Our Story
Our Story So Far
The roots of Pavilion Specimen Plants go right back to 1932 when John O’Leary established one of the earliest commercial greenhouses in Ireland.
From a base in Togher John supplied mainly tomatoes to local traders. The English Market and Roches Stores were amongst his daily city delivery runs, along with many other small shops and traders throughout Cork City.
John’s son, Micheál continued the tradition of growing fruit and vegetables and in the early 1970’s, Micheál relocated from Togher to our present loca-tion at Myrtle Hill, Ballygarvan, where he established a number of acres of new glasshouses.
In 2001, following completion of his studies in Horticulture, Micheál’s son, Charlie, took over the nursery. Following a number of increases in the prices of oil and other competitive pressures, Charlie decided to diversify the family business of growing tomatoes to include flowers and shrubs.
The business has grown in the intervening years and now boast a unique and remarkable collection of specimen plants housed in a state of the art glasshouse in Ballygarvan.
Tomatoes grown in our original glasshouse for sale at a local Market in Cork circa 1973
Today Pavilion Specimen Plants comprises a team of horticulturists, nursery staff and landscape professionals fuelled by shared values.
Our team will take care in choosing and sourcing the right trees and plants for your project. We carry an extensive range of specimen trees and plants within our own nursery and have close links to growers and suppliers throughout Europe enabling us to offer the widest range of great quality stock in a variety of sizes.
Our new, modern, state-of-the-art Glasshouse in Ballygarvan
Opening Hours
We are open 7 days a week:
Mon – Sat, 9:00am – 5:30pm
Sun, 10:00am – 5:30pm
Services
Pavilion Specimen Plants has brought together a team of horticulturists, nursery staff and landscape professionals all working for you as our client. We have a long and proud history of providing a complete end to end service; from design and consultancy, to plant sourcing and supply, right through to planting and aftercare.