News travels fast.

You may have heard about changes at Oratia. What remains unchanged is the service you receive, and the range and quality of plants available.

Last week we made the sad decision to restructure, a process that will see 11 of our 20 staff moving on to pastures which we hope will be equally green.

Regrettably, we're not alone. A number of nurseries have recently found their profit margins so low as to be unsustainable.

Three years ago we leased a second nursery site nearby to produce plants on the large scale required for revegetation projects. But increasingly, it's these projects with their layers of subcontracts that cause us problems.

Decision makers seem to forget plants are not static items that can wait for "unforeseen hiccups" such as resource consents and engineers' reports.

And so we are retrenching. Instead of spending the next six months producing even more plants to sell below cost, we intend to concentrate on the existing stock at our original site in Oratia.

There will be no shortage of plants as the propagation process for next year's stock was done months ago. And without the need to maintain two nursery sites we believe we can work more efficiently to produce the range of plants we are known for.

In 1973 E.F. Schumacher wrote a prophetic book, Small is Beautiful. Perhaps, 35 years later, the world is ready to listen to his message.

With our new, sleeker presence, we look forward to providing you with great service and great plants.

Geoff and Bev Davidson.