Welcome to Gellerts Nurseries Ltd.

Originally formed in 1988 as Gellerts Glasshouses for the production of tomatoes and cucumbers, today the Gellert group of companies is devoted to growing high quality vegetable seedlings and selected houseplants.

Operating out of (15 acre) property at Karaka, South Auckland, growing takes place in 3 hectares of heated greenhouses. Propagation of Vegetable Crops are grown in over half of the total growing area.

Gellert Nurseries core business is the propagation of vegetable crops for the commercial greenhouse industry.  This business is totally reliant on crops grown to order. Recently, we made the investment and installed grow lights which enables us to grow beautiful strong plants all year.

The nursery has 35 growing departments which is fully computerised for environmental and irrigation control. The nursery has 2 fully lined water storage ponds with water going through UV treatment before fertilizer being added then water collected after irrigation is also treated by the UV system before being returned into storage tanks. We use a mix of fresh and recycled water when irrigating so there is no waste and we use every drop but it will only be reused after full UV treatment. It is not practical to dump the water nor is it ethical, so by recycling we are also making sure there is no leaching into the environment.

While all the above mentioned are important, of equal importance is our people. Much of what we do requires specialist staff that can focus on each stage of the plant development and produce a plant that will give the customer more value and a greater opportunity to increase production and ultimately better returns.

We have developed a team that from the first phone call or visit to Gellerts with our customer service or Customer Sales Liaison we take care of the early stage of your requirements then our specialist growers take over and we liaise with you through to delivery and after delivery to see how your babies have been doing. Our experienced truck drivers also do their part with the delivery of your plants and unloading.

We strive to produce a plant that will give the customer more value and a greater opportunity to increase production and ultimately better returns, the quality of plants at delivery has been our main focus – this is the process where tomato plants and capsicum’s are grown in the nursery to a height of 45cm or 60cm and attached to stakes. This has several benefits to customers – firstly reducing down time between crops as the plants are in production quicker due to less shock at transplanting and secondly and most important the plant is more in balance.

We also grow 60cm staked cucumber plants in a 100x150x65 propagation block with one plant per block for several growers who have reduced their downtime by up to 10-12 days in the winter and 7-8 days in the summer. We have proven that by growing a larger plant and having more root volume at delivery the plants are stronger and root in faster.

We have recently started grafting high volumes of cucumbers and capsicums, which are proving popular for growers.  The nursery has been grafting tomato plants since 2005 and recently began specialty grafting of rock melons and watermelons.  It is our intention to continue this development with the support of the watermelon growers throughout NZ, with the focus being to deliver a more compact and hardier plants that can cope better with the harsh early spring weather.

Gellerts is also the sole agent in New Zealand of Cultilene propagation blocks and Grow slabs.  Cultilene is also an innovative company with very similar philosophy as Gellerts and that is why the companies have joined forces. Rock-wool is a great propagation material and the grow slabs are just as good and Cultilene are now extremely competitive with other products.  The back up service and the correspondence with growers make this a long term and extremely viable option for growers. Why drive a mini when you can be in a V8 !!

We at Gellerts continue to push boundaries with young plant development which will ultimately benefit our customer’s production potential.