Local mail-order nursery celebrates e-commerce success

Carnlough-based Bali-Hai Nursery is celebrating their success in the 2005 E-Commerce awards.

The family-run firm lifted the E-Commerce award for 'Best Sales And Marketing Website For Northern Ireland 2005' in the nationwide award scheme run by the DTI to promote and reward excellence for e-commerce in the UK.

The Bali-Hai nursery provides a mail order hosta and perennial nursery business set in the heart of the lovely Glens of Antrim coastline in Carnlough Co. Antrim.

Owner Mrs E Scroggy said: "We are pleased to have won this e-commerce award 2005 for Northern Ireland. It is hard to run a successful business in such a competitive market and that is why we decided on e-commerce with our website at www.mailorderplants4me.com.

"We would like to thank all our customers for all their support."

The e-commerce operation which delivers to Europe and the USA all year round started in 2001. The firm now sells many plants including hostas, and following a visit to New Zealand, frost-hardy evergreen phoriums (New Zealand Flax) and the slightly more tender agapanthus, another common New Zealand native. Also being added to the stock are Crocosmia a wonderful flowering plant with varieties that flower from June to October.

Mrs Scroggy added: "The main advantage of having a mail order nursery here is the climate, being so close to the sea and situated in an enclosed bay surrounded by mountains, we find that our nursery is usually three degrees warmer than the rest of the North coast of Ireland.

"Ideal for growing hostas and perennials as we get little to no frost and ample rainfall throughout the year.

"As we are a small firm more personal attention is given to our hostas and perennial plants and how they are looked after."

(SP/MB)