Hill Nurseries Ltd was founded in 1994 by the son of a local farmer based in Hastings New Zealand. Graeme Hill had graduated from Massey University and after spending a number of years working for the family business, he decided to follow his passion and get into growing seedling vegetables.

Known then as the "Fruit Bowl" of New Zealand, the local growing area was home to one of New Zealand's most successful canneries - J Wattie Foods Ltd - now known as Heinz Wattie. It was for this cannery that Graeme set up his nursery for, to grow tomato transplants required for the production of one of the canneries most successful products - Watties Tomato Sauce.

Since that time, Hill Nurseries Ltd has grown to the size it is today, and now produces over 30 million seedlings each year for a range of customers located around New Zealand. Under Graeme's guidance, the company now proudly produces all the tomato transplants required today by Heinz Wattie and their team of growers - cementing a long and successful relationship with one of New Zealand's most successful brands. In addition, the nursery now produces a wide variety of vegetable seedlings for other commercial growers, including lettuce, leek, celery, melon, broccoli, cabbage, and cauliflower to name a few.

The nursery also produces a variety of native seedlings - mainly produced for other large native seedling suppliers. Forestry seedlings including eucalyptus and manuka are also produced on a large scale for bigger corporate forestors.