The gardening season is in full swing, and you might be ready to buy some plants to grow at home. Mail order nurseries offer the best of convenience. Whilst I represent a selected range of products in my QVC shows, there’s also a wider world of small scale growers in the UK.
These independent nurseries really know their stuff, and are often selling unique varieties. These nurseries particularly need supporting through difficult times. Many of them offer a mail order service too. So here’s a selection of them, offering everything from herbs to Hoya! You can discover even more nurseries, mail order or call-in only, by visiting the Indie Plant Guide online.
A long respected herb nursery in the South Downs with 200 different varieties, all are grown naturally for optimum garden establishment. Prices start at just £3 each. The choice of many landscapers, garden designers and flower farmers, visit their website here.
If you’re short of space, you might want to plant a miniature garden, and that’s where alpines are ideal! Border Alpines have a wealth of experience, and the plants are arranged by colour on the website, which is super cool and unique. Check it out here.
- Oxalis versicolor Golden Cape
- Corydalis Blue Line
A website where you’ll want to buy everything, carnivorous plant fan or not! Excellent photos and a fair share of the plants are their own breeding too! Visit the website now.
A nursery specialising in the very best plants for bees! Plants are grown peat-free and pesticide-free, and there’s plenty of tips and useful research on the site too. Discover the Top 30 plants for bees. Orders taken online only, shop now.
A nursery right up a plant geek’s street! Chock full of amazing and rare plants, Growild sell seeds and plants, and have the most sumptuous Begonias. Hold me back! Shop their amazing range now.
- Taraxacum leucanthum
- Impatiens pianmaensis CHB14.CH21
- Dianthus superbus var. longicalycinus ‘Deep Colour Form’
- Begonia sp. Michael Wickenden collection U614
A nursery based in the heart of Norfolk, and with years of show display experience. They really know their stuff when it comes to Clematis, and have some of the newest varieties. Shop the range now.
- Clematis Meghan
- Clematis triternata Rubromarginata
- Clematis Innocent Blush
- Clematis Lemon Beauty
Specialists in snowdrops of all forms, this brilliant nursery is family-run and has a passion for small bulbs. Ideal for troughs, small gardens or cute little pots- Daffodils in miniature, choice Erythronium, and so much more! Browse now!
- Galanthus ‘Don Armstrong’
- Narcissus ‘Elka’
- Erythronium dens-canis ‘White Splendour’
- Erythronium multiscapideum Cliftonii Group
A family run nursery, current owners David & Emma took over the business in 1994 to save it from closure. They specialise in Dianthus, offering over 400 different varieties under one roof! However, you can also browse over 600 varieties of Pelargonium, a huge range of succulents, and many other plant species. Visit their online shop here.
Don’t forget to check out all the other nurseries by visiting the ‘Indie Plant Guide’ website, click here.

Michael has been involved with gardening and plants since he was just five years old. He is a self-professed Plant Geek, and was listed in the Sunday Times top 20 most influential people in the gardening world, thanks to his plant hunter role at Thompson & Morgan.
Michael was responsible for new plant introductions such as the Egg and Chips plant and the FuchsiaBerry and keeps busy travelling the world in search of new plants as well as lecturing worldwide, including stints in Japan. He is very active on social media – so why not give him a follow at @mr_plantgeek or Facebook – and writes a plant-focused Substack called Grow This, Not That.