Westland Nursery

Have you ever purchased a bouquet of flowers from your local supermarket and wondered where they come from? If the bouquet consists of mostly lilies and freesia chances are quite good that they were grown at this massive nursery in Pescadero, CA.
From the main road the Westland Nursery looks like a giant glass fortress complete with its own lake as seen from the passenger’s side of your vehicle.
The Westland Nursery began as a family-​run carnation farm over fifty years ago. It’s still a family-​run business today, but carnations are no longer the flower of choice. Westland Nursery Inc. specializes in freesias and is possibly one of the largest growers of these fragrant flowers in the western United States. In addition to the freesias Westland also grows several dozen other varieties mostly flowers from the lily family.
Pete Westland took some time from his busy schedule recently to give a group of us on a fact-​filled walking tour through his gigantic greenhouse. Pete operates the Westland Nursery along with his wife and his sister. Starting with the overview and the specialization with freesias he explained how the flower easily harbors plant diseases during its early stages of growth and for that reason alone is not a favorite among local nurseries. After manually tilling the plot of soil within each greenhouse Pete has created a system where hot steam is pumped into the loose soil continuously for four to six hours. This process kills any and all bacteria or insects in the soil.
Westland’s freesias are planted every two weeks. In a separate area Pete showed us how each bulb variety is catalogued. Each bulb is planted in its own little block of sterilized dirt for several days before being transplanted into the greenhouse soil. The flowers are picked at a very early stage and stored in one of two massive refrigerators in order to ensure that the flowers blossom after they arrive at their destination. Mrs. Westland opened up each refrigerator and allowed each of us to take a peek into the cold and fragrant forest within.
At the time of our visit several other varieties of flowers were in the blooming stages. These included alstroemeria, butterfly bush, dahlias of assorted colors and rows upon rows of phlox.
Westland Nursery has several farms in the area, but this location is considered the hub. The packing and distribution center for the Westland Nursery is located at this location as well as most of their freesia variety. The nursery ships their flowers by air throughout the western states. They also sell direct at the San Francisco Flower Mart and provide mixed bouquets and lily bunches to several Bay Area supermarket chains such as Andronico’s, Draeger’s and Safeway. On the weekends they set up shop at the College of San Mateo farmers market.