Our Story

Located in the quiet town of Mattituck, just two hours East of New York City, on the North Fork of Long Island, North Fork Boutique Gardens has found a place to call home. NFBG is a premier wholesale supplier of perennials, grasses, ferns, groundcovers and Northeast natives. Aside from supplying plants to retailers across the Northeast, we specialize in custom grown plant material for both large and small projects. Some of our custom plant material can be found all over the Greater New York City Area in places like the Brooklyn Bridge Park, the Brooklyn Bridge Piers, The United Nations, Pier 26, the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, the Irish Hunger Memorial, and on Roosevelt Island. Our custom plant material can also be found at the Theodore Roosevelt Sanctuary in Oyster Bay, NY and at the WWE Headquarters in Stamford, CT.

Nestled on 17 acres, NFBG resides in the location that was previously known as The Plantage where Lois Woodhull began her career and became one of the most respected perennial pioneers. Working side by side with Lois, Deborah Rodgers began her journey with the nursery. After exploring and succeeding in other career opportunities, Deb eventually made her way back to the property, which she now owns.

In March of 2014 Deb began her adventure in building a boutique style nursery growing specialty perennials, woody ornamentals, grasses, ferns and Northeast Natives. Aside from growing unique and quality plants, Deb also wanted to focus on the customer experience. Developing solid relationships with clients built on trust, loyalty and consistency was her ultimate goal.

Over the next three years, Deb spent her time hiring a team of experts with knowledge and experience in the areas she felt most important, quality plant material and customer service. She selected Kathryn Donoghue, Matthew Purcell and Joshua Scruggs to help make her vision complete. Their areas of expertise include production planning, ornamental horticulture, sales management and customer experience, just to name a few.

Aside from building a team, NFBG has spent the past few years evolving our shipping operation, creating custom retail garden center labels, focusing on growing neonicotinoid free plants and custom growing a variety of unique and rare plant material for large and small projects.

Heading into our eleventh season, NFBG serves over 400 garden centers, landscapers and landscape architects across the Northeast. We have successfully built solid individual relationships with each location we supply and continue to add new clients each week. Additionally, NFBG has become Women Owned Certified in New York State, New York City, New Jersey, Suffolk County, Westchester County, Nassau County, Massachusetts, WBENC, NYC School of Construction Authority and The Port Authority of NY & NJ.

Meet the Team

Deborah Rodgers

Owner/President

Deborah Rodgers

Deb Rodgers’ love affair with the business started many years ago when she worked for the well respected Lois Woodhull, the former owner of the Plantage. Lois built her business and reputation on providing quality products and was recognized as one of the best perennial growers in the region. Deb is now modeling the North Fork Boutique Gardens on the knowledge and teachings of her former mentor.

Deb has a wealth of experience in operating a business and understands the importance of customer service. She has helped grow WRS Environmental Services Company, a family owned business which remediates and restores land and water through out the tri-state area and beyond, serving as Office Manager and Quality Assurance Director. She is also the Owner of the Indy 3000 Inc. family of companies, a woman owned automotive lubrication, NYS inspection and small repair shop servicing the public together with fleet accounts & contracts servicing all county vehicles for over 15 years.

Kathryn Donoghue

Controller

Kathryn Donoghue

After falling in love and moving to the North Fork of Long Island to start a family, Kathryn found herself changing industries and at NFBG. Although she does not come from a horticulture background, she has quickly learned from her expert colleagues.

Prior to NFBG, Kathryn (Kat) for 8 years worked in “High-end” retail, managing multiple stores from Manhattan to The Hamptons developing exceptional customer service skills, visual merchandising, loss prevention, marketing and business etiquette skills. No wonder she was quickly promoted to Executive Manager. If you’ve had the opportunity to chat with Kat at NFBG, you get it.

Now a “local” on the North Fork of Long Island, Kat enjoys spending time with her husband, son and daughter. She enjoys fitness, spending afternoons on the beach or in the woods and every aspect of being a Mom.

Matthew Purcell

Director of Operations

Matthew Purcell

Matt caught the bug early in life starting on a family trip to Sequoia National Park at age three. He assures all this was not a glamping trip, tents up and down every day with his four siblings a schedule like no other, cross country in a two-tone gold and green Dodge van. Whatever it took to reach the next museum, art gallery, statue, campground or national park. He remembers the van driving through the trees as well as running atop those magnificent although fallen trees. The size of the trees was enough to influence his direction in life.

In high school he worked as many hours as he could, around a busy sports schedule, mostly lawn jockey but also on landscape and patio installations. Matt holds a B.S. in Ornamental Horticulture from Delaware Valley College and is a NYS Certified Pesticide Applicator.

Matt has had the pleasure of working in landscape, retail, re-wholesale and wholesale segments of the industry for nearly 30 years and believes a quality first approach is priority one.

Matt built and managed a 20 acre wholesale perennial growing facility from the ground up for the last 18 years, delivering product throughout the northeast. He has assisted in design of custom software packages focusing on customer relationship management, inventory and product availability, order entry and packaging for retail sales.

Although Matt is a workaholic he likes to spend time with his wife and four children on the family land barge, all kidding aside the boat is in the yard more than on the water. Fishing, tubing and sightseeing on the waters off eastern Long Island. No more glamping for him it’s all about the plants and reaching new heights with NFBG.

Joshua Scruggs

Director of Sales and Business Development

Joshua Scruggs

Joshua (Josh) Scruggs is Director of Sales and Business Development. He partners with green industry professionals to ensure that NFBG can fulfill their nursery needs.

Josh has over two decades of green industry experience working in nursery management and operations, as a nursery buyer and in sales for family-run businesses and national corporate nurseries. He believes that customer service and quality plant material are the key to building long-lasting professional relationships.

Josh has a Bachelor of Science degree in Plant Industries Management with an emphasis in horticulture from the University of Minnesota, Crookston, Minn.

He enjoys family time with his wife and two boys and is active in greyhound rescue.

Karen Bassett

Sales Representative

Karen Bassett

Karen’s love of “playing in the dirt” started with a childhood backyard mud kitchen and the scent of honeysuckle, hyacinth, and spearmint from her mother’s garden. She later studied horticulture at SUNY Farmingdale and started out as an herb gardener. Her horticultural interests continued and she refers to herself as a plant addict and amateur entomologist. Perennials and natives are personal favorites and her home gardens are registered on the Pollinator Pathway as well as the Monarch Waystation Program. Karen is a member of the CT Entomological Society and has been known to teach classes about insects to the elementary school kiddos in her town. “The kids always love it when I tell them that dragonflies used to be the size of third graders!”

Prior to joining NFBG, Karen had a successful outside sales career in the travel industry, so providing excellent customer service is second nature. Her love of travel, hiking, kayaking, swimming, or nearly any other outside activity, keeps her smiling. As the most recent recruit, she is thrilled to join the NFBG team and set some roots down with us here.

Originally from Long Island, with lots of family on the North Fork, Karen currently resides in CT with her husband, her son, and a hedgehog named Cali.

Our Story

Aside from building a team, NFBG has spent the past few years evolving our shipping operation, creating custom retail garden center labels, focusing on growing neonicotinoid free plants and custom growing a variety of unique and rare plant material for large and small projects.

Meet the Team

Deborah Rodgers

Kathryn Donoghue

Kathryn Donoghue

Matthew Purcell

Joshua Scruggs

Joshua Scruggs

Karen Bassett

Let’s talk about plants!