‘A lot of missionary work has to be done’
What are you doing at the moment?
“Watering, propagating, weeding, etc. Furthermore, we’re also making shelter for the sheep that I’ve bought. We have quite a lot of grass at the nursery, and because it’s located on a hill, it’s not that easy to mow it. Sheep should be the solution.”
Your nursery is located at a very special place!
“Yes, we have a magnificent view over the valley here. That’s also the reason that my parents settled here forty years ago. They bought three hectares of ground and they developed it themselves: there was no road, it was weedy-choked and water and electricity were not installed yet. They first grew vegetables for their own use, and my mother worked on special horticultural crops at a later time, such as the Iris barbata elatior, Hemerocallis, Aster dumosus and Iris sibirica, to sell these.”
Do you still focus on perennial plants nowadays?
“I still do! My mother primarily sold her plants to garden and landscape architects and to large cities in Yugoslavia, of which Slovenia was still part at that time. The market collapsed when Slovenia parted from Yugoslavia in 1990. My father, who worked as an engineer in a factory at that time, also became part of the company and took care of the professionalization. He designed and built foil-covered greenhouses and made sprinkler systems, container fields, and hail and shadow nets. We now grow about 1200 different perennial plants, but also grasses, ferns, water plants and herbs. We sell our products to garden and landscape architects, local governments and private individuals. They come and collect them here, or we ship them. I took over the company from my parents two years ago; my mother has been the driving force behind the nursery for years.”
Where do you get all these different plants?
“Our plants come from all over the world. We order seeds on the internet and buy young plants at merchants. We also visit nurseries, congresses or garden centres to find interesting kinds. Furthermore, we also receive a lot of plants that people have at home – often very old and unique specimen. To us it’s most important that the plants endure the cold winters; temperatures quickly drop to -18 here. The fact that the water has a high chalk content is also a bottleneck. That’s why we mainly tray and grow plants that are not that sensitive to diseases, so we don’t have to use crop protection. We and our customers value that.”
So, how are sales going?
“Spring – our most important sales period – was off to a good start, but dropped because of the thick layer of snow that we experienced then. We packed back up again though. Despite of the recession, our turnover has remained the same over the past few years. Moreover, we haven’t really experienced golden ages. We have always been able to pay all our bills though, and that’s the most important thing.”
What are your plans for the future?
“I don’t have the ambition to make rigorous changes, but I would like to expand a little. Furthermore, I’m hoping that perennial plants will be used in public spaces more often, because this is only done scantily in Slovenia, despite the fact that perennial plants are more interesting than annual plants when it comes down to the costs. I have said this to the local governments over and over again in the fast few years. I’ve also noticed that a lot of people have no clue how to take care of perennial plants, so that’s why we often attend fairs and publish articles in specialist journals. A lot of missionary work has to be done!”
About: Mojca Rehar Klančič
Company: Trajnice Golob-Klančič
Location: Vitovlje, Slovenia
Sales: garden and landscape architects, municipalities, private individuals, etc.
Assortment: 1200 different perennial plants, grasses, ferns, water plants and herbs
Staff members: three staff members
Mojca Rehar Klan?i?: ”Spring – our most important sales period – was off to a good start, but dropped because of the thick layer of snow that we experienced then.”
