Bedding in

In just under nine years, the owners of Arvensis Nursery in Wiltshire have created a mature garden that displays their high-quality perennials

- JONNY BRUCE

Walking through the vibrant stock beds and ordered rows of pots at Arvensis Perennials, it is remarkable to realise how Gussy and Rob Macdougall have transformed this windswept four-and-a-half-acre site just north of Bradfordon-Avon in Wiltshire. In August 2015, the pair spent three weeks on the road, camping and visiting gardens and nurseries, looking for inspiration and somewhere to set up their own business.

It was master grower Marina Christopher who tipped them off about the sale of Evolution Plants, the nursery of plant explorer Tom Mitchell. By October they had bought it. Tom had invested substantially in the site, creating terraces and stock beds and adding potting sheds, polytunnels and a – not inexpensive – Hartley Botanic glasshouse. Although, inevitably, they inherited some problems, Rob explains that having the infrastructure in place “really helped us to hit the ground running.”

The pair brought with them a wealth of knowledge, partly cultivated during their time with Chris and Toby Marchant at Orchard Dene Nurseries, which closed in 2019. Arvensis operates on a similar model, working closely with designers and seeking to bridge the gap between wholesale and specialist nurseries. It offers a palette of naturalistic plants, with plenty of grasses, that lends itself to the “meadowy aesthetic” of contemporary designers. In contrast to Tom Mitchell’s collection of rare and hard-to-grow plants, Gussy and Rob prefer a range of “good-doers”. However, they are always on the lookout to ensure their assortment contains innovative cultivars, such as the delicate golden form of eyebrow grass, Bouteloua gracilis ‘Blonde Ambition’ or the recent selection of Verbena x baileyana ‘Purple Haze’ (akin to a tall Verbena officinalis ‘Bampton’) found in the garden of Malcolm Allison of Malcolm Allison Plants.