The company where growth can never be taken for granted

By Yoke Har Lee

Manurewa-based Seaview Nurseries' latest feat is to successfully marry the desired characteristics offered by perennial nemesias with those of annuals.

South Africa is the home of nemesias and there are over 200 species in the wild. Annual nemesias carry genetic material that produces red or yellow colours while perennials are blue toned, pink and mauve.

For the owners of Seaview - husband and wife entrepreneurs Neil and Helen MacCormick - investing in research done by leading plant breeder Dr Keith Hammett is already paying dividends as the company builds proprietary know-how to stay competitive.

It will be a major focus for the future. The MacCormicks are now firm believers in using technology to underpin their nursery business which boasts a three-decade history.

After years of research, Dr Hammett has, through genetic selection, managed to isolate some desired characteristics found in annual Nemesias and transpose them to perennials.

The result is the soon-to-be-released in New Zealand "Jasper" nemesia, which is a perennial, offering for the first time the red colours found only in annuals. Seaview already has a series (Gem) of other nemesias, bred over three-and-a-half years, which it exports to the US, Europe, Australia and Japan.

"It is something that scientists in the plant world have been striving towards for years," Dr Hammett said. "While not displaying true red, Jasper has salmon-coloured flowers with consistent red tones showing through, which is a major achievement."

Mr MacCormick said: "With the barrier between annuals and perennials broken, we can go back to the gene pool and bring those features backward or forward."

For the MacCormicks, it is no accident that their multi-million dollar business has survived three decades of a market ever whimsical in trends.

Gardeners and plant buyers have their own preferences which differ by suburb. The variety that a New Zealand nursery has to offer is far greater than those found in large-population markets.

Mr MacCormick's only regret is not investing in research and development earlier.

"Any company that doesn't look at spending on R&D will soon get left behind. Having said that, you should set a modest budget and not expect to get instant results."

According to Mr MacCormick, it takes business acumen to spot the benefits from scientific work.

"Scientists can get caught up with a little tiny point of difference which consumers might not even notice. Commercially, you need to have ideas of what the fashion is, what is the colour in demand, whether a plant could have longer flowering period or be disease resistant. We will take those and go to the scientist and say this is what we like, will it work?"

Sometimes the answer is that this will take five years or that the cost will far outweigh the benefits.

While there are huge barriers and high costs associated with plant exports, Seaview can now sell intellectual property abroad as well. The future will also see royalties being earned from the export of plant tissue to be bulked up and grown into plants overseas.

The Plant Variety Rights Grant, which is an international convention on intellectual property protection for plant material, now provides an avenue against plant piracy.

Mr MacCormick started his first glass-house in his now-wholesale nursery business on a loan from a retired farmer who believed in the venture. Mrs MacCormick taught to provide a steady stream of income. In their earlier days, they grew cut flowers as a cash crop.

Mr MacCormick's business acumen was shown early on, when Seaview took on the challenge of marketing perennials, until then dominated by the idea that they were swapped over the fence by gardeners.

Seaview introduced merchandising of perennials, putting them in green plastic pots, finding merchandise space for them at garden centres and introducing labels and colour collections. This is now a common practice.

Spotting trends early is also an important aspect of the plant nursery business.

Mr MacCormick said that a few years ago, cottage gardens were the rave while succulents have become big business since to landscape Mediterranean-style architecture.

Another feature of the business which the McCormicks realised early, was the need to offer special plants and be able to reproduce them systematically.

"We realised that we had to change although perennials have becoming an important part of the business. That was when we became involved with becoming a licensed grower, introducing new plant materials into the country," Mr MacCormick said.

The company is now a licensed grower for dwarf compact daisies and carpet roses, among others.

The industry has very much outgrown its original clay pot, gum boot and wheelbarrow days, the couple said. Now, collecting plants has become trendy and plants are deemed to add value to properties.

Because the industry is competitive, Seaview is constantly innovating, Mr MacCormick said.

"It is an industry which you have to work hard to get your profit. You are dealing with nature so you are subjected to weather changes. A bad spring can affect garden centre sales badly. We are always looking for opportunities, whether they be sales or in technological advancement. Introducing rolling benches in our glasshouses to help keep heating costs static was one such innovation," he said.

The MacCormicks hold one strong business principle - that of paying suppliers as quickly as possible. Entrepreneurs should also avoid the temptation of taking out profits too early without building a solid base, Mrs MacCormick added.

She also believes that knowing when to grab an opportunity when it arrives is critical to success. A series of fires at their inhouse plant nursery company Zealandia, and Palmers undergoing receivership, count as bad times for Seaview as a company.

There were others, such as when a change in ownership caused supermarket chains to stopped selling plants for a while. But having a diverse clientele has kept Seaview on top of its business.

The MacCormicks don't take chances - they are just as active doing market research, travelling to learn about what is new abroad.

For Mr MacCormick, one of the biggest changes he has had to cope with is not having enough time to "commune" with his plants as his business has grown so much.