Our History

The History of Clover Nursery and Clover Seed

The Clover Nursery has been rooted in Wong Chuk Hang for almost a century.  Mr. Andrew Tse, the founder of Clover Seed purchased the current address in 1929 to establish a farm out of his passion towards gardening. Vegetables and flowers were grown for household supply, but he intended to obtain high quality seeds from local market, but also high quality and wide varieties of seeds from other countries. As one of the first persons who introduced high quality seeds from western countries, Andrew started to expand his interests from personal hobby to develop seed retail and wholesale business targeting local Hong Kong gardeners. During the time in 1950s and 1960s, seed trading flourished rapidly in Hong Kong, and Clover Seed became known as a seed company providing high quality flower seeds. Meanwhile, the company also began to establish partnerships with the major international seed breeding companies in Japan, the US and Europe.

In 1967, Andrew Tse sent his son, Anthony Tse, to the University of California at Davis to study Horticulture. Anthony Tse returned in 1975 with a doctorate in Plant Physiology and took over Clover Seed later on. Apart from the existing trading business of seed importing and exporting, contract production with overseas seed company to produce high quality hybrid seeds in China was also started in the mid-1980s. Since 1990s, Clover Seed has also started to develop its own vegetable and flower varieties through Conventional Breeding Method. Our customers include East and Southeast Asia, but also receives interest from customers in Europe and America. This Hong Kong Clover Seed Online Retail established in 2020 is aimed for Hong Kong local farmers and home gardeners.

Company mission of Clover Seed

• Providing high quality seeds through integration of traditional farming knowledge and science, ensuring quality of seeds through new testing technology
  
  
• Ensuring that seeds provided to farmers are at their highest quality, in order to increase the efficiency of farmers to secure their income and quality of life

 

Test Planting of Lettuce in 1930s

New Paris Farm, now part of Ocean Park