Coachwood Nursery

Off the M1 north of Sydney, just past Somersby Primary School, Peter and Ruth Donnelly work a fifteen-acre property that has been under cultivation for more than forty years — part organic farm, part specialist nursery, grown up around their long love of Epiphyllum, the so-called orchid cactus. The collection runs to more than fifty varieties, sold individually or in assorted lots, alongside premium succulents, indoor plants, air plants and dried flowers and foliage cut and arranged on site. Rather than a shopfront trading daily, Coachwood operates on occasional open days and at garden shows and plant fairs around the state — Southern Highlands, the Central Coast Harvest Festival, Bellingen, the Collectors Plant Fairs — where the family exhibits and sells directly to enthusiasts. When the gates do open at Somersby, entry and parking are free, dogs on leads are welcome, and the nursery sits in full sun like a small public park rather than a retail strip. Ruth and Peter also run hands-on workshops timed to the open days — succulent planting, dried wildflower wreaths, air-plant gardens, organic and edible growing with turmeric and taro among the seasonal produce — pitched as much toward teaching propagation and craft as toward selling stock. It rewards those willing to check the calendar and make the trip.