Part laboratory, part greenhouse - the place where Gert van Eijk-Bos makes his breeding discoveries is no 'nursery' in the conventional sense of the word.

The high-tech world of plant breeding. Newly formed plants are grown in controlled sterile conditions.

What it is, however, is a huge, and impressive operation that propagates plants by tissue culture. This method is essential to producing enough plant copies to supply on a world-wide basis. Without tissue culture we'd all be waiting years to get our chance to grow Hosta 'Christmas Candy' and many thousands of other varieties that we take for granted.

Another Vitro Westand speciality is Orchids.

Vitro Westland’s original mission was to produce Gerberas for the cut flower market. At that time the range of Gerberas available was so limited that when they introduced their own G. ‘Red Beauty’ (red with a darker eye), the market was so taken with it that sales of the variety were enough to keep the business afloat on its own. Of course this couldn’t last forever, and when other producers eventually caught up by adopting the tissue culture method to introduce new varieties of their own, Vitro Westland had to look to new areas, and one of these areas was garden perennials.  

A more familliar image. These very young plants have just been planted in soil for the first time.

Having been one of the first commercial companies of its kind, today Vitro Westland continues to be a world leader in producing plants from tissue culture.