Nursery
You can order plants online using our online shop or Download the catalogue here and email your list to [email protected] or tel: 01797 254044 (direct line).
Postage and packing charges for orders up to £100 are £10. For orders over £100, we charge £15. Please see our terms of business for more details concerning plant mail orders.
The Nursery was started by Christopher Lloyd in 1954, specialising in plants he deemed garden-worthy. This is a charming part of Great Dixter with wooden potting sheds now housing the Nursery shop. We remain a small, personal, and professional nursery. When Christopher first started the Nursery he used cold frames and glasshouses, we still raise plants using these methods today.
We are proud to make our own peat free compost, based on the John Innes formula. Sterilised loam, grit, composted bark, and fertilizer are the ingredients we use. We have been peat-free for about 10 years. Our loam is turf collected from surrounding fields which are cut, stacked, and left to mature, before being tilled, graded, and sterilised.
Our compost is neither cheap nor quick to produce, but we firmly believe in its superiority over peat or similar composts for the following reasons:
- Plants establish themselves more easily in the garden. Because our compost mirrors garden soil, plants raised by us do not experience the trauma of having to make the transition from a pampered life growing in a soft rootzone to the reality of life in ‘real’ soil. Plants in our compost grow tougher and are better prepared for garden situations.
- Loam contains natural nutrients and trace elements essential for healthy plant growth.
- There is a better drainage/moisture retention balance.
- It is much easier to re-wet if it dries out.
The nursery is open throughout the year, to everyone, not only visitors to Great Dixter House and Gardens. There is no entrance charge
Parking is located at the northwest perimeter of the Nursery. From here the Nursery may be accessed directly. The nearby Great Dixter Shop is ideally located for garden-related products, gifts, locally made products, and refreshments.
