Te Kahuri Nurseries
Discover a diverse selection of native, fruiting, deciduous, hedge, shelter, and ornamental plants at Te Kahuri Nurseries. Our passion for plants drives us to provide high-quality options for your garden. With a focus on sustainability and customer satisfaction, we strive to offer a unique and enriching experience for all plant enthusiasts.
Call out to see what we have in stock Tuesday to Saturdays, we would love to meet you and supply your planting needs.
About Us
We are a small family run business. In 2022 we were blessed to be able to take over an established Nursery from the former owners.
Rachelle had been working in this Nursery on and off over the last 23 years. She has also worked in Retail, been an At Home Mum & worked as Learning Assistant in several Hawera Schools.
Nicholas had been a retail manager for The Warehouse & Warehouse Stationery for 21 years, he also worked in the Recruitment sector, he was at Silver Fern Farms and has recently had the joy of Farming and Milking to add to his CV.
We have 4 children, 3 of whom work for the business in different capacities and our youngest runs our pest control program onsite.
We differ from many nurseries in the way that we focus our time in organic management of pests and weeds.
This means that we will have occasions where the weeds will be looking a little lanky, but rest assured we will get to them and put them to our compost area to create our own compost for our Open Ground plants.
We also have Chickens and Turkeys free ranging onsite, they provide us with bug management, weed seed control, fertilisers and eggs!
Services
Every November Taranaki puts on various garden festivals that run over the same 10 day period.
We are open over the entire 10 days of the festival, as there may be out of towners booking holidays and only being here for that particular time.
Running at the same time we have Centuria Taranaki Garden Festival, Sustainable Backyards & The Taranaki Fringe.
The joy so many is you can see any type of gardening style and get to learn an assortment of methods utilised, see a myriad of cool art, meet some intense folk, some eclectic folk and some folk you will want to visit again and again just to see what they do over the next 12 months.
We will be open over this whole time in the following hours:
Monday to Friday 9am - 4.30pm
Saturday/Sunday 10am - 3pm
Plant Information
1
Our Growing Practices
Our growing practices have been refined over the years.
Many of our young trees have been grown in our open-ground nursery using natural methods, where there is no use of chemical pesticides or artificial fertilisers.
Everything on site is grown under a natural regime, with the weeds being pulled out the old fashioned way, then used in our own composts.
Potted plants (in PBs or planter bags) have slow release chemical fertiliser pellets in their mix.
The potting mix is made by Bark Products Taranaki, in Waitara.
The varieties of fruit & nut plants are selected for their history of producing well and maintaining high health. We purchase them through growers in Brixton, Hawkes Bay, Palmerston North & Richmond.
PLANT AVAILABILITY
Note: OG* (open ground grown - bare rooted) plants are available from July to mid August only.
Limited numbers are available as potted trees outside their dormant season.
2
Plant Care on Arrival
Plants in Planter Bags (PBs)
Give container plants a good soak on arrival and before planting. If the pots are light, a simple method to ensure good saturation of the roots, is to submerge the pot in water until the air bubbles stop rising, and leave for about 10mins, allowing the soil particles to swell and the air spaces to be taken up by water. In a dry season, this is also a good way to prepare the plants for planting while additionally putting water in the hole before placing the plant.
Bare rooted plants need to be planted as soon as possible after arrival.
They can be stored in the packaging for a couple of days only, in a shaded cool area.
Alternatively they can be "heeled in" for a longer period until the permanent site is prepared, that is: unpacked, separated out and planted in loose damp soil or sawdust which is then pressed down firmly with boots, to press out all the air and firm the soil around the roots.
The soil must be kept damp to avoid the roots drying out.
NB: It is important to break open the delivery bundle and separate out the plants before heeling in to ensure that no roots are sitting in an air pocket drying out unnoticed.
Happy planting!
3
Principals of Shelter
There are four main principles to be aware of:
Porosity - shelter should slow the wind, not stop it altogether. Very dense belts such as bamboo dump the wind on the lee side.
Height - the height of your shelter should be as tall as the site allows. However, keep it shorter when to the north of buildings or other obstructions, to avoid too much shading.
