couple we tried to salvage some of the plants, but then you get diseases and you have to clean them… The last flood just took it all away. You just have to move on. We have dedicated areas now that we won’t put any plants on, and that was a big growing area for us but we’ve had to come to that conclusion so we don’t lose that again. We’ve tried hard and we’ve gone through a fair bit but we’ve bounced back.
What’s your favourite thing to do in the area?
Bruce plays bowls at Canungra, Mum is on the sheepdog trials scene so she goes all over Australia chasing dogs and sheep and whatever else. She’s also a judge, she’s judged the Ekka for many years doing that. It’s pretty cool to talk to her about that.
What do you think Mt Nathan Nursery really provides to the area?
Apart from people being able to come in and buy what they want for their gardens, we try and grow a lot of trees, hoping that we can give back to the planet what everyone’s taking out. That’s a huge thing.
What do you enjoy most about doing this?
It’s rewarding to see when gardens are completed and customers come back and show us photos. You see the joy on their face when they’ve got what they want and we can provide that.
Are there any particularly memorable moments from your time here?
We’ve got such a broad range of customers and our plants go all over the place. We were sourcing all the plants for the V8 Supercars in Adelaide for the last 15-20 years. They’ve just stopped those, but that customer has a shop in Adelaide now so we still supply to her on a regular basis.
Is there anything else you want to go on the record?
We do have two sites, we have another over at Clagiraba Road as well.
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