Sunday Times 2001

Diane Baistow

Angus White, the founder of Architectural Plants, has a mission: to introduce exotic plants to this country that will survive the 'British winter.' He has been spectacularly successful, and the colonial-style office in his nursery in Nuthurst, Sussex is surrounded by the theatrical silhouettes of palms, giant ferns, spiky agaves, sculpted hollies and swaying bamboos.

Devoted to evergreen architectural plants with a distinctive year-round presence, the nursery has been highly influential in the new exoticism that has crept in to garden design, not least by way of the witty and informative comments in its catalogue.

White says that 'some plants are born architectural, others have architecture thrust upon them.' The first are true exotics - plants with spikes, huge leaves and outrageous flowers, such as agaves, yuccas, palms, bananas and bamboos. The second group consists of subtle European shrubs and trees that can be clipped into balls, lollipops and pyramids, and includes box, Portuguese laurel, evergreen oak, holly and yew. Eastern plants such as cloud-pruned Japanese holly and pine create an instant oriental effect.

The aesthetically arranged nursery reveals a huge diversity of foliage: Arbutus andrachnoides, the red-barked strawberry tree, has winter flowers and remarkable bark; the beautiful blue-green rosette of Agave attenuata is a stylised succulent; delicate spires of Italian cypress Cupressus sempervirens, contrast with the huge-leaved foxglove tree, Paulownia tomentosa; and dangerous spikes of Dasylirion acrotrichum with the fronds of Trachycarpus fortunei, the chusan palm.

To be successful with architectural plants means being ruthlessly selective. A "traffic-light system" of labelling at the nursery indicates frost hardiness: green means hardy in Britain, amber means hardy in the home counties if sensibly sited, and red means a plant will survive only on Western coasts, in large cities and conservatories. But, whether the aim is an urban jungle, a Mediterranean courtyard or a rural rainforest, give these plants space - they are drama queens.