A previous employee at the site ordered the plants. There wasn't any point cancelling the order given that the nursery had spent the last 6 months growing the plants for us from seed that was sent to them from said employee.
I managed to find places for at least 70% of the plants. The remainder will probably end up at the tip which is a little sad. But at a cost of around $250 per hour to put the plants in the ground there's no point spending even more time trying to find homes for them.