Bill Allan: Allan’s Nursery Youngtown boss retiring after 59 years at helm
For 59 years, councils, gardeners and developers across Tasmania have turned to one of the most trusted names in horticulture, who is now retiring after being unable to find a buyer for his business.
Tasmania
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For 59 years, councils, gardeners and developers across Tasmania and indeed Australia have turned to one of the most trusted names in horticulture, who is now retiring after growing an incredible empire from the ground up.
Bill Allan, 85, owner of Youngtown’s Allan’s Nursery, started his working life as an “apprentice butcher and slaughterman”.
“My father reckoned I was doing too much work for three pound thirty a week, so he pulled me out of the apprenticeship,” Mr Allan said.
After a stint in the Northern Territory, he returned to Tasmania to work in forestry planting pine trees.
On August 4, 1964, he opened Allan’s Nursery, originally on Glenelg St at South Launceston.
“The first day, my wife [who has since passed] and I raced home with the till to see how much we’d taken. We had seven pound ten,” he said.
“Business-wise, we increased turnover considerably until we got growing pains and the street became too narrow.”
They relocated to Prospect – which still exists as Allans Garden Centre, albeit under different ownership – and also began growing at locations including Rocherlea, Rosevears and Youngtown.
“At one stage we had 61 people working for us,” Mr Allan said, with the sprawling operation also including a landscaping and indoor plant hire business.
Mr Allan’s operation continued to be leviathan in proportion, right up until earlier this year, when the landlord sold the nursery site to developers after Mr Allan was unable to find a buyer for his business, and it began winding down.
A buyer is still being sought for Mr Allan’s herb business, Renaissance Herbs, for which he holds the exclusive franchise in Tasmania.
Mr Allan estimates he has sold more than 14 million seedlings over his career, and would sell up to 10,000 plants per week, with loyal customers including the City of Launceston.
He said his looming retirement – Allan’s Nursery is expected to cease trading on December 1, with 25–30,000 plants still to sell – will be bittersweet.
“I’m going to miss getting up early of a morning and doing a day’s work,” Mr Allan said.
He said one of the most satisfying aspects of his career was building up relationships with “nurserymen” right across Australia.
“If I was growing a certain line and they couldn’t manage it, they’d find out the secrets we have, and vice versa,” Mr Allan said.
“It’s like a gamble growing plants, you’re not sure what the weather’s going to be, whether the demand would be there.”
A key project in Mr Allan’s retirement will be continuing work on the pansy he bred, known as ‘Storm Cloud,’ which is making waves in Germany, with a seed company “very interested”.
He is currently collecting seeds to send, diligently pollinating his creations, which come in 13 different colours.
Outside of his new pansy, Mr Allan has a greenhouse in his backyard that he expects will keep him very busy.
“I’m like a plumber with a leaking tap, I’ve got work there,” he said.
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