Pleasant Run Nursery (PRN)
We started Pleasant Run Nursery in 1998, with a mission to provide new and garden-worthy plants to the discerning gardening world. We grow high quality, cutting-edge woody ornamentals and perennials, with an emphasis on special plants to solve specific site problems, such as deer, moist, dry and shade conditions.
Company details
Find locations served, office locations
- Business Type:
- Distributor
- Industry Type:
- Horticulture
- Market Focus:
- Nationally (across the country)
About Us
Customer service has always been a top priority for us…from the moment you first contact us, all the way through loading your vehicle or delivering plant material to you. We do our best to help you get the information and plants you need to make your endeavors a success, and we want you to have left Pleasant Run Nursery enriched and enthusiastic about your experience with us. We appreciate our customers' input and suggestions, and work to incorporate them at the nursery. We look forward to having you visit us at Pleasant Run and working with you on your future projects.
History of PRN
Pleasant Run Nursery was started on a farm in central New Jersey in 1998 by Richard Hesselein. He had grown up in California as a 4th generation nurseryman, with a degree in botany from Humboldt State University. He had relocated to New Jersey in 1977 when he and Heidi Flemer Hesselein (also a 4th generation nurseryperson) were married. Both worked at Princeton Nurseries for a number of years, increasing their love for and knowledge of a very broad range of woody ornamental trees and shrubs, field grown and containerized. Heidi and Richard are NJ Certified Nursery Landscape Professionals through the NJ Nursery & Landscape Association. Richard was awarded NJNLA Nurseryman of the Year in 2008. When they started Pleasant Run they wanted to pursue their passion for growing hard-to-find and cutting-edge woody plants, perennials, grasses and tropicals as well as what has become a growing line of standard garden-worthy landscape plants. Richard’s interest in collecting and grafting Magnolias and other rare ornamentals has added to Pleasant Run’s lengthy list of budded, custom-grown varieties.
Their coworkers consist of Susan Schlagel, Lisa Strovinsky, Rosalind Doremus and Daryl Kobesky (who is a Board licensed Landscape Architect), as well as 12 people in propagation, production and customer loading, directed by Byron Salguero and Jose Hernandez.
The nursery started with 9 bow houses and 1 propagation structure. Today, it has grown to encompass a number of growing areas and 70 houses and 5 acres of open growing area with a total of 15 acres in production. A state of the art iron removal system to improve irrigation water quality has been installed in their pump house, a shade house and a potting barn have been built, and the propagation house recently received a make-over with a new mist system allowing Pleasant Run Nursery to propagate rare and hard-to-find liners.
Richard and Heidi have raised 4 children in the 18th century farm house on Pleasant Run’s acreage. They share the farm with numerous poultry, peacocks, donkeys, cats and dogs. Whenever possible they travel to tradeshows, public gardens, and private nurseries, always on the lookout for the best in new plant introductions. They have felt blessed in having the opportunity to get to know all kinds of amazing people in this diverse industry, and look forward to many more years of learning and sharing.