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 with the opportunity to take over this established nursery from its former owners.
Rachelle has worked in this nursery on and off for over 23 years. Her background also includes retail and working as a Learning Assistant in several Hāwera schools. Nicholas brings 21 years of experience as a retail manager for The Warehouse and Warehouse Stationery; he has also worked in recruitment, at Silver Fern Farms, and recently enjoyed gaining experience in farming and milking.
We have four children, three of whom work for the business in different capacities, while our youngest runs our onsite pest control program.
Our Approach: We differ from many nurseries by focusing on the organic management of pests and weeds. This means there may be times when the weeds look a little "lanky," but rest assured, they are eventually added to our compost area to create nutrient-rich soil for our open-ground plants. We also have chickens free-ranging onsite—they provide bug management, weed seed control, natural fertilizer, and, of course, eggs!
Services
Every October/November, Taranaki hosts various garden festivals that run over the same 10-day period. We are open for the entire 10 days to accommodate out-of-towners who may be booking holidays for that specific time.
Running concurrently are the Centuria Taranaki Garden Festival, Sustainable Backyards, and The Taranaki Fringe.
The joy of having so many festivals is that you can experience many different gardening styles, learn an assortment of methods, and see a myriad of cool art. You’ll meet intense folk, eclectic folk, and people you will want to visit again and again just to see how their gardens evolve over the next 12 months.
If you click on the images below, you will be taken to the corresponding websites.
We will be open for the duration of the festivals during the following hours:
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Monday to Friday: 9:00am – 4:30pm
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Saturday & Sunday: 10:00am – 3:00pm
Plant Information
1
Our Growing Practices
Many of our young trees are grown in our open-ground nursery using natural methods, without chemical pesticides or artificial fertilizers. Everything onsite follows a natural regime; weeds are pulled the old-fashioned way and composted.
Note on Potted Plants: Plants in planter bags (PBs) do contain slow-release fertilizer pellets. Our potting mix is sourced locally from Bark Products Taranaki in Waitara.
Our fruit, berry, avocado, and citrus trees are specifically chosen for their ability to thrive in our "Cool Mountain to Sea" zones. We source these from expert growers including:
Incredible Edibles (Katikati)
Lynwood’s Nursery (Whangārei)
Copperfield Nurseries (Te Puna
LE Cooke Nurseryman (Hastings)
Caves Landscapes (Brixton)
Michielsens (Waitara)
Harrisons Trees (Fielding)
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When Receiving Your Plants
Potted Plants (PBs): Give them a good soak upon arrival. If the pot feels light, submerge it in water until air bubbles stop rising (about 10 minutes).
Bare Rooted Plants: These must be planted as soon as possible. If you can’t plant them immediately, "heel them in" by placing the roots in loose, damp soil or sawdust and pressing down firmly to remove air pockets.
Important: Always break open the delivery bundle and separate the plants before heeling them in to ensure no roots are left in dry air pockets.
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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.
Do not plant anything under powerlines that you cannot manage to keep below 3m, as you will need to pay for professionals to trim otherwise.
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.
For 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.
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. This can be 1 Monday per month, as we are booked out the other 3.
All orders have a maximum of two weeks on site after purchase or a servicing fee will be required for maintaining your plants.
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 the week prior to sending, so you can pay easily online and ensure we are sending the correct plants before payment. Any changes to the order have to be made prior to payment.
Eftpos facilities available for people picking up plants on site, Internet payments are also accepted but sorry 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)
Please follow this format to make our systems smoother, you will receive an online invoice for clarification of goods prior to payment, please ensure this is correct prior to payment.
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 the next years stock, but this unfortunately cannot guarantee the stock will be here, as many factors can influence plant availability.
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.
You have two weeks after purchasing plants to pick up, any time after that requires a servicing fee for ongoing maintenance of your plants.
The Plant lists of stock that is currently available
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.
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
We open some public holidays:
Waitangi Day 10am - 2pm
Taranaki Anniversary 10am - 2pm
Easter Saturday 10am - 2pm
Easter Monday 10am - 2pm
Anzac Day from 1pm - 4pm
Kings Birthday 10am - 2pm
Matariki 10am - 2pm
Labour Day 10am - 2pm
Over Christmas we will be closed from 12pm Wednesday 23rd December 2026
Reopening Tuesday 5th January 2027
