Every year at the Garden Museum Spring Plant Fair, we gather expert plant growers and specialist nurseries from around the country to sell some of the best garden plants you’ll find in London.
From shade specialists to plants for pollinators, meet the growers and pick their brains on what will flourish in your garden, balcony or allotment. Stalls at this year’s fair will include Great Dixter Nursery and Beth Chatto’s Plants & Gardens, providing a rare opportunity for Londoners to shop garden plants grown by these beloved and historic nurseries.
Programme curated by Susanna Grant, garden designer and founder of Hackney-based shade specialist plant shop Hello There Linda.
Programme
Willow Climber Making
10.30am: Book Tickets
Have a go at making your own willow plant climber to take home. You will learn about the different types of willow to use, two different styles of weaving and aftercare. Weaving is calming, therapeutic and productive so come and join us in the wonderfully Dan Pearson-designed Healing Garden in Old Paradise Gardens across the road from the Garden Museum for a couple of hours of obelisk weaving.
Zophian Plants: on leaving London and setting up a nursery
11am: Book Tickets
Toby Shuall left London for East Sussex in 2020 with four van loads of plants to begin his long time desire to open a nursery. Inspired by his observations of the drought tolerance of certain plants left to fend for themselves in neglected parks he started propagating at home in Peckham. Zophian Plants now grow a unique collection of adaptable perennials, all grown in peat-free, sand-based mediums, that can cope with changing conditions, especially drought.
Benny Hawksbee on Plants for Solitary Bees
12.15pm: Book Tickets
The importance of plants for pollinators in urban environments is vital. This talk will help you understand which plants to choose, the wide variety of pollinators, the importance of providing food and habitat for solitary bees and a basic solitary bee ID so you can spot any that come to your garden.
Starting Seeds Workshop
2pm: Book Tickets
Often the sowing of these tiny pips gets unnecessarily overcomplicated. Let’s go over the basics of effective sourcing, seed sowing, pricking out, growing on, and saving seeds plus take home a small pot of seeded joy. Essential for anyone who wants to start growing, even in a tiny space, or just to refresh yourself with the fundamentals of successful sowing.
Stalls include
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Great Dixter Nursery
Great Dixter Nursery
We are delighted to welcome Great Dixter Nursery to this year's Spring Plant Fair! The Nursery team will be bringing a selection of garden plants grown at Great Dixter's on-site nursery, a rare opportunity to buy these plants in London.
The Nursery was started by Christopher Lloyd in 1954, specialising in plants he deemed garden-worthy. We remain a small, personal and professional nursery. -
Beth Chatto's Plants & Gardens
Beth Chatto's Plants & Gardens
Beth Chatto’s has been propagating plants since the 1960’s, from our garden and nursery in Essex. Now over 2,000 varieties of plants are available, spanning sunny to shady locations and dry to damp conditions, mainly herbaceous perennials, but with a selection of bulbs and shrubs.
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Kew Plantsman
Kew Plantsman
Professional plantsman Matthew Spratt will be selling rare and unusual perennials, shrubs, grasses, bamboo, species fuchsia and potted herbs.
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Vegelicious of Hadleigh & Benton Irises
Vegelicious of Hadleigh & Benton Irises
Herbaceous and Tender Perennials, Benton Irises and Cedric Morris Plants all grown in our Nursery in rural Suffolk.
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Moore & Moore
Moore & Moore
Specialising in choice, unusual, and rare plants for shady places, they also have an interesting and select collection of plants which will attract pollinators to your garden.
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Zophian
Zophian
Zophian Plants is a new nursery specialising in drought tolerant adaptable perennials, building up collection of low maintenance long flowering plants and experimenting with growing in sand based mediums and peat free compost.
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Garden & Wood
Garden & Wood
Vintage garden tools, furniture and ephemera
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Erith Exchange + Friends of Arnold Circus
Erith Exchange + Friends of Arnold Circus
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Marchants Hardy Plants
Marchants Hardy Plants
Recognised as one of the UKs leading independent nursery and gardens, Marchants Hardy Plants are proud to be a nursery that propagates and grows all their plants on-site using peat-free compost.
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Donkey Works Ltd
Donkey Works Ltd
We make Donkey Gloves, and other gardening tools designed by Clare Cook, horticulturist and ex-Blue Peter Gardener. Most profits go to Clare’s Farm, a private animal sanctuary in Devon.
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Mud Ltd
Mud Ltd
Home grown peat free perennials.
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John Cullen Gardens Ltd
John Cullen Gardens Ltd
Plants for pollinators, culinary & medicinal herbs, National Collection of Achillea millefolium.
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Royal Entomological Society
Royal Entomological Society
We are a charity with a vision to enrich the world with insect science. We engage with people of all ages to show them how remarkable and valuable insects are, through our outreach and education programmes, our garden in Stratford, East London, and our partnerships including Seedball. As a learned society, we support entomologists worldwide through grants and awards, publications, events and policy work.
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Sowvital
Sowvital
At Sowvital we are all about the care and wellbeing of plants. Our products are created with practicality, durability and style as key features.
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Leahurst Nursery
Leahurst Nursery
Leahurst Nurseries is a 70-year-old local plant nursery, based in Barnet. We specialise in perennials, ground ferns and grasses, growing many plants from seeds and cuttings. For the last 25 years we have traded at Columbia Rd Flower Market.
