The Tree Nursery in Your Portfolio

The Praskac family has lived by one saying for generations: “The best tree nurseries have the biggest manure piles.” After all, not every tree develops as planned. Only those with high standards and the discipline to sort rigorously can offer their customers the best quality in the end. The rest ends up on the manure pile and simply does not get sold.

Praskac Pflanzenland has now been around for 150 years and is run by the fifth generation of gardeners. Over time, an enormous amount of knowledge and experience has been passed down within the entrepreneurial family. At a joint Gutmann-Praskac event, we had the opportunity to explore the 80-hectare grounds under the expert guidance of Johannes Praskac.

Caring for Plants and Wealth

It did not take long for us to find parallels between a tree nursery and an investment portfolio. In private portfolios, investors are often quick to take profits while holding on to losses for too long. The result is that the prettiest flowers get picked too soon while the weeds keep getting watered. That is a poor strategy for both your portfolio and your garden.

At the end of my short talk, a saying came to mind: “Grass does not grow any faster if you pull on it.” Some things simply take time. The magic of compound interest needs many years before its impact becomes truly noticeable. And Managing Director Wolfgang Praskac and his son Johannes continue to find new ways to deliver top quality to their customers.

Sustainability comes naturally when, after five generations, you are already thinking about the next one. Anyone who plans on that kind of time horizon is unlikely to be tempted to pull on the grass.

Dinosaurs in the Garden

What particularly surprised me was that Praskac actually has living fossils growing in its nursery. The ginkgo tree has existed on our planet largely unchanged for around 200 million years. It forms its own group of plants and belongs to neither the deciduous nor the coniferous trees. So a ginkgo in the garden is more than something unique. It connects us with the age of the dinosaurs.

Whenever we immerse ourselves in a new world, we learn something. At first, it may seem to have little to do with what we ourselves do. Over time, though, connections begin to emerge, and they help us become better within our own circle of competence. I look forward to discovering many more worlds and putting down a few more roots along the way.