JGM Bleeker – engels

JGM Bleeker

JGM Bleeker is the nursery of Johan Bleeker in the dune area of Heemskerk.
It is a nursery-garden of 1,5 hectares, on which a greenhouse of 3,000 m2 is built. There are mostly Astilbe, Agapanthus and Nerine being cultivated.
The flower production mainly takes place inside. Except for the Agapanthus, that is only being cultivated outside. Besides that there is Sandersonia being cultivated on a small scale. The source material of the Sandersonia and the Nerine is being cultivated outside by ourselves. The Astible plants are mainly bought.

The market garden was started by grandfather Hein Bleeker, who came from a gardening family. He started a vegetable garden in 1925 at the Voorweg in Heemskerk. On half an hectare of land were the usual vegetable kinds of Heemskerk being cultivated. In those day that were i.a. beans and strawberries. Also the use of flat glass, also known as ‘eenruiters’, was picked up. His son, my father Cor, started with the cultivation of flowers and bulbs, such as chrysanthemum, gladiolus and irises. It was very limited because of the need of a cultivation certificate. After the abolition my father switched to cultivating small flowered roses. For this greenhouses were built. Due to problems with nematodes, the introduction of cultivation on scaffold and lightning there were other cultivations that were examined. The switch was made then to Nerine, Astible and Agapanthus.

During that time, around 1985, the company was taken over by my brother Paul and me. There was ground bought extra and the cultivation of source material of Nerine and Astilbe was picked up. Besides the above named cultivation there were a lot of different kinds of flowers tried out, like Lisianthus, Trachelium and Celosia. After my brother stepped out of the company I stopped with cultivating source material for the Astilbe.
Still there remained 3 main sources and with those we specialised further. As with the Astilbe the music series became important such as the Boogie Woogie and Hip Hop. Through direct arrangements with breeder Harry Verduin I am able to realise new introduction of Astilbe in the next coming years. Also new kinds of Nerine like Biance Perla and Vesta K are included in the assortment. Of course the innovations regarding the Agapanthus won’t be forgotten like Volendam and Duivenbrugge White.

We are also looking at different possibilities of other crops, like the Frittelaria persica right now. Besides these we are still working at successful cultivating of Sandersonia. By participating at Uitheemskerk.nl and Summerflowers I hoop that every flower lover can come in contact with our renewed products.