NURSERY / 06
TREE NURSERY
OPEN DAY
OPEN DAY 1
Michal Slawski, reports on the recent socially distanced open day at Nangle & Niesen’s wholesale tree nursery in Aherla, County Cork
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angle & Niesen’s annual trade event provided a great opportunity to see first-hand the excellent quality of the trees and the care that goes into producing them. Set up by Des Nangle and Dutch nurseryman Matthew Niesen in 1973, the nursery was established to serve
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the domestic market with small trees, conifers and hedging. By the 1990s the nursery had expanded from its original 50 acres to over 100 acres and was now specialising specimen trees for the domestic market. Over the years the nursery changed hands before being owned outright by Ronan Nangle. The last 10 years have seen significant growth
HORTICULTURECONNECTED / www.horticultureconnected.ie / Winter 2020
Nangle and Niesen take a scientific and biological approach to soil preparation.” in the UK export market as well as expanding into mainland Europe. Situated about 200m above sea level on free-draining, fertile soil the nursery is home to over 35,000 trees in over 300 varieties. The sizes range from 8/10 to 60cm, but specialising in the 10/12 to 30/35cm girth market. The elevated site has meant that it is continually exposed to windy, wet conditions. This has developed trees that are particularly suited to the Irish conditions by culturing the root and heads. TREE PREPARATION AND GROWING A walking tour of the nursery took in the existing and new plantations. Ronan explained that the process of growing the best trees starts when selecting the stock for growing on. They look for shorter, stockier trees that are feathered down low and with a good root system to start with. They make frequent trips to growers in Europe and deal with growers that they know and trust. Once they take delivery of the stock, they store them in their humidity-controlled shed (over 9,000 trees in the winter of 2019/20). In December/January they prune up the planting stock. This involves reducing the crown and lateral growth by up to 30% and pruning back the root system to encourage fibrous root growth. Once this work is done, they are stored until they are ready for planting later in the spring. Before planting they are treated with Symbio Mychorrizae bacterial stimulator. After planting they are caned and tied and have a new leader trained in. It is this pruning done before they are planted that starts the culture in their root and crown development. SOIL PREPARATION Nangle and Niesen take a scientific and biological approach to soil preparation, developed after discussions with Hillery Murphy of Soil Biology Ltd in the UK and Andy Robinson of Whites Amenity in Dublin. In essence, they are feeding the soil and enabling that to feed their trees. This is the third year of getting their soils analysed and their first year planting into the soil that has been biologically enhanced. They now spread
