Imagine a thousand small colourful clouds in an endless and vast field. That breath-taking image can be found at the beautiful Jardin Hortence nursery. The hydrangea, also called the hortensia, symbolizes gratitude, beauty, and abundance. 

A real grower’s family

Our grower Arnold Glasbergen (39) grows these beautiful hydrangeas. Arnold was born into a real breeder family because his father had a tulip nursery. Arnold as raised with the tricks of the trade, he has a feeling for the product and does his job with passion. Besides, Arnold is also good at managing the nursery. This is very useful because during the summer he works the land with a big group of people.

Doorgekleurde hortensia’s
Hortensia's Frankrijk

Beautiful nursery

About 40 years ago, the Jardin Hortence nursery was founded by a husband and wife from Brabant, a province in the Netherlands. Little by little, they expanded the fields further and further. Greenflor has been buying the couple’s coloured hydrangeas for years. Then the couple decided to stop running the nursery, Greenflor bought Jardin Hortence, and Arnold and Annelies took over the place in beautiful France.

Hortensia kwekerij
Pommerit-Jaudy in Brittany

The nursery is located in Pommerit-Jaudy, a small village in the region of Brittany, France. The climate here is in comparison with the Netherlands much softer. And besides, heavy rain ensures good flowering. The temperatures are also suitable for the flowering of the hydrangea in this region of France. It does not get colder than -6 degrees Celsius and in summer the temperature is around 25 degrees. The amount of light we have here is also important. All this together gives us plants which are stimulated to flower.

Doorgekleurde Hortensia

From mid-August we see beautifully coloured hydrangea flowers. That’s when we know they’re ready to be harvested. Most of it ends up at Greenflor. “We dry a small part ourselves,” Arnold says. “We sell this to Italy, for example.”

Soaked with love

Before the hydrangea ends up in a vase, a lot happens. Maintenance and contamination work is mainly carried out during the first six months of the year. Think of things like stimulating the plants, keeping the plots clean and fertilizing the growth. “In July we will start harvesting the Skimmia cuttings,” Arnold says. “In 2014 we started with a number of about 350,000 cuttings. Meanwhile that number has grown to more than 1 million cuttings per year.” These are sold to various growers in the Netherlands and Belgium.

Hydrangea dried
Hortensia groothandel

The splendor of the hydrangea 

The hydrangeas are authentic due to the special colouring of the flower. When the hydrangeas are in bloom, the flowers change colour. It is wonderful to attend this colouring process. The collaboration with Greenflor is perfect. Despite the distance, we work closely with our colleagues in the Netherlands, and that’s very nice.