Hill Farm Nursery

Who are you?

We are a family-run micro-nursery, operated by three people.

Barb is the primary plant person, who carries out the majority of the perennial plant planning and propagation.

Jane brings fresh ideas to the mix, undertakes ongoing nursery chores (all that transplanting, watering and weeding!) and is also the smiling face you will see at the Farmers’ Markets. After time away studying horticulture, she has returned to the farm and is expanding our operations to market garden crops, with plans for small-scale heritage vegetable and flower seed production.

Edwin is chief of the structural aspects of the operation. He is the builder of greenhouses, digger of dirt, weeder extraordinaire, fixer of all things mechanical and also cheerful salesman when Barb and Jane are tucked away in the greenhouse madly potting up more plants or out in the garden planting, weeding and harvesting.

Where are you?

Just north of McLeese Lake, in the small settlement of Macalister, down beside the Fraser River.

What zone are you in?

The quick answer: Zone 4.

Most of our plants are targetted at Zone 1 to 4 growing conditions. Occasionally we like to experiment with Zone 5-ish things, and these are always well identified.

Where do you get your plants?

We grow them ourselves!

Okay, longer answer. The great majority of our plants are seed grown right here. We search the world over for interesting things suitable for our Cariboo-Chilcotin region, obtaining seed from various wildflower and alpine seed exchanges and specialty seed houses. Ethically-collected wild seeds are used, as are garden collected and commercial (non-treated) seeds.

Some of our plants are divisions from established plants in our personal nursery garden.

A very few of our plants are grown from wholesale-purchased bulb/bare root stock. We grow these on, plant some in our own garden, and pot up the extras for sale.

Can we come out to the nursery?

The answer at present is “No”, the reason chiefly being that we are generally much too busy growing and caring for the plants to host drop-in customers. (We all love to chat, which means everything stops when a visitor drops in.) It’s also very hit-and-miss whether someone is here throughout the day, as we are often off-site at the Friday-Saturday-Sunday Farmers’ Markets we attend.

2021 note: it’s extra much a “No” this year, because of COVID-19.

This said, we are still very much intending to one day open up an on-farm retail space, to be open during the spring and fall planting seasons. The spot is cleared, the plans are simmering… We would then have to step back on our Farmers’ Market attendance, so it’s a bit of a catch-22.

Are your plants organic?

Short answer: No. We are not at present certified organic.

Longer answer: We do not use any systemic insecticides (in particular the problematic neonicotinoid/”neonics”) so common in larger commercial operations. We do occasionally use organic pesticides such as diatomaceous earth to spot treat serious bug attacks on delicate plants, but in general we rely on good sanitation, strong plants, and the natural balance of insect pests and predators to keep things healthy. Our greenhouses and garden plots are absolutely alive with insect activity, as you will notice from the pictures on the website. We wouldn’t have it any other way. Oh, yes, and we also keep honeybees.

Being a micro-nursery, the plants we produce are not merely “widgets”; we take pride in knowing our plants on a very intimate level, from seed to sale. We live and work among them, they are our great joy, and we know that they can thrive without the dependence on pesticides so prevalent in larger-scale, more necessarily sterile plant nursery settings.

We do use commercial seed starting mixes and potting soils, some of which are OMRI certified, some of which contain small amounts of chemical fertilizer and wetting agents.

Our fertilization regimen is wide and varied: homemade compost and manure teas, commercial fish and seaweed fertilizers, and commercial micro-nutrient/mineral mixes are all used as needed. Our larger pot sizes often contain some farm-produced composted manure.

Oh, no! I found a bug on one of the plants I bought from you! What’s with that?

See above.

Yes, you’re going to find the odd insect. And also the odd weed seedling here and there. Pick the bug(s) off, pull the weeds out, and tell yourself that being poison free is worth it!