The varied range of fine plants offered at Marchants Nursery are propagated from stock plants grown in the Gardens, a rare thing nowadays, hence the Marchants team know intimately both the provenance and growing preferences of all the plants sold on the Nursery.
“Much mulling took place in those early years as we nurtured Marchants into being from an empty field. Our main focus of attention were the South Downs stretched before us, a benign edifice of solid chalk millions of years old, lightly crusted with fine grasses and myriad wild flowers, they were my playground as a child.
When things wavered this ‘noble chain’ proved our constant anchor. Our tenure has now been 27 years giving us a sense of perspective. No one who has passed through here has really been an owner – in the larger scheme we are merely curators making our small mark. Ours too has been made – now is the time to let go and make room for others.
Our first preoccupation was to earn a crust and when there was enough in the kitty, we created greater comfort for ourselves by extending our Victorian labourer’s cottage. Further savings allowed a friend to design and build for us three beautiful buildings, two oak-framed and one in larch. We have now brought into being five buildings including the sensitive restoration of our early 19th C Byre.
These buildings proved the key to how Marchants garden developed, bit by bit, slowly, slowly. After three years’ intensive work, Gardens Illustrated magazine sent photographer Stephen Robson down. He astonished us with images conjured from the little which surrounded him. Ending his session at dusk, he plunged under a black veil to take his last shot with his idiosyncratic plate camera. Marchants’ future was sealed by that one photo. It appeared on the front cover of the Autumn issue of GI in 2000, letting loose the fact that Marchants had arrived. Metaphorically that image has sustained us to this present day.
Marchants was always about being on the cutting edge of plants – herbaceous and grasses principally. We scoured the UK and Europe too for the best varieties adding them to our own selections and home bred forms. Our esoteric annual list grew exponentially, and almost uniquely all plants were propagated from our own garden stock. We were proud of that fact, and it enabled us to gain huge plant knowledge and in turn allowed us to gain the trust of our public.
We have so many people to thank – not least our keen and talented staff – but it is to you, our generous and inquisitive customers who flocked to Marchants as moths to a bright light. Without your support, Marchants could not have existed and it is to you we owe our deep and indebted thanks.
Marchants can now peacefully slip away but be assured its departure does not mark the end of an era. Over the last few years we have witnessed many young talented folk bearing hard-won plantsmanship following in our own footsteps, driven by passion and not by empty materialism. We believe the high standards we set here have inspired them to do the same and it is for them to now carry the mantle. We trust this will prove to be our most enduring and greatest legacy.”
Graham Gough & Lucy Goffin, Marchants Hardy Plants
Following an extraordinary 25+ years developing the garden and nursery Graham and Lucy have decided that they now wish to pursue future challenges and will be advertising the Marchants Gardens & Nursery site for sale.
We want to say a massive thank you all of you, our wonderful customers – thank you for your support, your enthusiasm and your passion for plants. Of course we also want to thank Lucy and Graham for giving us the opportunity to run Marchants over the last three years.
Huge thanks are also due to our amazing team Beccy and Faith, and our brilliant volunteers Debbie, Mick, Wendy, Chris, Frances, Ken, Alan and Martin – and all the people who have helped us over the last few years.
We’re so proud that the garden and nursery are looking so good and that everyone has contributed so much to creating such a successful team.
From Henry, Hannah and Jean, we send our thanks and best wishes to all of you.
“If you were to list nurseries that have influenced the way we garden, Marchants Hardy Plants would surely warrant a mention.” So says Phil Clayton, writing for the September issue of Gardens Illustrated (photographs by Richard Bloom).
“Selling a range of unfussy, unusual perennials – notably grasses – it helped pioneer a continental style of planting adopted, and adapted, by many UK gardeners.
Sincere thanks to Gardens Illustrated (and Phil and Richard) for such an uplifting and inspiring article.
To VIEW and/or PRINT our 2024 PLANT LIST – CLICK HERE
Marchants Plant List – updated June 2024. All Marchants plants are home-grown, so please note that it is NOT possible to have ALL plants listed ready early in the season.
Please note, prices may change according to the pot size. Plants are grown in various pot sizes to suit the plant and stage of growth, therefore throughout the season plants are sometimes potted on, and prices may change accordingly.
We are not able to offer Mail Order – we encourage customers to visit the Nursery, or to collect by arrangement. If you wish to check availability before visiting, do please email: marchantshardyplants@gmail.com
You will find expertise and advice aplenty when you visit this exciting Nursery. Marchants, founded almost 25 years ago, has over the years built a fantastic horticultural reputation. Having taken over the day-to-day management of the Nursery and Gardens from Graham Gough in 2022, Hannah Fox and the skilled Marchants team aim to enhance this reputation further by developing Marchants as a home of learning, skill-sharing and plant knowledge.
Too few places get to know the plants they sell. At Marchants almost everything is propagated from stock plants grown in the garden, hence the team knows intimately both the provenance and preferences of the many rare, unusual and familiar plants grown for the Nursery.
On your visit you may notice our taupe coloured recyclable pots (please feel free to return these to us – as long as they are clean, not broken and from Marchants, we will be happy to accept them).
We are now using peat-free compost. The transition has been challenging, but we continue to carefully monitor to ensure we continue to deliver the same level of quality that you have come to expect here at Marchants.
Knowing the difference between beneficial insects and pests is an essential part of horticulture, using one to combat the other, and this is exactly what we are doing by using nematodes to treat any pests we find on the Nursery. The live bacteria are kept in the fridge until the conditions are right to set them free among the plants (as long as we don’t confuse them with the porridge oats!).
“Summer 2022...”
“Hannah and Henry give renowned Dutch plantsman Piet Oudolf a tour of the Nursery, summer 2022...”
“Hannah with renowned Dutch plantsman Piet Oudolf on the Nursery, summer 2022...”
“Hannah gives a talk at Charleston Festival of the Garden, summer 2022...”
“Our dear late Tansy, reviewing the Nursery...”
“Hannah, Graham and Lucy (on a sunny day, summer 2020)...”
“In the beds and borders of the gardens that are part of Marchants a style of gardening is evolving that fuses the best elements of the "New Perennial" movement with a very English love of colour.”
Elspeth Thompson, The Garden
