The nurseryman's nursery

Tilly Ware visits Marchants Hardy Plants in East Sussex, one of the most beautifully designed and horticulturally significant nurseries in the country

- Tilly Ware

MARCHANTS HARDY PLANTS is quietly tucked away on a small Sussex lane, the two-acre site drifting gently into surrounding farmland and the distant smudge of the South Downs. It looks unassuming, yet this nursery is extraordinary. Marchants does not offer a mail-order service; you must visit in person and, pushing through the small gate, you are instantly wrapped in colour, vigour and exuberance that would rival a flower show. There are no militaristic alphabetical rows, no forlorn-looking imports. The brick raised beds, about knee height, are stacked with flowering plants in generous pots, artfully put together for contrast in colour, form and texture: a golden Calamagrostis brachytricha interlaces fingers with Oenothera lindheimeri, as crimson tips of Panicum virgatum ‘Shenandoah’ pick out the deep red in Persicaria ‘Blackfield’ and Sanguisorba ‘Cangshan Cranberry’. Each grouping is guided by conditions the plants prefer and companions with which they might happily live.

Towards the back of the nursery is a striking shade area built in oak, where a bevy of mouthwatering ferns jostles for space. There are more than 600 varieties of plant on offer and, astonishingly, every single one is propagated on site from the billowing garden that slopes south-west from the nursery area. If you are wondering how tall your Pennisetum ‘Black Beauty’ might become, simply wander down the grassy paths between the curving beds and there it is, waving at you.