On farms, prune your tall shelter trees to allow light to pass below the crown of the tree.
Deciduous trees provide excellent shelter and shade in late spring, summer, and autumn, but very little shading in the winter.
Continuity - make shelter belts as continuous as possible (gateway wide gaps at the widest) to avoid wind accelerating through the gaps and around the ends of the rows.
Spacing
For formal trimmed hedges 0.3 - 1.0m high, plant 4 - 6 plants per metre.
For formal trimmed hedges 1.0 - 2.5m high, plant 3 plants per metre.
Fof farm or horticultural shelters, plant 1 plant per metre.
For single row timber belts, plant 1 plant per 2-3 metres.
For double row timber belts, plant 2.0 x 2.0 or 2.5 x 2.5m.
Our sustainability
We are an environmentally involved company and believe in using organic methods of pest management, weed control, we create composts, leaf mulch and tree mulch.
We implement reduce, reuse, recycle, repurpose in all of our systems
We will take your unwanted pots and planter bags
If you have an excess of pots that you will not be using, or the riparian planters left you many planting bags, maybe you just want to get yourself some pots while in shopping; please feel free to take from or add to our apple box at any time.
Egg cartons, old envelopes,
We will reuse your clean egg cartons to keep our eggs at $5, a free range dozen, we like to reuse envelopes instead of notepads, we have tried to reduce costs for you by keeping our systems thoughtful, simple and cutting out costs any way we can.
Baling twine, animal feed bags
To keep our packaging costs low, we will take unwanted items, with which we can package our plants.
We will happily reuse: baling twine, 20kg and up animal feed bags, boxes, bread bags etc.
It also means we have unique packaging, which will still keep the plants safe, even if it looks unusual.
Ordering Information
Payment
Ordering Information
Thank you for choosing to place an order with Te Kahuri Nurseries.
We ourselves can do deliveries in the province for a fee suitable to the amount of plants required. We try to deliver 1 Monday per month, depending on size of orders.
Minimum mail order by courier for plants is $25
Maximum height for mail order by courier is 1.2 metres.
Large Trees/orders are best sent through Rockeater Truck Services, cost starts at $110.
They are a specialist Plant Trucking Service that deliver to these main areas:
Te Kuiti, Whanganui, Palmerston North, Taupo, Auckland, Hamilton, Bay of Plenty, Hawkes Bay, Wellington, Wairarapa, Blenheim, Nelson, Christchurch.
We can organise quotes for these areas for you.
Payment is required prior to sending plants by Direct Credit. Invoice will be emailed one week prior to sending, so you can pay easily online.
Eftpos facilities available for people picking up plants on site, no credit cards or pay wave available, however we do accept cash.
Options
Ordering Options:
Download our interactive form (in 'Word'). You can type directly onto it and save on to your computer. This can be sent as an email attachment, printed out or posted.
Email: tekahurinurseries@gmail.com
Download our pdf form to print out and write on by hand (download it here)
phone: 06 764 5020
Important point: Please include your phone number, RD number (ie rural delivery if applicable), post code, and province in the address when ordering or requesting quotes.
PRICING - PRICES are GST inclusive.
NB: Plant prices and grades as listed are subject to change without notice. Plants can be ordered in advance for delivery the following year on confirmation of order.
For large orders (over $500) we ask for a 25% deposit.
If you are ordering plants we don't normally have onsite or in quantities we wouldn't stock usually, we ask that you pay in total prior to us ordering or we will not be able to order it for you.
We Proudly Support
If you are planning on planting Natives on your property in bulk, or have natives planted previously in bulk, check out Trees That Count and see if you can apply for future funding. You can also gift plants through them, see the links below.
Can make appointments out of Hours
Address
510 Eltham Road
RD 21
Stratford 4391
To find us easily, head to Eltham, turn onto Bridge Street heading west towards Opunake, we are 7kms out of town.
Contact Us
06 764 5020
Opening Hours
Tue - Fri
9:00am - 4:30pm
Saturday
10:00am - 3:00pm
Over Christmas we will be closed from 3 pm Saturday 21st December 2025
Reopening Tuesday 6th January 2026