With a keen eye on our living and work environment, our specialists grow as naturally as possible and hardly use any chemical solutions. Being certified is not a goal in itself, but it can be one of the ways to make sure to cover all aspects of being good nurserymen. W&Z is not biologically certified (yet) but has been rated MPS A+ for almost 10 years.

On our nursery, no industrial fertilizer is used. We try to benefit as much as possible from our wonderful peat soil's ‘natural’ nitrogen and add missing elements through soil improvers. This has given very encouraging results in terms of plant quality. More importantly, the more robust plants have helped our customers grow them and improve their sales results.

We are acutely aware of the need to improve the fate of the planet’s remaining peatlands. W&Z believes that all should do their best to reduce the usage of peat. We are not experts, but logically the peat alternative should not have a worse impact, such as might be the case for coco fiber coming from the tropics. Boskoop has been a horticultural centre for over 800 years, and growing has always taken place in the naturally occurring peat. At W&Z, we can’t change our natural soil. However, we do try to grow our soil mass through the use of a diversified mix of annual grasses, flowers, etc, when the lands (used to) lie idle for resting. We also believe that the rootballed plants our customers receive reduce the use and need of peat sold in (plastic!) bags at the end customer.

At W&Z, we apply a ‘non-growing’ zone next to our approximately 1.7km of waterways. This zone was imposed to reduce the potential pollution of the water with pesticides and herbicides. The very low use of these products at our nursery combined with the zone means the many waterways are kept very clean indeed.