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Fernwick

Since 2014

A nursery in the Lea Valley

Two polytunnels, one glasshouse, and eleven people who would rather grow plants than import them.

Palms and ferns filling the Fernwick glasshouse

Fernwick began in 2014 with one leaking polytunnel and a stubborn conviction that the houseplant trade had gone wrong somewhere. Most plants sold in Britain are grown in Holland, shipped hard, and sold within a fortnight by people who have never seen them growing. They look magnificent for a month and then decline for reasons nobody in the chain can explain.

We grow ours here, slowly, in less heat than is ideal. That makes them shorter and stockier than the imported equivalent, and considerably tougher. A Fernwick monstera will not be the biggest plant on the shelf. It will be the one still alive next year.

Everything is peat-free — we stopped in 2019, two years before we had to — and pots are recycled and re-used. We are not carbon neutral and we are not going to claim it.

Founded
2014, Lea Valley
Growing under
Two polytunnels, one glasshouse
People
Eleven, six of them growers
Species in stock
Around 140 at any time
Compost
Peat-free since 2019
Open to visit
Saturdays, 9am–4pm

01

Grown here, not imported

Every plant on the site was raised at this nursery. If we ever have to buy one in, the listing says so.

02

Honest difficulty ratings

We would rather lose a sale than sell you a calathea for a north-facing hallway.

03

Thirty-day guarantee

If it fails in the first month we replace it and ask what happened, because it usually teaches us something.

Visit us

Address
Fernwick Nursery, Marsh Lane
Lea Valley, London E10
Saturdays
9am – 4pm, no appointment
Weekdays
Trade and wholesale by arrangement
Telephone
020 7946 0132

Ask a grower