Meet the CH of CHBotanics 🌱

Hi, I'm Cathy Hawley — gardener, plant nerd, seed collector, and the heart behind CHBotanics Seeds.

My love of growing started as a little girl in Northern England, helping my mother in the garden. It was she who first showed me the quiet magic of propagation — the wonder of a seed becoming something beautiful. That magic never left me.

Over the years, life took me on quite a journey. I trained in social care, married my lovely husband Mel, and together we raised two children. Twenty years ago we made the leap to New Zealand when the kids were young teens — and I signed up to study horticulture almost immediately. Before I even finished that course, Mel and I had set up our own gardening and landscaping business, which we ran for many years.

Always drawn to beauty in growing things, I went on to complete a floristry course, managed the gardens at a large show garden, and eventually helped open a boutique plant nursery — a place where I truly came alive. Overseeing production, creating seasonal timelines, sourcing seeds from across the world, and watching them grow into beautiful sellable plants on a grand scale — that was my purpose.

It was also during some of the harder years — illness, recovery, the quiet of Covid — that my passion for plants became my reason to keep going. I created kokedamas and succulent designs, continued collecting, and kept sowing. Through it all, I realised that propagation had always been my favourite part of horticulture.

CHBotanics Seeds is the natural next chapter — a small, intentional business built on a lifetime of growing knowledge, a deep love of heirloom cottage garden flowers and vegetables, and seeds carefully curated from around the world. We hope you enjoy growing them as much as we have loved finding and packing them for you.

I'm a crafter at heart, and every seed packet you receive has been made by hand — by me and Mel (short for Melvin, but only his mum calls him that... 😂). The packets are intentionally small, with seed quantities to match, because we believe in growing thoughtfully — designed for home gardeners and small-scale growers, with a genuine mind on reducing waste. Nothing here is mass-produced, and that's exactly how we like it.

I'm also a follower of Jesus and you'll find scripture woven into our seed packet labels because that's simply who I am. ✝️

Every seed we sell carries a little piece of that story. I hope it brings as much joy to your garden as it does to mine.

Love, Cathy 😊🌱