Gardener's World 1994
by Katherine Bradley-Hole

You could be forgiven for thinking at first glance, that we have travelled to a forgotten outpost of the colonies for this month's visit. And that is precisely the illusion that the owner of this nursery intended. Angus White is the proprietor of one of Britain's most unusual nurseries, based in the delightful, but not especially, oak wooded jungles of the Sussex Weald.

As visitors come through the gate into the informal car park, they are greeted by the tin-roofed timber office, outside of which a group of plants is arranged that would not look out of place in the palm house of Kew Gardens. Huge-leaved banana plants or spiky cordylines on tall stems are frequently placed as sentries by the doorway. Around them displays of fan palms, yuccas, agaves and bamboos are arranged.

After seven years of surrounding himself with spiky palms and yuccas, White is now extending his range to include other plants he finds particularly interesting, such as hardy evergreen trees. His stock consists chiefly of broad-leaved species, plus some interesting pines and pencil-thin cypresses evocative of Mediterranean gardens.

"Yuccas and spiky palms are all jolly good fun," says White, "But increasingly, I am drawn to the less well-known hardy trees that nobody seems to grow." These include Phillvrea latifolia, which bears some resemblance to the evergreen oak, Quercus ilex, but smaller in maturity. Also the hybrid strawberry tree, Arbutus x andrachnoides, with its attractive bark. "I also want to try and grow large specimens of the Mount Etna Broom, Genista aetnensis. You can't buy it anywhere, but it makes a marvellous specimen tree," says White.

From the start, White found a kindred spirit in Peter Tindley, an experienced horticulturist who had spent 15 years propagating rare plants from the temperate glass houses at Kew Gardens. Tindley joined White in his new venture 7 years ago, and most of the current stock, which numbers around 35,000 container-grown plants, has been propagated on site, although some large specimen plants are imported from Italy.

Large greenhouses are home to a huge selection of conservatory plants. These include succulent aeoniums hailing from Madeira and the Canary Islands, the blue hesper palm, Brahea armata, from the Mexican desert and Puva alpestris from the high Andes, bearing spiky, prickly leaves.

A display garden opposite the glasshouses demonstrates an impressive mix of bamboos, eucalyptus trees, fan palms. phormiums and various other plants that live outdoors happily all year-round, through rain, shine and snow.

Beyond this, the children's play area, complete with a colonial style miniature house, makes family visits to the nursery much more tolerable for all involved.

Many of the nursery's plants are particularly well suited to town and city gardens. The strong, structured forms compliment the architecture of house walls and garden terraces, and plants with particularly striking foliage have the ability to make an impact in even the most confined spaces. A bonus for city gardeners is that the reflected heat that radiates from house walls is beneficial to the more tender plant species when spring and autumn nights are cool.

Since my first visit to White's nursery back in 1990, I have noticed the stock, and consequently the nursery's mail-order catalogue, growing steadily. Clearly, there are plenty of adventurous gardeners out there who are ready to pick up White's challenge to grow something exotic. The catalogue is certainly descriptive enough to tempt even the fainthearted.