Whether you’re adding to a growing indoor jungle or potting colourful blooms on your patio, you can always rely on plants for a pick-me-up. And the UK’s many garden centres, plant shops and nurseries are there to help make all your green dreams come true.
Now the Daily Mail has revealed which garden centres it believes to be the very best in the country. It ranked each place based on their plant selection, houseplant selection, additional items for sale and their restaurants or coffee shops. The garden centres aren’t ranked in order but have all been given an overall score out of 10. Only a few achieved a perfect 10 in the individual categories.
Hillier Garden Centre in Hampshire scored 10 out of 10 for its plant selection, made up of flora, shrubs and trees from the nearby Hillier Nurseries. Pugh’s Garden Village in Cardiff also got the highest score possible for its plants, which are all grown at its own nursery in Caerphilly.
Petersham Nurseries in Richmond, London earned full points for its Michelin-approved restaurant, which serves seasonal food from its own kitchen garden and has been awarded a Michelin Green Star for its sustainability efforts. It was one of two London-based nurseries on the list.
With an ‘elegant shop [that] focuses on high quality and natural textures’, the Duchy of Cornwall Nursery in Lostwithiel, Cornwall earned a 10/10 rating for its additional items on offer and another perfect score for its café and restaurant ‘fit for royalty’. It had highest overall score with 9.5 out of 10.
The top 25 garden centres in the UK, according to the Daily Mail
- Perrywood Garden Centre, Tiptree, Essex
- Notcutts, Woodbridge, Suffolk
- Ruxley Manor, Sidcup, Kent
- Merriments, East Sussex
- Haskins Snowhill, Copthorne, West Sussex
- Hillier Garden Centre, Winchester, Hampshire
- Clifton Nurseries, Maida Vale, London
- Petersham Nurseries, Richmond
- Burford Garden Centre, Oxfordshire
- Bournville Garden Centre, Birmingham
- Bridgemere Garden Centre, Nantwich
- Bents Garden & Home, Warrington
- Barton Grange, Preston
- Fairways Garden Centre, Ashbourne, Derbyshire
- Tong Garden Centre, West Yorkshire
- Cowell’s Garden Centre, Newcastle
- Hayes Garden World, Cumbria
- Pugh’s Garden Village, Cardiff
- The Old Railway Line, Brecon, Powys
- Caulders Mugdock, Milngavie, Glasgow
- Simpsons, Inverness
- Monkton Elm, Taunton, Somerset
- Otter Garden Centre, Ottery Saint Mary, Devon
- Duchy of Cornwall Nursery, Lostwithiel, Cornwall
- Coleman’s Garden Centre, Templepatrick, Northern Ireland
Green Britain and its green spaces
Can’t get enough of flora and fauna? Take a look at the winner of this year’s Britain in Bloom and which magnificent tree was recently crowned the best in the whole country. There’s also the fantastic news that the UK’s tallest bird has fledged in Cambridgeshire for the first time in 400 years, the world’s ‘most dangerous’ bird has hatched in the UK and the UK’s first ever bison bridge is coming to Kent.
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