Frequently Asked Questions

You’ll find the answers to our most common questions on this page. 

At Southern Woods, we’re happy to help out with any plant or project questions you might have.  If you don’t see your question answered below, get in touch with us using the Contact Us form.

The Basics

We are indeed!  The plant centre is open Weekdays 8am-5pm and  Weekends from 9am-5pm.

The production nursery is closed to the public unless you have a staff member helping you out. 

Southern Woods is a New Zealand nursery just south of Christchurch, between Templeton and Rolleston. 

You can find our contact details here

We don’t sorry, but we are more than happy to give you great advice, or recommend several landscape contractors that we work in with regularly.

First off, don’t panic! We offer a range of services that can help. 

  1. Our team love helping out with great plant advice. Bring in your photos/plans for us to look over in store, or email them through. A walk around our display gardens is great for inspiration too. 
  2. We offer an on-site consultation service where one of our experienced staff will come to your site and give you some advice on layout and planting. There is a charge for this, and mileage fees do apply. Click here for more information. 
  3. We have an in-house fully-qualified landscape architecture team who can work closely with you and draw up a complete concept and planting plan that you can implement yourself, or pass on to your landscape contractor. More details here. 

We sell smaller bags of bark, compost and potting mix. Click here to purchase. 

For bulk quantities and other garden mixes we recommend our friends at Intelligro, just down the road! 

Plants

At Southern Woods, we can help out with all sorts of plants! Our plants are typically grown for outdoor use, and are often tougher varieties for harsher South Island conditions. We have a great range of:

  • New Zealand Natives
  • Grass & Flax Species
  • Landscaping and Amenity Shrubs
  • Fruit & Nut Trees
  • Ornamentals
  • Specimen trees up to 45L

We can help with most outdoor plant varieties and products, but you may need to look elsewhere for:

  • Roses
  • Vegetable Seedlings 
  • Giftware
  • Annuals and Bedding Plants
  • Bulbs
  • Most Frost Tender Plants

We currently have a small range of indoor plants, in store only! 

We’ll do our best! Using our nationwide network of wholesalers, our sourcing service is extremely popular for those tricky-to-find plants. 

In the event we are unable to find a particular plant, we are also happy to suggest close alternatives.

That’s because they are! All plant botanical names are in Latin. The botanical name of a plant is the scientific Latin name identifying the genus and the specific species.

The reason this is done in horticulture is because while the Latin or scientific name of a plant never varies, the local common name sometimes does.

Plant grades are sometimes quite tricky!

We grow plants in many different containers & pots. As a general rule – the larger the pot, the larger the plant. The larger the pot, the greater the volume for freight.

We’ve tried to make it as easy as possible. Instead of pot names and planter bag sizes, we’ve specified the soil volume on our website. This is typically shown in litres.  

The exception to this is our bare-rooted trees in winter, these come without potting media, and are packaged with moss for sending when they’re dormant. 

Great question! Site preparation, correct planting and maintenance is really important to the success of your planting.

Have a read through our Tips & Tricks page here

Freight & Delivery

Our website will automatically calculate freight for smaller consignments. For bulkier orders, our sales team will be back in touch to confirm a freight price.

Check out our Shipping Information page for more info.

We can go one better than that – we have a courtesy trailer you can use, free of charge!

Give us a call if you’d like to book this in advance.  

We do! We have a local delivery service, typically if you’re within 20km of Southern Woods.

In addition to this, we are happy to organise to have your order freighted either via courier or truck, depending on the size of the order. 

Pricing depends on what you’re ordering, and where it’s being delivered. Get in touch with the sales team for details. 

Plants are a bit trickier to ship than iPads and t-shirts… 

They’re typically much bulkier and perishable, meaning it’s critical they arrive in a timely fashion. Some smaller consignments will fit on a courier, but we’ll often have to use larger carriers like Mainfreight & Toll.

We’re also based in the South Island, which could be a good or bad thing, depending on where you’re ordering from! 

If the price automatically calculated by the website price looks a bit high, get in touch – we’ll see what we can do.  

Still Stuck?

Absolutely. Give us a call on 0800 800 352 for any plant enquiries. If you have a site specific query, please email all details including photos if possible to: info@southernwoods.co.nz