PROFILE: PIGGY BACK FARM
Piggy Back Farm: Growing new plants the old fashioned way By Matt Ross
At Piggy Back Farm Nursery they do things a little differently; they specialise in growing and supplying new release plants to independent garden centres in Victoria, NSW and Canberra. Established in 1979 in North Croydon by father and son, Henk and Wayne Koster, it’s now a three-generation business, with Shaun and his dad, Wayne, running things. Based in Woori Yallock since 2011, they grow everything outdoors on the two acres surrounding their retail garden centre. Fifteen years ago, they identified a gap in the grower market to work exclusively with new release plants supplied by Ball Australia. And that partnership and focus is still going strong today. They pride themselves on growing the highest quality plants and love what they do. “We do things the old-fashioned way. We control everything and hold ourselves accountable to that. We pot by hand, pull stock with trolleys, load by hand and me or dad deliver. We see every plant that comes in and triple check them before
they go out. There is no excuse for bad stock leaving our nursery. We don’t want to change that way of working because the quality of plant we produce is so high. It also helps that we love what we do,” enthused Shaun. Last year they grew 190 varieties of plant and each year they come together as a team to select three new plants to grow. That decision is based on their own instinct, viewing the plants at Ball Australia’s impressive Trials Week displays and what the market wants. “Choosing new plants to grow and which plants to drop is key to what we do. Me and dad have different tastes but that makes us really question our decision making in a bid to get it right. We’re also very mindful to be objective, to an extent it doesn’t matter what we think of a plant, we grow what the market wants. And that fluctuates, plants come in and out fashion.
Shaun Koster delighted to be growing the latest petunias.
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GROUNDSWELL OCTOBER 2021
