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You are here: Home / Oregon Nursery Country / Welcome to Nursery Country 2023

Welcome to Nursery Country 2023

By Curt Kipp — Posted November 30, 2023

With a record $1.37 billion worth of sales in 2022, Oregon’s nursery industry continues to grow. And if you want to know why, you can ask the families that are driving the growth.

Ask Jan, Cindy and Jason Hupp, who run Drakes Crossing Nursery in the Cascade Range foothills, founded 1967. They’ve made huge investments in the future, leveling new production space to grow seedlings for reforestation.

Ask Nathan and Angie Holmlund, the siblings who are taking John Holmlund Nursery, founded in 1968 with Mount Hood as the backdrop, into the next generation with field-grown and containerized material for nationwide markets. They are extending the legacy of what their father, John, started 55 years ago.

Ask Alfredo and Maria Fernandez, owners of AF Nursery, founded in the Willamette Valley in 2010. Starting from nothing, they’ve built a fast-growing operation that produces 100,000 trees, shrubs and liners annually.

Or ask Tom and Laura Dufala, owners of Bentwood Tree Farm, a specialty grower of cloud-sculpted pines and other handcrafted landscape material for Japanese-style gardens, founded 2011. They’ve been able to pursue their passion for natural beauty.

The nursery and greenhouse industry continues to be Oregon’s top agricultural powerhouse. Oregon continues to produce more conifers, more shade trees, more flowering trees and more Christmas trees than any other state in the nation. It’s also among the top growers of woody shrubs, while offering a wide assortment of annuals, perennials, houseplants, and other material as well.

That material makes the world better, with 75% of it going to other states.

Turn the page. Meet the passionate people behind four of Oregon’s finest wholesale nurseries. Learn how they have found opportunity and are pursuing their dreams.

They’ll give you a sense of why Oregon is Nursery Country.

Read the Nursery Country 2023 grower profiles:
AF Nursery | Bentwood Tree Farm | Drakes Crossing Nursery | John Holmlund Nursery

Explore the Nursery Country Issue Archives!
Nursery Country 2022 | Nursery Country 2021 | Nursery Country 2020 | Nursery Country 2019 

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Filed Under: Oregon Nursery Country Tagged With: Digger, Digger magazine, Wholesale Nurseries

About Curt Kipp

Curt Kipp is the director of publications and communications at the Oregon Association of Nurseries, and the editor of Digger magazine.

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