#Shopsmall: Five Great Garden Centres and Nurseries
- by Lianne Westwood
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It's no secret that we love house plants and gardening almost as much as we love interior design.
And you know we love to support fellow small businesses and indie stores. So it seemed an obvious theme for my occasional #shopsmall series on the blog. Now we have a pretty good selection of houseplants, plant pots and plant accessories including such brands as Burgon and Ball and Pepin. But we are not strictly a garden centre or nursery, and sometimes you just need more plants in your life, so here are five of my favourite small independent plant shops:
I came across Soto at the beginning of the summer when I needed to upgrade a few of my gardening tools, and as I've mentioned previously I try and shop with fellow small businesses where I can. I was so impressed with this company. The website is stylish and easy to use. The branding and service are spot on, and they provide a pretty unique offering, whereby they intend to inspire your horticultural journey, make it easy to find the type of plants and/or accessories suitable for your own garden, deliver what you've chosen and also supply step by step guidance in how best to care for your new plant friends. I cannot recommend these enough!
This used to be my closest garden centre back when we lived in South East London. And what a magical place it is! Nestled in some railway arches close to Nunhead Station, there's both an outdoor gardening section and an undercover house plant bit. But worry not if you're not a South East Londoner. They deliver next day to the rest of London for £4.99.
Local to me now that I'm in Suffolk, Urban Jungle have two plant nurseries, in Beccles on the Norfolk/Suffolk border and close to Norwich in Norfolk. Both have a jungle cafe and both are a pretty special place to wander around. If it's less inspiration you want, and more plants to buy, then their full range is available to be delivered UK wide from the website.
One of (if not the) first online plant shops and now something of a giant compared to the newer companies, Patch revolutionized the online plant offering, making it easy to both find exactly what plant you were looking for, but also suggesting which plant(s) would be best for you depending on your conditions. They give their botanical friends names and human personalities and suggest pots to dress them in. There's also lot of useful information on how to best care for your new green family members.
Not strictly a small indie company, I've included Sarah Raven as they recently became a B Corp which is the next best thing to shopping small, as they've been certified as taking care of both their staff and the wider environment. So whilst not giving your hard earned cash to a small family run business, you're giving it to a company that has high social and environmental values. We think that's pretty impressive. Despite all this, shopping with Sarah Raven is like shopping with one of the massive garden nurseries or chain stores. They have everything!
Let me know your favourite small plant shops and nurseries!
