Nearly 150 years of nursery history

Johannes von Ehren (1832-1906)

The history of the Lorenz von Ehren nursery began in 1865, in Nienstedten, close to the centre of Hamburg. This is where the company founder, Johannes von Ehren (1832-1906), son of a captain, learned the gardener’s craft at the excellent nursery of James Booth. His years of learning and travelling led him throughout Germany and Europe until, in 1865, he decided to establish his own company and leased a small plot from Baron Jenisch.

Local demand for trees from the wealthy residents of Hamburg coupled with the start of an economic upturn helped Johannes von Ehren to successfully start his business. By 1872 the nursery was delivering plants to Potsdam, and in 1875 to Copenhagen.

In 1883, Johannes’ only son, Lorenz von Ehren I (1867-1948) began an apprenticeship in the Forstecker nurseries near Kiel, intent on following in his father’s footsteps. In 1898, Lorenz von Ehren took over the business, and soon the nursery earned an international reputation with trees being despatched to the royal palaces in the United Kingdom, Denmark and Prussia (1914) as well as to the Tsar in St. Petersburg (1912).

During this time, the Von Ehren Nursery started to develop a speciality: the cultivation and sale of large specimen trees and shrubs. Extracts from the old order books in the archives include large birches for Jenischpark in Hamburg, Paulownias for the Arboretum of the Baroness von Donner and large Thujas for the Italian garden of Max Warburg.

During World War I, foreign trade collapsed. After the war, when inflation was under control, by the beginning of the 1920s, business began to flourish again. In the early 1940s, the third generation of the Von Ehren family, the brothers Johannes von Ehren II (1899-1982) and Lorenz von Ehren II (1906-1982) took over the management. During World War II only fruit and vegetables were allowed to be cultivated on the nursery’s land, and just a few of the most valuable trees and shrubs could be kept. By the end of the war only a small fraction of the former diversity of plants was left, and in the following years the nursery had to import trees and plants of all kinds and sizes from reputable nurseries in Europe and USA to satisfy the growing demand in Germany.

Lorenz von Ehren III, Bernd von Ehren

At the beginning of the 1960s, the fourth generation, Lorenz von Ehren III (*1937) and Bernd von Ehren (*1938) joined the family business. Following the tradition, they also did a gardening apprenticeship in a nursery before years of study and travel in Europe and US. After the opening of the "Elbtunnel" the first nursery sites south of the river Elbe were cultivated. A branch of the nursery was established in Bad Zwischenahn in 1965, this site being developed as a centre for topiary and specimen evergreens. In 1994, the main nursery and the company headquarters were relocated from Nienstedten to a larger site at Hamburg-Marmstorf south of river Elbe.

The fifth generation Katharina von Ehren (*1966) and Bernhard von Ehren (*1972), together with Konrad Parloh, have succeeded their predecessors as the acting managing directors, and like them, they also trained in nursery management and economic studies before they joined the company.