A contractor carrying out a landscaping project does not want to source trees, shrubs, and forest and hedging plants from different suppliers. To handle this properly, you need to be able to provide a complete package. Laura van Overbeek sees this every day. For her and Maarten van Overbeek, this is an important reason for Overbeek Bomen to focus more explicitly on the public space market. The company’s own trees remain the foundation, but the assortment is being broadened, while Thomas de Ruiter brings twenty years of experience in this market to the company.

“A contractor responsible for planting wants one collection point or one truck for the entire delivery,” says Laura van Overbeek. “Customers no longer want to travel all over the country to collect everything they need. Time and transport have become increasingly expensive.”

This is the business rationale behind the expansion. The company’s own trees remain the foundation, but the company wants to be able to supply everything required for a project. For customers, this means fewer suppliers and fewer transport movements.

Scaling for possibilities
With the acquisition of part of Johan van Overbeek’s nursery, the area operated by Overbeek Bomen has grown to approximately 110 hectares. This has also further broadened the assortment.

The former name Boomkwekerij Maarten van Overbeek had already been replaced by Overbeek Bomen. “It is no longer just Maarten,” says Laura van Overbeek. “We have built the team so that we do it together.”

This larger scale creates room to look beyond production at the company’s own nursery. Where necessary, its own assortment is supplemented with shrubs and forest and hedging plants, among other products. This also brings projects into view that require a much broader package than trees alone.

Advice becomes part of the package
But the public space market requires more than a wide assortment. De Ruiter also brings specific knowledge of this market to the company. In public and large-scale landscaping projects, plant selection starts with the location where the greenery ultimately needs to perform. Soil type, available root space, above-ground growing space, climate and future maintenance all help determine which species and cultivars are suitable.

With around twenty years of experience in this market, De Ruiter can contribute ideas about planting at an early stage of a project. This broadens the role of Overbeek Bomen: not only supplying what is on a list, but, wherever possible, also advising on what can actually thrive in a particular location.

A different market
The public space market also operates differently from traditional trade between tree nurseries. In a smaller municipality, one manager may be responsible for a large part of the green space portfolio. In a large municipality, design, management and procurement are often divided among several people.

Specifications, tenders and project-based deliveries also play a greater role.
De Ruiter’s experience in this field fits with an ambition that had already existed within the company for some time.

“Maarten wanted to further develop and optimise the company, but also expand into a different customer group,” says De Ruiter. “Not just focus on exports and business-to-business. That is how we started talking to each other.”

The public space market therefore becomes an additional sales market alongside the company’s existing trade and exports.

GrootGroenPlus remains an important trading platform
Traditional tree nursery trade and exports will meanwhile remain the company’s main business.

GrootGroenPlus continues to be an important platform in this respect. Overbeek Bomen has exhibited there for many years and is very satisfied with the trade fair. For the company, GGP is primarily a relationship-building and trading event where growers, existing customers and international contacts meet around the start of the new trading season.

That existing foundation will therefore not change. What is changing is that the market alongside it is becoming broader. One time it may involve a batch of trees from the company’s own nursery; another time, it may be a project that also requires shrubs and forest and hedging plants. And increasingly, the initial enquiry may come before the final planting list has even been drawn up.
Ultimately, Laura van Overbeek sums up the development much more simply: “The customer just wants one address for the entire delivery.”