Marbury Hall Nurseries 01.11.2015

Last weekend we went to a nursery that is quite local to us. My father-in-law took me there while I was on holiday earlier in the year and I fell in love with the place. It is a nursery. It sells plants, shrubs, trees, pots and compost. That is it. They pride themselves in not having gifts, cards and the like. The prices are extremely competitive and they have a huge selection of plants.

What I usually do first is I scout around the whole place. I look at everything - and I mean everything. I point out what I like to my boyfriend, he nods while he follows me around, and when I have seen everything I fetch a trolley and pick the plants that caught my attention. I normally go with a specific idea in mind, but something else always ends up in the cart.

I always browse the pots. They have two sections. One with the nice ones, they are reasonably priced but still can be expensive to buy more than a couple at any one time. The other has cast-offs; be it because they have a chip, a stain, they are not completely round, etc. I bought 4 small ceramic pots for a total of £8 and 2 larger ones for £5-£8 each. I also bought a big bag of compost; I went for the one the owner personally recommended to us. He said it was made specially for them and it is the one they use on the site. If it's good enough for them it'll be good enough for me!

Where is it, you ask? It's Marbury Hall Nurseries. The Old Walled Garden, Marbury, Cheshire. CW9 6AT. We followed the satnav and told us we had got to our destination when we clearly hadn't. We kept driving and found it as we were about to stop and "recalculate". It's on Marbury Road.

I love the fact that it is in a walled garden. There is some car park space outside. I'm not sure if it is not that well-known or if we went at a time when it wasn't that busy, but I was surprised that there were hardly any cars there. It's a hidden gem that needs to be publicised!

 As you go in, if you turn right you will get to the shrubs and small trees section. As we only have a courtyard, we didn't venture too far this way.

In the same area, they have the shrubs and the nice pots. I found some pots I liked but thought better of it and restrained myself until the spring, so I can think during the winter of what I want to grow, where I want to grow it, and how many pots I will need!

This is what you see upon arrival. There are some compost bags to the far left (out of shot) and the clearance pots are just behind that red acer, next to the greenhouse you can see. That is where they have the castoffs, "ugly pots" and last season's pottery. They also have an alpine section, in the glasshouse to the right is the till and the indoor plants.

This is the view from the far end. The long glasshouse is where you pay. As you can see, there are 4 or 5 further covered areas with plants. Finally, they have a huge section for hardy shrubs outside.

This is my haul. As I mentioned, I bought some pots and compost. As for plants, my rosemary died from stress-related causes (we don't like talking about it) so I bought a new plant, some lavender (I am worried the plant I have is going to die on me), some hellebores (which I have a soft spot for), an anemone and some pansies to put on the top of a pot until my tulip bulbs come up, some hiacynths for the home, and some shrubs to keep the garden interesting over the winter. We have: Anemone Harmony Pearl, Ophiopogon planiscapus Nigrescens, Pittosporum tenuifolium Irene Paterson, Nandina domestica Obsessed Seika.

Clockwise in their new pots: rosemary, hellebore (helleborus lividus Rose Green), hellebore (helleborus lividus Rose), lavender Rosea

 From left to right:  Nandina domestica Obsessed Seika, Ophiopogon planiscapus Nigrescens, Pittosporum tenuifolium Irene Paterson.

My new bigger pots, Anemone Harmony Pearl and pansies. 

I had a helper while I was repotting the smaller plants. Not sure how much helping she thought she was doing, but she kept me company! Avery sociable cat... Not sure who she belongs to, but we have called him/her Bear; as in, Bear Grylls, "surviving urban wilderness".