IT’S not often you find yourself examining a car-park planting scheme, but at The Plant Specialist nursery in Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire, the beds are charming and a sure sign of the horticultural delights to come. The plant sales/ reception area is also cleverly designed, with a low wooden building opening out on both sides to stock displays: on the left are row upon row of sun-lovers, helpfully listed from A-Z; to the right, a large slatted structure houses shady plants. Around the rest of the 4½-acre site, variously sized beds show how the plants can be used in dynamic combinations and, tucked in a far corner, are working areas for propagation and growing on.
Co-owner Sean Walter conceived the idea when visiting Hadspen in Somerset in the mid 1990s, when it was overseen by acclaimed horticulturalists Sandra and Nori Pope; the latter sadly died last year. ‘It was a real lightbulb moment,’ says Sean. ‘It was all absolutely gorgeous: they’d created a beautiful garden, were selling plants they grew there and were running it all themselves. I realised it was exactly what I wanted to do.’
​A native of South Africa, Sean came to Britain in 1990, aged 23, backpacking. Having always been a keen gardener, he got a job at Fulham Palace garden centre, London SW6, and unexpectedly stayed for six years, devoting the second to taking a design course at the English Gardening School. ‘It enabled me to get a sense of what I knew and how to operate professionally.’
This story is from the March 04, 2020 edition of Country Life UK.
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This story is from the March 04, 2020 edition of Country Life UK.
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