
Surface Nursery is one of Oregon’s longest running nursery success stories. Founded in 1925 by Melvin Surface with a handful of azalea seeds, it has grown to 300 acres of liner production. Photo by Curt Kipp
Rich, fertile Willamette Valley topsoil. Abundant rainfall. An ideal nursery climate, with winter dormancy and a long growing season. Oregon nurseries benefit from all of these natural advantages, but there’s more. There’s people. People and businesses who grow the wonderful plants. We’d like you to meet a few of them.
- Surface Nursery: Founded in 1925, Surface Nursery has outlasted the Great Depression, the Second World War, the Cold War and the start of the Computer Age.
- Schiedel Nursery: Mike and Lori Hanson are proud, third-generation growers of conifers, broadleaf evergreens and deciduous trees and shrubs in Aurora, Oregon.
- Brooks Tree Farm: Dave and Kathy LeCompte have found a niche in growing seedlings for Christmas tree farms and timber operations, and native plants for restoration and remediation projects.
- Tree Frog Nursery: In 1994, an ambitious college student named Carson Lord started his nursery. Today, the OAN past president ships container and B&B material to 20 U.S. states and Canada.